Minto Cup: Why finishing first during the regular season matters, a lot
Victoria Shamrocks, BCJALL’s #1 seed in 2022 (Photo: Craig Pullan)
There’s been a ton of talk since Sunday night about Ontario’s 8th seeded Burlington Chiefs sweeping aside the #1 ranked Mimico Mountaineers in the very first round of this year’s playoffs.
As we pointed out on social shortly after that opening-round upset, it’s the first time since 2018 that a #1 fell to a #8 in the Ontario Junior Lacrosse League, the Toronto Beaches bouncing the Chiefs 3-2 that year. Although it happened really recently, don’t be fooled, because results like that are ridiculously rare in Junior A lacrosse. In fact, since the Ontario league was incorporated in 1933, it’s only happened those two times.
You’d have to rewind all the way back to 1956 to find an instance in Ontario when the #1 ranked side was swept in the first round of the playoffs (Source: WampsBibleOfLacrosse.com), the Brampton Excelsiors sinking the first-place St. Catharines Norsemen in three straight 66 summers ago. The OLA had just five teams in their Junior A loop that year: Peterborough, Long Branch and coincidentally Mimico to go along with previously mentioned Brampton and St. Kitts.
Although those nerdy nuggets make for great lax trivia, Junior A record books might also be trying to tell us something of far more significance.
Unlike the National Lacrosse League, where parity has plagued the league for well over a decade now, when it comes to Minto Cup winners, it’s elite company. And that elite company almost always does remarkably well during the regular season prior to their second-season success.
Based on a lengthy trend going all the way back to 1960, the season the CLA went away from hosting a Minto Cup that featured rosters reinforced by provincial all-stars, the Victoria Shamrocks have got to like their odds.
Why?
Over the past 60 Minto Cup competitions, the regular season champion (AKA #1 seed) from either Ontario or British Columbia has won the trophy a decisive 47 times. Here’s where those 60 Minto winners finished during the regular season when they won it all:
#1 seed: 47
#2 seed: 8
#3 seed: 4
#4 seed: 0
#5 seed: 1
#6 seed: 0
#7 seed: 0
#8 seed: 0
The Shamrocks, who are just a W away from sweeping the Coquitlam Adanacs in the second round out west, were the BCJALL’s first-place finisher during their 2022 regular season. The BCJALL has never had a seed lower than second capture the Minto Cup (Burnaby did it twice at two, Richmond once), and this year’s #2, the Nanaimo Timbermen, are dangerously close to dropping out.
CLA history books like the Shamrocks’ odds, a lot.
The lone fifth seed that found Minto success were the 2006 Peterborough Lakers, led by future full-time NLLers like Shawn Evans (already an NLL rookie by then actually), Cory Vitarelli, Mike Grimes, Kyle & Brock Sorensen, and Josh Gillam. They topped Toronto in the first round of that summer’s playoffs, the same team the Lakers are battling to start things off this season. Peterborough was bettered by the Six Nations Arrows in the OLA Final that year, but still got a Minto spot because the Cup was being played in Ontario, again, just like in 2022.
Here is every Minto Cup winner since 1960, their regular-season record, plus where in the season standings they finished (nearly 80% finished first), prior to their provincial playoffs of course.
Minto Cup Winners Since 1960
2019 Orangeville Northmen 16-3 (1)
2018 Coquitlam Adanacs 17-4 (1)
2017 Six Nations Arrows 18-2 (1)
2016 Coquitlam Adanacs 21-0 (1)
2015 Six Nations Arrows 17-3 (1)
2014 Six Nations Arrows 16-4 (1)
2013 Whitby Warriors 15-5 (2)
2012 Orangeville Northmen 16-4 (3)
2011 Whitby Warriors 16-6 (3)
2010 Coquitlam Adanacs 19-1-1 (1)
2009 Orangeville Northmen 19-2-1 (1)
2008 Orangeville Northmen 19-3 (1)
2007 Six Nations Arrows 17-0-1 (1)
2006 Peterborough Lakers 12-10 (5)
2005 Burnaby Lakers 17-3-1 (2)
2004 Burnaby Lakers 17-1 (1)
2003 St. Catharines Athletics 17-2-1 (1)
2002 Burnaby Lakers 22-2 (1)
2001 St. Catharines Athletics 14-5-1 (2)
2000 Burnaby Lakers 22-3 (1)
1999 Whitby Warriors 19-1 (1)
1998 Burnaby Lakers 25-0 (1)
1997 Whitby Warriors 16-2 (1)
1996 Orangeville Northmen 18-2 (2)
1995 Orangeville Northmen 19-1 (1)
1994 New Westminster Salmonbellies 13-7 (1)
1993 Orangeville Northmen 18-4 (2)
1992 Six Nations Arrows 13-6-1 (3)
1991 St. Catharines Athletics 15-5 (1)
1990 St. Catharines Athletics 19-1 (1)
1989 Peterborough Maulers 20-3-1 (1)
1988 Esquimalt Legion 20-3 (1)
1987 Peterborough Maulers 25-0 (1)
1986 Peterborough Maulers 20-0 (1)
1985 Whitby Warriors 19-5 (1)
1984 Whitby Warriors 22-2 (1)
1983 Peterborough James Gang 21-1 (1)
1982 Peterborough James Gang 17-3 (1)
1981 Peterborough Janes Gang 20-0 (1)
1980 Whitby Builders 17-3 (1)
1979 Burnaby Cablevision 15-9 (2)
1978 Burnaby Cablevision 20-3-1 (1)
1977 Burnaby Cablevision 27-1 (1)
1976 Victoria McDonalds 21-6-1 (1)
1975 Peterborough Gray-Munros 22-5-1 (1)
1974 Peterborough PCO’s 28-0 (1)
1973 Peterborough PCO’s 26-2 (1)
1972 Peterborough PCO’s 28-0 (1)
1971 Richmond Roadrunners 14-10 (2)
1970 Lakeshore Maple Leafs 21-7 (1)
1969 Oshawa Green Gaels 22-2 (1)
1968 Oshawa Green Gaels 24-0 (1)
1967 Oshawa Green Gaels 23-1 (1)
1966 Oshawa Green Gaels 23-1 (1)
1965 Oshawa Green Gaels 18-1-1 (1)
1964 Oshawa Green Gaels 20-4 (1)
1963 Oshawa Green Gaels 17-7 (3)
1962 Victoria Shamrocks 10-2 (1)
1961 Hastings Legionnaires (14-6) (2)
1960 New Westminster Salmonbellies 21-1 (1)