Jr. C Northmen honour their own at season end banquet

By Brian Lockhart

The Orangeville Junior C Northmen celebrated an outstanding season with a banquet to honour their own on Saturday, November 26.

Held at the Orangeville Legion, the banquet gave players, coaches, volunteers, and parents a chance to meet and revel in the accomplishment of winning the Provincial Meredith Cup in their inaugural year as a Junior C Lacrosse Club.

The Northmen won the cup on Aug. 13, in the final game of a best-of-seven championship series with the Clarington Shamrox.

The series went the full distance with the season coming down to one final game to determine the champions. Orangeville won the final game 10-6.

It was the first time a team in the Junior C league had won the championship in their first year as a club.

Northmen general manager Kent Cotton said the fact that Orangeville produces great players that go on to be good coaches in minor lacrosse helps in team building by developing players at a young age.

“It was pretty phenomenal,” Kent said of the inaugural season win. “It's never happened before in Junior C Ontario history. It was such an exciting year. There were so many times when we thought we were down and out, there was a few hurdles and fences to jump over.”

Originally there was some opposition to having a Junior C team in Orangeville, since it already had a Junior B and Junior A team.

“It all comes down to our minor system,” Kent said of the Club's success. “There are kids that have graduated the Juniors and gone back to coach minor teams. Our peewee, bantam, and midget teams are being coached by former junior players instead of someone's dad. That's where it starts. All the kids that are coming up are so prepared to step into the junior level. It's all because there are former players who give back, and come back to coach. There are other organizations telling us that they want to be like Orangeville and get their players to come back and coach.”

The Northmen are already working on getting ready for next season.