2023 Mann Cup Preview
There were few other potential Mann Cup matches (yes, we see you Peterborough Lakers) that would have provided the same historical significance as what we’ll be watching this year when the Six Nations Chiefs take on the New Westminster Salmonbellies at Queen’s Park Arena.
Why?
Going back to 1910, the year the Cup was founded & first presented, only seven teams have won the trophy six or more times. The Salmonbellies easily lead that legendary list with 24 (yes, that includes the pre-box era), while Six Nations sits at six.
What makes Six Nations’ title total all that more impressive is that their Senior A side only started up in 1993. They finished dead last in the league that summer. Over the next three, they’d capture the Mann Cup three times.
This year’s finalists first met in the Mann in 1994 and again 1995. They’ve somewhat surprising not run into one another again since. Those series provided some spectacularly skilled yet very violent lacrosse.
It was their first Mann Cup clash in Brantford that is regularly recalled by even just casual observers of the summer season (“I remember watching…”). The series was broadcast on TSN that year and video of their fire on-floor fracas regularly pops up on social media still to this day (most recently by us of course). While the National Lacrosse League is broadcast regularly on TSN, anything related to Lacrosse Canada’s “amateur” season hasn’t appeared on the network since both benches emptied in Brantford.
While the Salmonbellies own that record-high Cup count, it’s been over three decades since they last took the national title in 1991. Over that time, only two other BC-based Western Lacrosse Association teams have won the Cup: Victoria five times and Coquitlam once. Otherwise, Ontario has dominated, and that includes two tremendous Multi-Cup runs by the Chiefs, who last won it all in 2016.
Who’ll win this year?
Well, we don’t know for certain, but we can shed some light on why either of this year’s Mann Cup finalists will win, but also why they won’t.
Six Nations Chiefs
Why they’ll win
Seriously, have you seen their roster? As is often the case in the Mann’s more modern era, Ontario’s entry looks more like an NLL All-Star Team versus a collection of the sport’s best amateur ball players, and this year is no different.
The Chiefs lost 2022’s Major Series Lacrosse Final to the Lakers, 4-2. This year they easily swept the Lakers aside in four straight (Six Nations averaged a +5 GD in those victories).
So, what’s changed since last year? Well, the Lakers lost some important bodies, but the Chiefs have also been heating up (#heatup), which also means they’ve loaded up large with top-end talent eager to win a Mann.
Having (2023 MSL MVP) Lyle Thompson for a full season was clearly critical for this year’s run, but adding the likes of Kyle Rubisch, Brad Kri, Ben McIntosh, Shayne Jackson, Bryan Cole, Larson Sundown, Tim Edwards and Tyler Biles – none of whom played for Six Nations a summer ago – are also pretty significant spikes to their already tremendously talented team.
Oh yeah, if you hadn’t heard, Dhane Smith is joining them too. Like Langley did with Eli Salama last year, with Smith’s Premier Lacrosse League season officially done, Lacrosse Canada says he can play in the Mann Cup. It’s something every other sport does… never, but hey, it is what it is.
Plus, with homegrown talent like Cody Jamieson, Doug Jamieson, Randy Staats, Austin Staats, Brendan Bomberry, Warren Hill and others still there, their wagon status is at an all-time level.
So, why will they win? They’re stacked, son! And if you looked at our graphic at the top of the page, Ontario’s stacked sides have done pretty well at the Mann since New West last won it.
Why they won’t
Based on social media polls The Lax Mag has run over the past week, the Chiefs are overwhelming favourites to take this year’s Cup. Many are saying sweep.
Have they been tested during Ontario’s regular season & playoffs enough in comparison to what New West endured? Well, probably not, but these aren’t kids trying to win their first Minto. Again, look at the names above. It’s a group of certified past winners from peewee to the pros. The Chiefs knows how to shift gears in order to succeed at the highest level.
We’ve seen all-star-type squads fail to reach their end goal in the NLL, but again, as history has shown, especially recent history, freakishly loaded lineups like the Chiefs flew into Vancouver with almost always win.
The only way they’ll lose? Zach Higgins.
Curtis Dickson, whose Langley Thunder were eliminated in the WLA Final by the Salmonbellies, recently tweeted, “Higgins played out of his mind, never seen a goaltending performance like that.”
Like he has through much of the last two NLL seasons with the Philadelphia Wings, Higgins is often New West’s most relied on and playoff-pivotal player, who has frustrated some of the sport’s best forwards on any given night. His sport-wide rep doesn’t match his actual worth. Ask any teammate or coach that’s had him.
If Higgins continues playing at the level he did during the WLA Finals, even with as many shooting options as Six Nations has, New Westminster’s netminder could quiet the Chiefs enough to make this year’s Mann far from the one-sided series most are suspecting.
New Westminster Salmombellies
Why they’ll win
Because they’re kinda due, right?
Yes, no one has won more Mann Cups than this New Westminster club, but a lot of them were clinched long before most of us were even born.
Their modern-era record isn’t great. Over their last seven trips to the title series, the Salmonbellies are 0-7, which includes a Buffalo Bills-esque thee straight Ls from 2008-2010.
They came about as close as you could come in 2009. Up 3-2 in the series against Brampton, the Excelsiors would win Game 6 to force a Cup-deciding seventh. In that game, New West was ahead by one and on the power play with 31 seconds left in the third & final period. Instead of running out the clock, Iija Gajic, who was otherwise sensational during that series, lost the ball rather quickly off a check, allowing the Excels to tie the game and eventually win it in overtime (Brampton won all four of their games in extra frames).
There have been few more heartbreaking losses in any sport than what happened in Queen’s Park Arena in that gruesome (or glorious if your jersey was maroon & gold) Game 7.
Look, their game-day lineup is not nearly as loaded as Six Nations, but the New West roster cannot be taken lightly: Mitch Jones, Keegan Bal, Will Malcom, Haiden Dickson, Kevin Crowley, Patrick Shoemay, Brett Mydske and of course Higgins,
Plus, while the Chiefs have added Smith, New Westminster has countered defensively with the late additions of Mike Messenger, Jeff Cornwall and Travis Cornwall.
Jones specifically will prove as much a difference maker as Higgins. In the NLL, we saw how offensively lost the Vancouver Warriors were without him. We saw how vastly improved Philadelphia’s offense was after Jones was acquired. He’s impacted WLA playoff games the same way, and will again during the upcoming Mann Cup. If New West is going to win, he’ll need to be the best player on the floor for either side for a majority of this series. Jones most definitely has the ability to be that player. Plus, get this…
They last time New Westminster won the Mann Cup, way back in 1991, Mitch’s uncle Paul Jones played for the Bellies.
So yeah, they are kinda due.
Why they won’t
Look, they’ll need to play a near perfect series to win this thing, which clearly isn’t an easy ask to achieve, no matter how hungry you are.
Outside of home-floor advantage, which actually hasn’t been all that much of an advantage for BC’s best recently (WLA clubs are 1-6 over the past 15 years when hosting the Mann), mostly everything else, on paper at least, is going against them.
They are a true underdog – a title teams often aren’t overly upset to get labelled with. Earlier this week, the Bellies tweeted these words, “We've been called underdogs since May. Dogs are devoted to their families. Dogs hunt in packs. Dogs protect their turf. We wear it well.”
Prior to Langley going to a Game 7 against Peterborough last year, WLA teams won just four Mann Cup games over the previous four years combined (4-16 record during that sad stretch).
So why will the New Westminster Salmonbellies lose this year’s Mann Cup? Because a David has not toppled a Goliath at the Mann Cup in many, many, many years.
While the more modern Mann history books are against them in virtually every way imaginable, luckily for them, it will be their players that dictate what happens over the next several days and not any recent records.