If you go down the list of Warriors players who’ve either won or played in the Minto Cup tournament, it rolls a dozen deep, but just a handful of them have raised the Cup.
It’s one of the toughest trophies to win in lacrosse, mostly because there’s a small window of opportunity as players age out of Junior lacrosse at 21 years old.
The guestlist of spectators to watch the top Junior A talent battle it out includes everyone from lacrosse legends to young fans who imagine themselves playing in the tournament one day.
Warriors’ former Minto Cup champions Matt Beers, Riley Loewen, Reid Bowering, and Tyson Kirkness are just a few of the familiar NLL faces you might see at the Poirier Sport & Leisure Complex in Coquitlam August 17-24.
It’s a special tournament to be a part of and are memories the Warriors’ foursome of Minto Cup champions will cherish forever.
Our Minto Cup champs all won their respective championships with the Coquitlam Adanacs franchise and we had the chance to chat with each of them about their championship experiences.
Matt Beers
Beers won the Minto back in 2010, which was the beginning of the Adanacs’ dynasty.
Drafted to the Washington Stealth at 20 years old, Beers was fresh off an NLL championship going into his last year of Junior ball.
He said winning the Minto Cup was “surreal” and laughed, thinking about being at the pinnacle of lacrosse in two different leagues in the same year.
“I was having a good year,” Beers said.
“It meant a lot because it was with my friends that I grew up with. The tournament was in Coquitlam where I played every minor game, it was in front of all my friends and family, and that place was packed. It had a very special vibe to it, and it was the first time Coquitlam had ever won the Minto Cup. The pride we felt for our city was so special.”
Getting to the good stuff sometimes means you have to play in new and uncomfortable situations, and potentially fail, but that’s how you grow.
In 2009, Beers and his teammates went to the Minto Cup, beating the then-favoured New Westminster Salmonbellies in the BCJALL finals.
“We got our first taste of Ontario lacrosse and it was pretty humbling,” Beers said. “I remember our coach saying ‘You’re going to have to play every shift,’ and I played every shift and I’m thinking ‘I can’t keep this up for the entire tournament’. We had some young players, and we were a little bit outmatched, but they gave us a taste of what it was going to be like which helped us win the next year.”
With usually just a few heavyweights that dominated the BCJALL, the Adanacs weren’t used to competition where the roster depth ran 24 players deep.
“The first thing I noticed was the speed of the game, the stick skills and the fact that the depth was matched by ours,” Beers said. “Coquitlam always had a really big advantage, our depth and our drop off wasn’t very great from our top players to our bottom players and that’s key when you’re playing in a tournament like that, you don’t want to have any weak links. Looking back at the players we played against in 2009, they were first-class players through and through.”
Coquitlam hired Curt Malawsky for that 2010 season after the team had lost only one regular season game in 2009 but had come up short in the Minto Cup.
“To get rid of your coaches after they just went 20-1 and took your team to the first Minto Cup was a big leap for a general manager,” Beers said, adding “but Curt came with a certain pedigree that he could take us to the next level, and he did exactly that.”
With a new coach, Minto experience from the previous season, and an NLL championship under his belt, Beers was ready to help lead the Adanacs to their first Cup.
True to form, Malawsky prepared his team for the Minto from the get-go. He was thorough, running his group through drills with a purpose for the bigger picture. Everyone bought in and got on the same page.
“A lot of what we were doing was preparing to play the teams back East, preparing to play Orangeville. We played a different style of defence, high pressure, fast-paced, it was very effective in the West, but it was tailored towards taking time and space from those good shooters on the East Coast,” Beers said.
“It’s a testament to Curt and his ability to coach and prepare, he had us so ready, so dialed in, I don’t think there was a single player in that room that doubted the fact that we could win. Curt gives you the confidence to know that you’re going to be the most prepared of any team. He was ready to go, and I don’t think they were ready for what we brought to them.”
As hard as the team practiced on the floor, it’s the Malawsky philosophy that to win in the face of adversity the group needs to be tight-knit off the floor too. He was instrumental in making sure they did team-building events, especially after the mid-season trades, and as a leader on the team, Beers took on the responsibility of welcoming the newcomers into the family.
They were a well-oiled machine, but Beers noted it’s hard not to mention that the talent on Coquitlam’s roster was out of this world.
“The players three years below us – Robert Church, Marty Dinsdale, Ben McIntosh – were all the same age, who have now played 10-plus years in the NLL, they were extremely good, young players. Wes Berg was a call-up, you could go down the list of our right side, at least three to four of them could be in the Hall of Fame one day,” Beers said.
We asked Beers to share some advice to players in the Minto Cup this season:
Trust your teammates and trust yourself that the work you’ve put in each day will serve you in tough games.
“There’s a little more on the line, but the game is still the game we love, it’s still the game they’ve been playing their whole lives. So just block out the noise, and play your game,” Beers said.
Riley Loewen
Loewen won the Minto Cup in 2010 with Beers, coming in as one of the trades from the Burnaby Lakers.
Riley remembered the Burnaby Lakers GM coming to him at the deadline and asking him where he wanted to go, he said the only place he wanted to go was Coquitlam.
Loewen had played for Malawsky in 2007 with the Burnaby Lakers and the Coquitlam coach gladly brought him over to Coquitlam to finish up his Junior career.
The tournament was a highlight for Loewen, and when asked what his favourite part about it was, he couldn’t pick just one thing because the whole thing was special. His advice to the players going through it this year was simple.
“Everything leading up to it, the opening ceremonies, all of it – just embrace it,” Loewen said. “I was lucky enough to be in the Minto in 2007 as well, but I never played a game because I was one of the younger guys on the team with Burnaby. I was kind of starstruck then walking out on the floor for the opening ceremonies. So, in 2010 I was able to enjoy it a bit more and just have fun.”
He remembers running the table at the tournament and feeling confident and ready for whoever they were going to face. Their dominance may have been surprising to others, but it wasn’t surprising to him or his teammates.
“If you look back at our roster back then too, it was myself, Mark Matthews, Robert Church, Ben McIntosh, Marty Dinsdale (who just retired before last season) and Tor Reinholdt, then on defence you had Matt Beers, Jeff Cornwall, Travis Cornwall, the list goes on, but just a pretty star-studded group when you look at all those guys and what they went on to do after in the NLL.”
Coming in for the last half of the BCJALL season, Loewen was brought into the fold seamlessly by Beers and his new teammates.
“I played only two months with Coquitlam, but a lot of those guys on that team are some of my best friends today,” Loewen said.
All the time spent together before the Minto solidified their friendship and willingness to play for one another. The group was inseparable, and it served them well when they battled together on the floor.
Reid Bowering
Bowering is the only Warriors player that has won the Minto Cup twice, in 2016 and 2018.
The winning was important, but the best part was the memories he and his teammates created while playing together. Team meals and being together are the things he remembers when he thinks back to his time at the tournament.
“It was something we worked so hard for together for such a long time. It was the best week with your buddies – playing lacrosse and seeing each other every day. Spending time together and accomplishing your biggest goal of the summer that had been a big goal for years,” Bowering said.
Bowering’s journey is unique in that he made the Minto Cup tournament in all five years he played Junior lacrosse. Coming away from the tournament without the Cup for three years was painful, but it made it that much sweeter when he won.
He talked about how going on deep playoff runs benefited his game, learning at a young age how to deal with pressure. In the 2018 finals against the Brampton Excelsiors, Bowering remembers it being nerve-wracking, but that’s part of the fun.
“There’s so much pressure, but every single game, you knew it was a dog fight and you knew you had to bring your best because you’re going against the best players in the world,” he said.
“You look back at those Minto series how many people on both of those teams are in the NLL, it was some fantastic lacrosse. Jeff Teat and Steve Orelman were on that team and their defencemen were top-tier players, so you knew you had to bring your best as well. It was pretty cool knowing you were playing the best in Canada that year.”
Bowering has sage advice for his Warriors teammates Connor O’Toole and Brayden Laity in the Minto Cup.
“Just soak it up, you get to play with your best friends. They’re both going to reach great milestones in their careers, but they’re never going to be in the same spot so enjoy the time on the floor when they’re playing and obviously leave everything out there and have no regrets,” Bowering said.
Tyson Kirkness
Kirkness and Bowering were on the same championship team in 2018.
The 26-year-old played for the Langley Thunder before being traded to the Adanacs to finish up his last season of Junior.
He is thankful for his time in Langley and says the opportunity to be able to play on the biggest stage of Junior ball was incredibly special.
“You’re playing against the best of the best, everyone wants to be there, everyone wants to play, and everyone wants to win, and you can feel it in the atmosphere when you’re playing, it’s like no other,” Kirkness explained. “There’s a lot of big games, but the Minto final is definitely the biggest and some of the most fun lacrosse I’ve ever played.”
He talked about the importance of having an older core like Coquitlam did as an advantage in the tournament because they had more experience and time to come together as a group.
Like Beers, Loewen and Bowering, he made some of his best friends on his championship team.
Coquitlam took the series against Brampton 3-1, and hoisting the trophy was amazing, but Kirkness recalled a stressful end to game four before they were finally able to celebrate.
The game had come down to overtime and the Adanacs were up by two, but in a championship game, anything could happen.
“Winning was awesome, but I had a tough go at the last minute of the game. I had a holding penalty on Jeff Teat, so I spent the last minute in the box. My eyes were closed, I could barely watch the game,” Kirkness recalled.
“I remember running out of the penalty box and jumping on the pile, but I was in a tough place leading up to it.”
In talking about advice that Kirkness has for Laity and O’Toole in their final year of Junior ball, he shared advice he got before he played in the Minto Cup.
“Both those guys are amazing players. In talking to my dad and some of the former Minto Cup players, they all encouraged me to enjoy the moment because you won’t get to do it again and you may not get to experience something like that again,” he said.
In soaking in the Minto Cup tournament in 2018, Kirkness took it all in sitting in the stands or on the bench before games to tape his stick and enjoyed being in the arena.
“You think about people who’ve helped you in your career, that you don’t want to let anyone down and how cool it would be to win it for your province,” Kirkness said.
