Dawick pulls Oakville from MSL season over OLA decision regarding status of disputed teams
Nick Rose, Oakville Rock (Photo: Dave Fryer)
As first reported by Greg Cowan of The Owen Sound Sun Times this morning, Oakville Rock Owner Jamie Dawick has informed both the Ontario Lacrosse Association and Major Series Lacrosse that he will not be fielding a team this summer as part of the Senior A season.
Dawick, who also owns the National Lacrosse League’s Toronto Rock and this year took over the OLA’s Senior B Oakville side, confirmed with The Lax Mag today that his decision to depart was largely due to the OLA dictating how the league would be required to handle a future expansion entry of either Brampton or Owen Sound in 2023.
More on that momentarily.
Last week, representatives from the OLA, MSL and Brampton Excelsiors Lacrosse Club met to discuss somehow salvaging the 2022 Senior A season. The MSL regular season was postponed on May 26th due to fear of litigation by Bug Juice owner Joe Norton, who purchased the Excelsiors in 2018 and has since attempted to move them to Owen Sound. Those legal threats were made due to the ongoing dispute over ownership of the historic club, who the OLA had previously demanded be returned to Brampton.
Through last week’s talks and additional negotiations, it appeared an agreement had been reached. Premature announcements from MSL teams and the league itself indicating a five-team league including the Rock, Peterborough Lakers, Six Nations Chiefs, Brooklin Lacrosse Club and Cobourg Kodiaks would be played this summer.
As reported by The Lax Mag on Thursday, the OLA Board of Directors approved a five-team league on Wednesday evening, but the conditions of that decision would still need to be received and signed by MSL, Brampton and Owen Sound. As of now, it appears only Brampton have signed that agreement.
Although both sides have accused the other of changing specifics of the agreement, MSL Commissioner Doug Luey telling Cowan that he felt the OLA “kept moving the goalposts” over the past week, Dawick says any deal that includes either side receiving a team outside of MSL’s expansion process is not something he’s willing to support.
As part of the OLA’s conditions, either Brampton or Owen Sound would essentially receive a free MSL expansion team in 2023. Within this year’s now irrelevant five-team scenario, neither Brampton or Owen Sound would have taken part. The decision over who owns the Excelsiors franchise would be determined in arbitration, which is also one of the conditions in this week’s proposed agreement. Whoever the arbitrator rules as the rightful owner would remain, while the loser would receive a new team at no charge.
“Our league has an expansion process in place and the OLA is essentially instructing us to ignore that,” said Dawick. “I’m not OK with that and that’s been my stance for a while.
“In fact, that same opinion has been unanimous across the league. As far as I’m concerned, this should be a six-team league right now, unless someone wants to apply for an expansion team.”
Although two MSL regular season games have gone off with OLA sanctioning, a four-team league has obviously yet to be approved, let alone proposed. As reported by The Lax Mag earlier this week, the OLA constitution requires Senior A (MSL) and B (Ontario Series Lacrosse) leagues to amalgamate as one if (Classification & Group, R5.07), “…there are not more than six clubs in the Major or Senior series...” OSL, which started on April 30th, is already relatively deep into their regular season.
Cowan shared additional tweets from his discussion with Luey, the commissioner stating, “This morning we're still in limbo. I'm not sure I'll be around. The teams are having discussions today - not about me - but about what they want to do moving forward.
“I said two years ago when this issue between Brampton and Owen Sound first came up, I said it could end up in court. That's my own personal opinion and I have no reason to think otherwise now."