The Chiefs enjoy their Mann Cup victory. (Photo: Tim Prothero) |
by Stephen Stamp
The Six Nations Chiefs have won their
third Mann Cup in four years, beating the Maple Ridge Burrards 14-6
Wednesday night to take the Canadian senior lacrosse championship
four games to one.
In the end, the depth and experience of
the Chiefs was simply too much for the Burrards, who put up a game
fight before falling short.
Dan Dawson had another exceptional
effort, scoring 2 goals and adding 5 assists for the Chiefs. That
gave him 30 for the series to lead all scorers in the series. Dawson,
who was named the Mike Kelly Award winner as series MVP, also passed
Colin Doyle for fourth place in all-time Mann Cup scoring.
Early on, the game looked like it would
be a third straight hotly contested battle. Maple Ridge's Daniel
Amesbury opened the scoring when he tucked home a rebound 7:35 into
the game. As they have made a habit of doing, though, the Chiefs
responded quickly. Randy Staats scored 19 seconds after Amesbury to
tie things up.
Another habit the Chiefs carried into
Game 5 was scoring late and early in periods. Wednesday night, Staats
got his third of the game with 11 seconds to play in the first. It
was a dispiriting goal that arose when Frankie Scigliano tried to
play the ball behind his net and seemed to have a momentary lapse of
judgment that saw him stand still while Staats snagged the ball as it
rolled outside the crease, took a couple of steps so he could reach
around the post and tucked it in to the unguarded net. That made the
score 3-2 for Six Nations, the third straight game they held a
one-goal lead after 20 minutes.
Cody Jamieson was the heart and soul of the Chiefs even, or especially, because he was playing on a knee that will require surgery in the coming weeks. (Photo: Tim Prothero) |
Cody Jamieson scored 43 seconds into
the second period, starting a run of three Chiefs' goals in the first
four minutes that stretched the lead to 6-2 and put the Burrards
squarely behind the eight ball.
Many observers had predicted the
Burrards would respond violently if they got behind in Game 5, but
through the middle of the second period an interference call to Six
Nations' Dan Coates was the only penalty. Amesbury took a
cross-checking minor for a hard pick to Brodie Merrill's hip at 12:06
of the second.
Maple Ridge opted to try to even up the
manpower by calling for a check on Chiefs' goalie Dillon Ward's mask.
The Burrards said they had checked with the referee in chief and been
told that Ward's mask was illegal, so they anticipated he would draw
a penalty. After consulting in the officials' room with both captains
present, the refs indicated that the mask was legal, so instead of
evening things at four on four, the Burrards incurred a delay of game
penalty that gave Six Nations a five on three.
While Maple Ridge did an admirable job
off 46 seconds of the two-man advantage, Six Nations' fast and
accurate ball movement eventually resulted in a Ryan Benesch back
door goal. Benesch added another goal a minute and a half later to
make it 8-2 and things were looking great for the Chiefs and bleak
for the Burrards.
Jarret Davis scored a beautiful
shorthanded goal then Ben McIntosh connected with 38 seconds to play
in the period, appearing to give the Burrards some hope as they cut
the deficit to 8-4. But yet another late-period goal, this one by
Austin Staats with 15 seconds left, gave Six Nations a 5-goal lead.
The Chiefs were at it again to open the
third; Craig Point scored 56 seconds in. That was the first of four
goals in the first six minutes of the period that effectively drained
any remaining drama from the game.
Mike Mallory, who led Maple Ridge in
scoring during the regular season but never got into a rhythm in the
Mann Cup, scored his first goal of the series as the Burrards got a
pair in the thirteenth minute of the period, but it was far too
little too late.
Frustration boiled over a bit for Maple
Ridge later in the period. Dayne Michaud took a major and game
misconduct for crosscheck that targeted a Chiefs' forward's head with
just over six minutes left. Then at the 17:10 mark, Kevin Reid earned
a slashing major for chopping down on Austin Staats' arm. When Reid
saw the referee's hand go up for the penalty, he appeared to snap and
went after Staats. As the ref was restraining him, Reid grabbed the
ref's shirt and tried to push through him.
Reid earned a pair of game misconducts
for his actions, meaning he will miss the beginning of the 2017
Western Lacrosse Association season with a suspension. Next season
was the furthest thing from the Burrards' minds, though, as they saw
the Chiefs beginning to celebrate their championship while the final
minute of the game ticked away.
Maple Ridge were clearly disappointed,
but they appear to have built a nucleus that will be able to compete
for Mann Cup titles for the next several years. The team that just
beat them could serve as a blueprint in some ways for the Burrards'
future; Six Nations had to lose before they were able to win,
dropping Major Series Lacrosse semifinals and then finals before
breaking through to win the Mann Cup.
Now the Chiefs have won three in four
years. And they did it with a hobbled leader in Cody Jamieson, whose
performance in the playoffs and Mann Cup should go down in history as
one of the most inspirational we have ever seen. Jamieson is
scheduled for surgery on his knee in the coming weeks. He shouldn't
have been able to play on it, let alone produce the way that he did.
Yet when the Chiefs fell behind 3-0 to
the Peterborough Lakers in the MSL finals, he strapped on a
heavy-duty knee brace and suited up. Ward was the correct choice as
MVP of the MSL playoffs and Dawson the correct choice as MVP of the
Mann Cup. But make no mistake, Jamieson made both series wins
possible.
With Jamieson watching—and agonizing
because he had to instead of playing—Six Nations went 1-4 in their
final two series of the summer. With him in the lineup, they were
7-0. He deserves to be remembered with Bobby Baun (who scored a
Stanley Cup-winning goal playing on a broken leg) among the bravest
performances in Canadian sporting lore.
Billy Dee Smith hoists the Mann Cup. (Photo: Tim Prothero) |
There's much more than Jamieson to the
Chiefs team, though. They are talented, deep, intelligent and loaded
with character. It wasn't just Jamieson's injury they dealt with,
either. Almost forgotten because of how well they responded was that
they played the entire MSL finals and Mann Cup without injured
forwards Jordan Durston and Johnny Powless. They were also missing
Rob Marshall for the whole Mann Cup and fellow defender Billy Dee
Smith missed the first two games of the Mann.
Their success is a testament to the job
that Duane Jacobs started and Steve Dietrich continued this year as
the team's general manager, as well as to the coaching staff led by
Rich Kilgour and featuring offensive coach John Tavares this summer.
The future looks bright, too. Ward is
still young and has excellent prospects Warren Hill and Doug Jamieson
battling for the right to be his goaltending partner down the road;
the pair split the backup duties during the Mann Cup. Austin Staats
still has three years of junior lacrosse before he becomes a
full-time Chief, but he'll be available for Mann Cups every year if
the Chiefs can reach them.
Randy Staats, Vaughn Harris, Brier
Jonathan and Kellen Leclair give the Chiefs a host of young players
who can take on major roles (Staats already has, of course) as older
players either decide to retire or play less prominent roles. And
then there's the pipeline of talent that the Jr a Six Nations Arrows
provide.
Yes, the future is bright. Today,
though, the Chiefs are celebrating the present and recent past. They
have cemented their legacy as one of the great teams in the history
of Canadian lacrosse.