Hold onto your hats, this year's Minto Cup championship promises perhaps the most compelling matchups in recent years at the Canadian junior A national lacrosse tournament.
Defending B.C. Junior Lacrosse League champion Coquitlam Adanacs will get a fifth opportunity to match their firstever Minto Cup win in 2010, when the four-team national competition kicks off at Queen's Park Arena on Saturday.
Coquitlam was hard pressed by league runner-up New Westminster Salmonbellies in a tight five-game series that ended with the A's besting the Fishmen 15-11 in Sunday's final.
Back east, the Whitby Warriors won back-toback Ontario titles but not before eking out a comefrom-behind 9-8 victory over regular season champion and No. 1 nationally ranked Six Nations in a gruelling seven-game series.
The Okotoks Raiders won the Alberta junior title over the Calgary Mountaineers also in a seven-game series.
With four battle-hardened clubs coming to town, this week's Minto matchups are intriguing.
Whitby has won five Mintos since taking on the Warrior banner from the Builders in the 1980s.
In fact, the last time the Warriors won a Minto Cup in B.C. was against the New Westminster Salmonbellies in '84.
That three-team series, including the great Paul and Gary Gait brothers with Esquimalt Legion, ended with a 16-8 win over the host Salmonbellies.
The lineups for both teams were impressive with Whitby fielding tournament MVP Joe Nieuwendyk and Gary Roberts against Salmonbellie great Ben Heiltjes and league allstars Brad Henry and Russ Heard.
This year's rosters appear equally talented.
Whitby is led by junior A veteran Dan Lintner, who put up big numbers at the last two Mintos and potted 30 goals in this year's OLA post season.
Reilly O'Connor is the Warriors' special team general. He led all Ontario players with 18 powerplay assists in the post season, while leading Whitby with 74 points and a playoff-best 59 helpers. In a deep Whitby lineup is a relatively unknown junior A commodity - Michael MacDonald.
The 19-year-old all-Ivy League field lacrosse honourable mention at Princeton, was called up from Halton Hills after the junior B playoffs and contributed 15 goals and 42 points in Whitby's march to the playoff final.
But none of MacDonald's points were more important than the two backto-back, game-winning goals he scored minutes apart to give Whitby its second league title late in the Game 7 final.
Both Coquitlam and New West are also talentrich up front.
With the Adanacs' Wesley Berg likely lost for this year's championships, B.C. playoff MVP Steven Neufeld and left-hander Ried Reinholdt will be
asked to shoulder much of the offence, although Coquitlam possesses a lot of firepower from its back end.
New Westminster, with likely the youngest front court at the Minto, learned a lot of character-building lessons in its final fivegame series with the A's. Eli McLaughlin, Quinn Smith and first-year junior Josh Byrne make up a strong Salmonbellie left side, while regular season scoring champ Cody Nass, Anthony Malcom and 17-year-old Jeremy Bosher anchor an equally talented right side attack.
But New West has depth and versatility to its lineup, which showed well in the final series against Coquitlam.
Steve Goodwin, who played with the New Westminster juniors against Whitby at the 1984 Minto, and was behind the bench for part of the final series against Coquitlam, believes the Salmonbellies grew a little in the final.
"I do think there is a resolve with these kids," he said. "They have a really young front line, but have they learned that? ... We'll see."
The Edmonton champion will be looking to win its first game at the Minto, against either an eastern or western-based team, since the championships adopted the four-team format back in 2003.
Next season, the Minto will go back to a two-team best-of-seven series, with the B.C. and Alberta championships playing off to see which province will represent the west at the national championships.
With games starting Saturday and continuing every night except Wednesday, Aug. 21, it will come down to depth of each team's lineup, said Goodwin.
Getting off to a good start is also important.
With New West facing Whitby in the championship opener at 5 p.m., Coquitlam will matchup with Okotoks in the later game at 8 p.m. "It's such an important start," Goodwin said, adding a win by Coquitlam over Alberta in the opener almost ensures the A's a spot in the semifinal.
"Winning that (B.C. final) was huge," he said.
MINTO CUP
Round-robin schedule
Aug 17 - New West vs Whitby 5 pm
Coquitlam vs Okotoks 8 pm
Aug 18 - Whitby vs Okotoks 5 pm
New West vs Coquitam 8 pm
Aug 19 - Okotoks vs New West 5 pm
Coquitlam vs Whitby 8 pm
Semifinal
Aug 20 - 3rd place vs 2nd place 8
pm
Aug 21 - Off Day
Best-of-Five Final
Aug 22 - SF winner vs 1st place
Aug 23 - 1st place vs SF winner
Aug 24 - SF winner vs 1st place
Aug 25 - 1st place vs SF winner
Aug 26 - SF winner vs 1st place
If necessary
All final games at 8 pm
Lisa King, Burnaby Now / Junior's best: Anthony Malcom, in white, will be one of the Salmonbellie leaders at the Minto Cup, which opens in New Westminster on Saturday.;
