There’s nothing like winning a national championship – just ask Bearspaw lacrosse player Nicholas Drennan, who’s done it twice.
The 18-year-old capped off his second year of junior box lacrosse Aug. 18 by winning the 2019 Founders’ Cup – the national Junior B championship – with the Calgary Shamrocks, in Winnipeg, Man.
“It’s an unbelievable feeling – it’s a dream to win a national championship, and to do it with some of my best friends was pretty crazy,” said Drennan, who also won a national championship with the Calgary Jr. Roughnecks in 2017.
The Shamrocks’ 16-15 victory over the Six Nations Rebels marked the first time in a decade – and just the fourth time in the last 47 years – a team from Alberta has won the coveted cup. Typically, teams from Ontario have dominated the annual tournament, having won it every year since 2010.
Drennan said the Shamrocks’ success this year shows Alberta lacrosse is on track to buck that trend.
“Alberta lacrosse has always kind of fallen behind Ontario, but in the last few years, we’re up to three national championships for Team Alberta and in junior,” he said. “[The sport] is growing in our province – a lot more people are playing, and the talent pool is getting wider.”
The “Shammies” was no stranger to the Founders’ Cup, having finished fifth at the tourney in 2018.
“[Last year] was a really good learning experience for a lot of our players, and the coaches, too,” said Drennan, who graduated from Cochrane High School in June. “They took what it was like to play at the Founders’ Cup level and applied it to our games and practices.”
The mentality helped, as the Shamrocks coasted to a first-place finish in the South Division of the Rocky Mountain Lacrosse League’s Junior B Tier 1 league, with a 19-1 record. The team then took that momentum into playoffs to secure the provincial Junior B title and book another berth in the national championships.
Drennan played a key defensive role throughout the season, helping the Shamrocks keep opponents to just 117 goals – an average of fewer than six per game. On offence, meanwhile, the team had no problem finding the back of the net, scoring 294 goals – 14.7 per game, on average.
“We played every game throughout the season like we were in the Founders’ Cup,” Drennan said, adding he felt more confident in his second season with the team.
“I felt better – I got more playing time, which is always nice. I was more confident, for sure, and you fit into more of a role as a second-year guy, compared to a rookie.”
Once in Winnipeg, the Shamrocks demonstrated its competitiveness early, coasting to a 5-0 record in round-robin play to earn a spot in the gold-medal game. Calgary then rested many of its starters in the final round-robin fixture – a 19-3 loss to the Rebels.
The gold-medal game saw the Shamrocks gain a 15-10 lead after two periods, but a late surge from the Rebels brought the team from Hagersville, Ont., within one goal.
Six Nations pulled its goalie near the end of the game, giving the Rebels a one-player advantage. It was a tense final 30 seconds for the Shamrocks before the buzzer sounded.
“It was kind of a scary moment when I looked up and they had a timeout with 26 seconds left and they pulled the goalie,” said Shamrocks goaltender Jared Ferris. “It went by super quick. It was nerve-racking at the start of it, but once I made those last couple saves and we got the ball with 1.2 seconds left, all those nerves went away.”
– With files from the Okotoks Western Wheel
