Raiders Lacrosse Club adds high-profile imports from Ontario & British Columbia
Dante Kulas, Brampton Excelsiors (Photo: Ontario Lacrosse Association)
On Thursday evening, the Rocky Mountain Lacrosse League’s Raiders Lacrosse Club shared on social media that they had picked up a number of out-of-province imports as the team makes a serious push to qualify and then contend at this year’s Minto Cup in Edmonton, Alberta.
The RMLL will receive two Minto-tournament entries as this year’s host league. The Edmonton Miners, who were 2022 Minto finalists and are currently first in the Alberta-Saskatchewan loop, will get in as the host city, while the second entry will be determined during this year’s playoffs.
Although details of Thursday’s transactions were not shared, the Raiders announced that they had picked up Kitchener-Waterloo Lacrosse Club captain Owen Dale (Peterborough Timbermen), KW teammate Zane Dalpe (Howard Community College) and the Brampton Excelsior’s leading point producer, Dante Kulas (Rutgers University).
Less than 24 hours later, the Raiders also confirmed that they had acquired Ben McDonald (University of Calgary) from the Delta Islanders. McDonald leaves the British Columbia Junior A Lacrosse League as one of their top point getters this year (73PTS 2nd, 37G 2nd, 36A 4th).
All four imports are considered significant additions to a Raiders lineup that many felt were already strong contenders to challenge the Miners this summer. Dale, Dalpe, Kulas and McDonald are 2002s playing their final year of Junior lacrosse.
Earlier this week, the BCJALL’s Islanders unloaded forward Silas Richmond (University of Albany) to the Victoria Shamrocks, who’ve also been busy bulking up their roster leading into their provincial playoffs.
Both Delta & Kitchener-Waterloo sit last in their respective leagues, while the Excelsiors would qualify as the Ontario Junior Lacrosse League’s eighth and final seed if the playoffs started today.
The Raiders are the only club this year to beat the Miners, the two teams both owning a pair of wins against the other. Currently in second place with a 9-4 record, the Raiders other two losses came in OT heartbreakers to the Calgary Mountaineers. The Mounties are now just three points behind their long-time rival in the standings, setting up some interesting late-season matches. The Raiders have four remaining regular season games: at Edmonton, vs. Saskatchewan and then two at home against the recently hot Mountaineers.
All four RMLL teams qualify for the playoffs, with the first-place team playing the fourth seed, and second versus third in the league’s other semi-finals series. Last year, all RMLL playoff series were best of sevens.
Junior A teams have until Wednesday, June 28 at 3pm ET to make out-of-province moves like the four the Raiders did this week.