Ontario Junior B Lacrosse League - History

History

The Junior "B" level of the Ontario Lacrosse Association has been around since at least 1964. The OLA Jr B League compete for the J. A. MacDonald Trophy annually at the provincial level. At the national level, the OLA-B has been extremely dominant at the Founders Cup tournament only losing out to other leagues a handful of times in the last 40+ years.

The league has changed formats few times in the last few decades. The league has played with no divisions (1990) and with as many as seven (2005). The league presently has 26 teams with 2 Conferences and 3 Divisions, but is ever expanding. In the past few years, the league has expanded to Oakville, Windsor, London, Cornwall, Hamilton, Niagara, Markham, Orangeville, and Welland. Also, for the 2007 season, the City of Caledon applied to resurrect its old Caledon Bandits franchise, but was offered a spot in the new OLA Junior C Lacrosse League in 2008. Kahnawake Hunters joined the OLA Jr B League from the Iroquois Lacrosse Association in 2009. This past year (2012), saw the return of Brampton Jr B Excelsiors to the OLA Jr B league.

In recent years, the most dominant team recently has been the Six Nations Rebels as they've won the J. A. MacDonald Trophy and Founders Cup five times with four (2007, 2008, 2011, 2012) of the titles coming in the last six years. Clarington Green Gaels had a run between 1998 and 2004 when the Gaels won 4 Founders Cups as Canadian Junior "B" champions and 2 J. A. MacDonald Trophy OLA-B Championships. Of the recent expansion of the league, the Oakville Buzz have been the most remarkable franchise to be built. In 2006, the Buzz team went 19-1 and strolled through the playoffs with little opposition. The Buzz went undefeated at the Founders Cup and crushed the hopes of the host Windsor AKO Fratmen, beating them by a score of 10-4 in the final.

Players from the OLA-B and the OLA-A are often drafted straight into the professional level of lacrosse, the National Lacrosse League.

Read more about this topic:  Ontario Junior B Lacrosse League

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