2024 Minto Cup Preview

The 2024 Minto Cup is finally here. 

31 teams competed across Canada this season in the hopes of winning the cup, but only four remain. The Coquitlam Adanacs, Port Coquitlam Saints, Orangeville Northmen, and Raiders will compete this week for a chance at Canadian lacrosse immortality. 

The tournament returns to the Poirier Sport and Leisure Complex in Coquitlam for the first time since 2010. That year, the Adanacs won their first Minto Cup in what would become a decade of dominance. The Adanacs would go on to win the sports toughest trophy again in 2016 and 2018. 

In case you missed it, I highlighted ten players to watch yesterday.

Who, What, Where? 

The 2024 tournament will feature a three game round robin in which every team will play each other once. Following that round robin, the top team will advance to the final series and the bottom ranked team will be eliminated. The second and third ranked clubs will compete in a play-in game for the right to play in the final series. 

This is a crucial step in the tournament, as the top seed receives an extra day off while this game occurs, an incredibly important tool for rest and recovery. 

The final series will begin Thursday, August 22. It will be a best of three series to determine who wins the cup. 

The full schedule is available here. 

The tournament will be streamed on trickshot, and I am lucky to be a part of the great broadcast crew. The link to the streaming options can be found here.

How Did We Get Here?

The Adanacs won their 12th league championship since 2009 by defeating the Saints in three games. They have represented the BCJALL in all but one Minto during that span. In 2016, they lost the BCJALL to Delta but actually won the Minto Cup in Langley. The Brampton tournament in 2022 was the only year that the Adanacs missed the tournament, when Patrick Dodds and the Victoria Shamrocks broke through. 

As Minto champions in 2010, 2016, and 2018, they will seek their fourth Minto Cup in 14 years. 

The Northmen arrive with a similar history. Orangeville won their 11th OJLL title on Sunday after  a legendary seven game series with the Mimico Mountaineers. The organization will now seek their eighth Minto Cup. In both 2010 and 2016, the Adanacs beat the Northmen in the finals. Since 2008, the Minto has been won by either the Adanacs or Northmen (seven times) the same number of times as the rest of the country combined. 

The Saints will look to upset that established order. They advanced to the Minto Cup by defeating the Nanaimo Timbermen to advance to the BCJALL finals. They will compete for their first Minto Cup in team history, an extraordinary accomplishment for the organization and players. 

And for the Raiders, they are back in familiar territory. They defeated the Miners in seven games, winning their ninth RMLL title, all of them since 2005. They are set to compete in the Minto for the first time since 2019, and feature easily the youngest team in the tournament. 

Who’s the New Guy?

One of the stories of the 2024 tournament are the massive additions that the teams made at the trade deadline. 

Starting with Orangeville, at least four regulars in their lineup joined the team at the trade deadline. Goaltender Connor O’Toole, forward Bowie Horsman, and defender Dante Bowen all came over in a trade from the Brampton Excelsiors, while Brian Jackman was added from the Oakville Buzz. 

O’Toole made his playoff debut this year, as Brampton missed the playoffs in 2022 and 2023. Horsman and Bowen competed for the Excelsiors during the modified bubble year in 2021, but also made their proper playoff debut this year. 

Now in the Minto Cup, O’Toole has experienced all parts of the playoff dream. All parts except one. I asked him about this experience during yesterday’s press conference. 

“Learning on the fly, I’m going to say it’s a bit of a challenge,” said O’Toole. Check out his full thoughts on this new experience below. 

For the Adanacs, the deadline was an eventful one as well. They added Denver Pioneers teammates Noah Manning and Cody Malawsky from Victoria and Langley, and also added Connor Nock, who was involved in the Toronto Beaches roster situation. 

Malawsky rejoins the team after playing the Minto Cup with them last year. He led the team in scoring with 25 points in the BCJALL playoff, and will look to lead them offensively in this tournament. 

“Cody’s an unreal player,” said Coquitlam captain Ty Banks. “He grabs the attention of the top defender on pretty much every team we play against, but he always rises up to that challenge” 

And for the Saints, they made arguably the biggest splash of all, adding Silas Richmond, who led all scorers with 33 points in the BCJALL playoffs. 

“He’s a world class player,” said Saints captain Brayden Laity. 

Rest vs Rust 

One of the other major storylines of the tournament is the layoff that the different teams had between the tournament. The BCJALL finals went just three games (it is customary in all three provinces to shorten the final when that province hosts), and concluded on August 5th. The two west-coast teams have had 12 days to rest, recover, and prepare for the tournament. 

Orangeville and the Raiders took opposite paths to that. 

The Northmen got all they could handle from Mimico and went a full seven games, concluding less than a week ago on Sunday August 11th. 

When asked about the seven game series, Northmen captain Jaden Ciappara said, “our main goal was to make it to the Minto Cup and to get there you have to go through quite a tough series in Ontario. We were hoping to get it done a little earlier, but seven games… more lacrosse is better.”

And the Raiders had the most interesting path to the Minto this year. They also played game seven last Sunday, but it was their literal journey to Coquitlam that was unique. The Raiders decided to drive from the Calgary area, cutting the trip in Sicamous, British Columbia for a swim in the lake. 

“It was a bit of a trek,” said Captain Colton Savard, who also mentioned that the Subway sandwiches were a highlight. 

Raiders veteran Josh Goodman spoke about the seven game series and the short turnaround. He had some outstanding thoughts on the vitality of youth, as compared to his advanced 21 years of age. 

“They’re young,” said Goodman. “They’re not old like us… I think having young guys is nice. They give us the youth we need.”

Chance at Redemption

For Orangeville and Coquitlam especially, the tournament represents a chance at redemption. Last year’s Northmen team went undefeated in the regular season, but lost to Burlington in the finals. Ciappara said that while going undefeated was nice, it made it difficult to respond to losses. 

“Rolling with the loss and learning from it, I think it was really important to kind of learn those lessons coming through,” said Ciappara. 

And for the Adanacs, they are the only team who competed in last year’s Minto Cup. They have a chance, similar to the Northmen, to rewrite their own narrative about the team. 

Adanacs player Jaxon Fridge said, “we came up short last year which was a big blow to a lot of people.”

Check out the full quote below.

They will look to become the first team to win the Minto on their home floor since the Six Nations Arrows did it in 2015. 

Banks said, “you dream about it growing up, and now that you’re finally here, we all have the opportunity to play a Minto Cup on our home floor.”

It’s looking to be a great tournament. Action begins this afternoon at 4PM local time. Make sure to follow LCD, and subscribe to the newsletter which will be sent out daily during the tournament!