Toronto Beaches punished for violating Ontario Lacrosse Association’s direct-release rule
Toronto Beaches GM Reid Acton and Head Coach Reilly O’Connor (Photo: OJLL)
The Ontario Lacrosse Association has handed down stiff discipline against the Ontario Junior Lacrosse League’s Toronto Beaches for violating the direct-release rule within the OLA’s Rules & Regulations the Junior A league announced today.
After last night’s 13-7 win over the Kitchener-Waterloo Lacrosse Club, the Beaches led the OJLL with a perfect 12-0 record, which has now been reduced to 4-8 as a result of the OLA’s decision to subtract results as part of the disciplinary measures. Wins over St. Catharines (May 22 and May 30), Burlington (May 24 and June 5), Peterborough (May 27), Six Nations (June 3), Brampton (June 6) and Orangeville (June 9) have been overturned, the opposition obtaining two points from each of those games.
The association has deemed the team to have broken a player eligibility rule not just once but multiple times this season when adding players to their roster, primarily from Toronto’s Ontario Junior B Lacrosse League affiliate, the Nepean Knights. Teams are permitted a total of three direct releases within a single season, and the Beaches have most certainly surpassed that sum. Toronto’s first eight games of the season included these illegally used players.
Losing 16 points drops Toronto from being far and away first in the OJLL to now near the bottom of the standings. The team still has eight regular season games to go, and should easily make this year’s playoffs. With that said, Toronto has the right to appeal the OLA’s decision.
Within the OLA’s Rules & Regulations Player Eligibility section, Rule 6.35(a) states:
Any player rostered by a lower category club, including U22 but excluding U17 age or lower, when released by the club, may be rostered to a higher category club without releases needed by any other Junior clubs closer to their releasing category club. Such player movement will be known as direct releases and each club within the Corporation will be allowed three players to be rostered each year by means of direct releases. Direct releases only affect the movement of players to a higher category club. Players residing in Junior centres may not be released under this section without the consent of the Junior team in their municipality.
The direct releases appear to include the following players:
Liam Aston (Nepean)
Tyler Francis-Renner (Cambridge)
Thomas Kiazyk (Nepean)
Connor Nock (Nepean)
Isaac Wills (Nepean)
Owen Wills (Nepean)
Although Nepean’s Hunter Lubiniecki is listed on the OJBLL’s official website as a 2024 direct release, the player was actually released a year ago, suiting up nine times for Toronto during the 2023 OJLL season. As a result, the Beaches retain his rights this year and Lubiniecki avoids being lumped into the lengthy list above. Francis-Renner, Kiazyk and Owen Wills are the team’s first three direct releases this season, and will be able to continue playing for the Beaches this year. Aston and Isaac Wills will be allowed to return to the Knights for the remainder of their 2024 season. Nock’s status seems less straightforward, and appears to be the individual mentioned in the OJLL’s announcement as the, “…player who was not properly rostered to an OLA team prior to this season.” Nock will not be permitted to play in the OLA this year, but could potentially be available to a team in the British Columbia Junior A Lacrosse League or Rocky Mountain Lacrosse League (Alberta and Saskatchewan).
Instead of going the direct-release route, the Beaches could have called up an affiliated player (AP) through Nepean, which can be done an unlimited number of times for a specific player, however, there is maximum permitted per game during the playoffs. An AP call-up would ultimately remain with is lower-tiered team, while a direct release provides the higher-tiered team full control of that player moving forward.
From speaking to past and present OJLL managers and coaches throughout the league, all suggested that R6.35(a) is very much a known rule, and none could remember a time when so many players were moved from a B team to an A team via direct release as we’ve seen this season with Toronto.
Toronto Beaches at Burlington Blaze, June 6, 2024 (Photo: Abbey Papineau)
Last year, it was actually the Burlington Blaze that were affiliated with the Knights, the team of course going on to win the 2023 Minto Cup. The Orangeville Northmen experienced the same success in 2019 while affiliated with Nepean.
“It’s no secret the strength of the Nepean organization,” said Toronto Head Coach Reilly O’Connor when their new affiliation was announced on November 24 of last year. “They have been an integral part of the past couple of national championships. We are very excited about this partnership and looking forward to welcoming a solid core of Nepean boys to the Beach this summer.”
The Beaches are led offensively by Nepean-native Willem Firth, who the team drafted third overall in the 2021 OJLL Entry Draft. In fact, Firth leads all of Canada with 93 points after twelve games. Firth’s father, Matt Firth, serves as the Knights’ President and Head Coach. Another noteworthy Nepean product playing in Toronto this year, the previously mentioned Kiazyk, has been one of Junior A’s best backstops so far this spring (6.88 GAA, .839 SV%). Kiazyk won a Minto with the Blaze last year while backing up Deacon Knott during the playoffs and was later drafted by the Saskatchewan Rush in the 2023 NLL Entry Draft.
Last year, a bid to add the Knights to the OJLL was shot down not once but twice, even after an overwhelming majority of the league voted in favour of the Ottawa-based expansion effort. The league requires a 90% vote in order to pass such a proposal, which means just two teams out of the OJLL’s current eleven could deny it from becoming a reality. The Knights themselves later exposed the Peterborough Lakers and Kitchener-Waterloo Lacrosse Club as the no voters in their second attempt at elevating their club to the A level.
Mere months after their expansion rejections, the OJLL announced that the Knights would actually be hosting a regular-season meeting this summer between the Beaches and Northmen on Saturday, June 29. Included in today’s announcement, the OJLL has confirmed that that game will no longer be taking place in Nepean and will instead be hosted by the Beaches at Ted Reeve Arena in Toronto.
Toronto famously butted heads with the OJLL when they were suspended (Dec. 2021) and then later reinstated (Jan. 2022, with conditions) due to the club’s short-lived connection to the Tewaaraton Lacrosse League.