History
The inaugural season of The Thompson Okanagan Junior Lacrosse League was in 2000. The Rutland Raiders defeated the North Okanagan Tigers in the final series to claim the TOJLL Championship.
The Thompson Okanagan Junior Lacrosse League's 2001 season included a fifteen-game regular season schedule, plus playoffs. The league had six teams: the Rutland Raiders, Kamloops Rattlers, North Okanagan Tigers, Kelowna Braves, Kelowna Dragons, and the South Okanagan Flames.
For the 2002 season, the TOJLL allowed the Prince George Posse into the league as an exhibition team for an eighteen-game regular season schedule. The Posse went on to play a perfect regular season (18-0-0).
Expansion came in the 2003 season with the inclusion of the Armstrong Shamrocks. The North Okanagan Tigers, now renamed the Vernon Tigers, represented the TOJLL in the Provincials, losing to the Prince George Posse in a very exciting 9-7 Gold Medal game.
In 2004, the TOJLL hosted the Provincials. This meant that two teams from the TOJLL would play in the tournament. Those teams were the Vernon Tigers (0-4 in the Provincial round robin), as host, and the Kamloops Rattlers (1-3 in the Provincial round robin) as 2004 TOJLL Champions. The Rattlers went on to play the Peninsula Falcons (2-1-1) for the Bronze Medal, winning 6-5.
The TOJLL was represented by the Kamloops Rattlers at the 2005 Provincials. They came away with a silver medal, losing the final, 16 - 15, to the Westshore Bears.
Prior to the start of the 2006 season, the Kelowna Braves and Kelowna Dragons amalgamated into the Kelowna Warriors. With the loss of one team, the league reverted to a fifteen-game regular season schedule. The playoff format changed to that of a quarter-finals, semi-finals and final. The top two regular season teams got a first round bye. The League expanded its pre-season schedule by including The Archie Jack Memorial Ice Breaker Tournament, which is played in Armstrong, British Columbia.
The Kamloops Venom were a new member of the TOJLL for the 2008 season. The TOJLL also welcomed the newly-formed West Kootenay Wolf Pack to the league as an exhibition team for the 2008 regular season.
The Vernon Tigers won the League Championship in 2009 and won a Silver Medal at the Provincials.
In 2010, the Kamloops Venom won the TOJLL Championship, B.C. Gold Medal (a first for the League) and a Bronze Medal at the Founders Cup.
For the 2011 season the TOJLL will operate with six teams. The Kelowna Warriors and Rutland Raiders have merged to become the Kelowna Raiders. The regular season will consist of fifteen games.
The TOJLL 2012 season will be without the Kamloops Rattlers as they have ceased operations. The remaining teams played an abbreviated schedule due to a league controversy concerning the players of the Rattlers. That issue was resolved by the BCLA ... "I am writing to inform you that at an emergency meeting of the Senior Directorate, the 11-member panel voted to uphold point 5.06 in the BCLA Senior Operating Policy," wrote Christine Pollock, BCLA's senior directorate chair, in a ruling. "This allows for any junior age player residing in Kamloops to play for the Kamloops Venom, currently the only junior B team in Kamloops registered with the BCLA." (By Mark Hunter - Daily News Kamloops Sports Reporter)
Read more about this topic: Thompson Okanagan Junior Lacrosse League
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Let us not underrate the value of a fact; it will one day flower in a truth. It is astonishing how few facts of importance are added in a century to the natural history of any animal. The natural history of man himself is still being gradually written.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Anyone who is practically acquainted with scientific work is aware that those who refuse to go beyond fact rarely get as far as fact; and anyone who has studied the history of science knows that almost every great step therein has been made by the “anticipation of Nature.””
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)
“Spain is an overflow of sombreness ... a strong and threatening tide of history meets you at the frontier.”
—Wyndham Lewis (1882–1957)