Jr Lax

1952
Team Name:	ATHLETICS
Venue:	Haig Bowl
Coach:	Norm MacDonald	(former Sr. Athletic)
Notable Players:	Justin "Spike" Howe (goal)	(brother of Ted Howe)
	Jim "Peewee" Bradshaw	(small & highly skilled)
	Allan "Skip" Teal	(Don Cherry teammate)
	Pete Conradi, Les Howard, Doug Baldwin
Regular Season Standing:	2nd place in a 6-team league
Playoff Results:	won semi-final by 3 - 0 over Peterborough Filter Queens
	lost Ontario final by 3 - 0 to Brampton Excelsiors
Season Recap:	Team manager and sponsor Fred Conradi's ongoing quest for a solid fan base took the 1950 Minto Cup champs to nearby Niagara Falls for the 1951 season. But that injury-plagued and unsupported team was quite happy to come back home to the Haig Bowl in '52 and regroup for another Minto run. Over that summer, the Athletics and the Brampton Excelsiors challenged each other for the league lead and were in a first place tie going into the final week of the season. But twin losses to the Excelsiors to close out the regular season relegated the A's to 2nd place and a semi-final match-up versus the 4th place Filter Queens. A 3 - 0 series sweep of Peterborough would not be without incident; a near riot in game two at the Lift Lock City and a protective police escort to assist with the team's get-away after the game. But then the highly anticipated final against Brampton would turn into a bust, an Excelsior sweep by decisive scores of 22 - 6, 11 - 8 and 24 - 7. The Brampton Juniors of 1952 were led by Huntsville's Jack Bionda, arguably one of the greatest boxla players of all time, and the team would go on to a west coast sweep for the Minto title. 1952 was the junior finale for Jim "Peewee" Bradshaw of the A's, a small but determined player who came out of the city's east side and was a holdover from the 1950 Minto Cup title team. "Peewee" would be picked up by the Excelsiors for the Minto trip west and later, after a couple of good seasons with the Sr. Athletics, ended up as a very popular player in the British Columbia senior loop for the remainder of his career. Jim Bradshaw's life would tragically end in a 1959 vehicle crash in which he was sleeping in the back seat of a car returning from a lacrosse game. "Peewee's" legacy in the game would be recognized 42 years later with his induction into the Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame.

1953
Team Name:	ATHLETICS
Venue:	Haig Bowl
Coach:	Jack "Wandy" McMahon	(former Sr. Athletic)
Notable Players:	Wilf "Wimpy" Roberts	(Jr. Teepees hockey player)
	Marv "Stinky" Edwards	(NHL goalie into his late 30's)
	Fred Martin	("large-framed checker")
	Justin Howe, Doug Baldwin, Ron "Lulu" Labatte
Regular Season Standing:	5th place in a 6-team league
Playoff Results:	did not qualify
Season Recap:	There were two main stories to the 1953 Junior Athletics; 1) how an epidemic of injuries would decimate the team in mid-season, and 2) how a late-season call-up of some talented juvenile players would fuel the hopes of a promising future. With the Seniors transplanted to the steamy Garden City Arena, the Juniors now became the prime tenants of the legendary Haig Bowl, and they would open their season with a 14 - 13 win over the Oakville Green Gaels on a last minute goal by Pete Conradi. But by July, the team was on the limp and short a number of key players (Baldwin, Allan, Conradi, Roberts & more) and began losing games by such lopsided scores as 18 - 1 (vs. Peterborough) and 24 - 4 (vs. Brampton). However the Athletics would squeeze together some late season wins driven largely by the inspired play of Ron Roy, Don Baker, Richard Daniels, Gary Hind, Mike D'Amico and Pete Saliken, all from Bill Mackie's juvenile "Teepees". Saliken in particular was a sensation and on July 18th, Jack Gatecliff of The Standard would even call him "this city's best all-round athlete". Saliken's star would only rise higher when he got into a game with the Senior Athletics and the 17-year-old promptly potted 3 goals and 2 assists on the night. But by that time, the sun had set on the 1953 Junior Athletics as they suffered through their first losing season in the box lacrosse game.

1954
Team Name:	TEEPEES
Venue:	Haig Bowl
Coach:	Bill Mackie	(former Sr. Athletic)
Notable Players:	Don Baker	(Baker, Howard and Roy combined as one of the top scoring lines in Junior "A" lacrosse in 1954)
	Les Howard
	Ron Roy
	Justin Howe, Doug Baldwin, Gary Smith (Six Nations import)
Regular Season Standing:	2nd place in a 5-team league
Playoff Results:	lost semi-final by 3 - 1 to the Long Branch Monarchs
Season Recap:	The new name represented a radical break from tradition, but in the summer of 1954 the "Teepees" label was something very special to the residents of the Garden City. The St. Catharines Teepees of the Ontario Hockey Association had just claimed their first Memorial Cup title and the entire city went completely wild in their support of their beloved young heroes. The hoped-for crossover appeal seemed to play out for Fred Conradi's team as the lacrosse Teepees enjoyed the best fan support for any junior team in the city since the pre-war years. The team opened strongly with a pair of early season wins over defending Ontario champions Long Branch and even registered a big road win against the highly-touted Newmarket Green Gaels. But the Gaels with future NHLer Bob Pulford in the line-up, came right back to crush the T-Ps by a score of 14 - 5 at the Haig Bowl and remove any of the team's youthful swagger. The Teepees relied heavily on their line of Baker, Howard and Roy and on some nights they were allowed "unlimited action while the substitutes were just used when the trio became overly tired." But Ron Roy would incur a late-season leg injury and the team went into a slump that ended any hopes of catching the fast-running Green Gaels for first place. With Roy back in the lineup, the semi-final against the fourth-place Long Branch Monarchs was expected to be just a prelude to the final. But the Monarchs stunned the T-P's in game one at the Haig Bowl by a score of 15 - 8. Long Branch was coached by the well-respected Merv McKenzie and featured "Porky" Russell in the nets. The T-Ps rebounded in game two to win 11 - 9 at the new Long Branch Bowl with five goals from the "Port Dalhousie Flash", Les Howard. But the Monarchs then took game three (9 - 6) and game four (10 - 5) to end a Teepee Minto Cup dream. Long Branch would go on to upset Newmarket in the Ontario final before losing in the national final to Vancouver. Incidentally, 1954 was the year that three 20-minute periods replaced four 15-minute quarters, and the rover position was eliminated from the O. L. A. Junior series.

1955
Team Name:	NORSEMEN
Venue:	Haig Bowl
Coach:	Pete Conradi	(recent Jr. Athletic)
Notable Players:	Ron Roy	(nephew of Jim McMahon)
	Dave Hall	(2nd in league scoring)
	Dick Morningstar	(16 year-old goaltender)
	Gary Moore, Mike D'Amico, Brian Woods
Regular Season Standing:	4th place in a 6-team league
Playoff Results:	declined playoff participation
Season Recap:	Fred Conradi stuck to his roots in 1955 by adopting a team name that paid tribute to his Norwegian heritage, named son Pete (barely out of junior himself) as the coach, and went with players that came from his self-sponsored minor teams. The Norsemen of 1955 were virtually a juvenile team playing in the Junior "A" loop and Conradi openly stated that they were there to gain experience and build for the future. The team lost 1954 scoring sensation Don Baker to Jim Bishop's Newmarket Green Gaels, but young Dave Hall would step up to provide a capable scoring partner for Ronnie Roy. In early August they managed to coax the popular Pete Saliken out for a game, but the loss of a couple of teeth during his first shift of action brought an end to the lacrosse comeback of this multi-sport star. The inexperienced Norsemen, playing before a near empty Haig Bowl on most nights, put together a respectable 17 win - 17 loss season and proved that they could compete with the best. The regular season closer was an exciting 10 - 9 overtime loss to the first place Green Gaels in what Jack Gatecliff of The Standard would describe as, "another courageous performance against a club which out-weighs them by several pounds a man and had perhaps three years extra experience per player." The Norsemen of 1955 qualified for post-season action but kept to their original development plans and would forego the Junior "A" showdowns. A majority of the players did drop back for the juvenile playoffs.

1956
Team Name:	NORSEMEN
Venue:	Haig Bowl
Coach:	Pete Conradi	(son of Mgr Fred Conradi)
Notable Players:	Gary Moore	(hard underhand shot)
	Don Baker	(back after yr with Gaels)
	Mike D'Amico	(improving with every game)
	Ron Roy, Gary Hind, Rich Daniels (back from Newmarket)
Regular Season Standing:	1st place in a 5-team league
Playoff Results:	lost semi-final by 3 - 0 to the Brampton Excelsiors
Season Recap:	The 1956 Norsemen consisted mainly of the same personnel that had won successive bantam, midget and juvenile championships on Fred Conradi sponsored/Pete Conradi coached teams. Now with a year of experience in the Junior "A" circuit, many felt that this fast-running club was positioned to capture the coveted Minto Cup, especially since Don Baker was back home after scoring 75 goals for the 1955 Newmarket Green Gaels. The season opened slowly for the team with a 1 - 3 start, but suddenly they mustered a five-win-over-eleven-day run in June and quickly jumped from 5th place to 1st. The team locked up first place in early August with a couple of wins over the last place Mimico Green Gaels, but then they met with disaster in the season closer at Long Branch. The Norsemen showed up with just one spare and lost by a score of 10 - 5. But more significantly, they lost their top scorer Don Baker when he ripped the palm of his hand on the screen at the Long Branch Bowl. The best-of-five playoff with the Brampton Excelsiors, a team they had defeated on 5 out of 6 regular season meetings, would commence at the Haig Bowl the following Monday night. The Norsemen opened a 3 - 0 first period lead with Mike D'Amico scoring twice, but soon the bigger and stronger Excelsiors would keep the St. Catharines attack thoroughly disorganized and Bill Castator would get the hot scoring hand with six tallies to help with a 10 - 8 upset. Game two in Brampton would end 10 - 4 for the Excelsiors and then the sweep was completed back at the Haig Bowl with an agonizing 10 - 6 victory for the visitors. Baker gamely dressed for the third match but was still showing the effects of a seriously cut hand. The real story of this series was how Brampton put up a tight, disciplined, defensive wall to shut down the run-and-gun Norsemen and then relied on the scoring exploits of Castator with eleven series goals to mount the upset. The talent-laden 1956 Norsemen were the best St. Catharines junior squad since the 1950 Minto Cup team.

1958
Team Name:	ATHLETICS
Venue:	Haig Bowl
Coach:	Joe McCaffery	(future Mayor of St. Kitts)
Notable Players:	Gary Moore	(played senior in 1957)
	Bob McCready	(future hall of famer)
	Wally Thorne	(good goal scorer)
	Vaughan Aloian, Pat Pelletier, Jim Troyan
Special Recognition:	Gary Moore: O.L.A. Jr. "A" scoring champion and M.V.P.
Regular Season Standing:	3rd place in a 4-team league
Playoff Results:	lost semi-final by 4 - 3 to the Long Branch Monarchs
Season Recap:	With Fred Conradi accepting the dual roles of manager of the seniors (now in Welland) and President of the O. L. A., the junior team fell into disarray until Ab Frick, Bernard Rhiel and Joe McCaffery resurrected the double-blues in 1958. That triumvirate had guided a good St. Catharines juvenile team to the Ontario title in 1957 and with 16 members of that team still of "Juv" age in '58, a repeat seemed like a good bet. But in May, the club executive offered the players a choice, stay in juvenile or jump to Junior "A". The boys were up to the challenge and the Junior Athletics were reborn. This fast, lightweight team was almost entirely of juvenile age, but they were given a big boost when Gary Moore opted to drop back to junior after a season with the Senior Athletics. In 1958, Moore was a slim, 5' 9", blond-haired, hard-shooting, stick-wizard and The Standard's Jack Gatecliff would write that "Moore was the best thing to happen to junior lacrosse in this area in many years." The young, unpredictable team played with great inconsistency throughout the season, beating the hapless Whitby juniors by 28 to 3 in one game and then losing to the same team by 9 to 8 just five days later. A 3rd place finish would mean a playoff engagement with the 2nd place Long Branch Monarchs, the biggest and roughest team in the league. The A's would register their first win of the season in Long Branch to open the series but the Monarchs, led by red-haired Ray Shipway, would rebound to take the next two by scores of 16 - 4 and 13 - 7. In game four, league scoring champion Gary Moore would net six goals to lead the A's to an overtime win and a 2 - 2 series tie before 500 fans at the Haig Bowl. But in the last half minute of that overtime, Moore was crashed into the boards by Joe McCracken and the offensive star suffered a twisted knee. Moore would hobble through two periods of game five, a 10 - 6 loss at Long Branch, before suffering a shoulder injury to completely knock him out of the series. With their backs-to-the-wall and missing their scoring ace, the Athletics edged Long Branch by 10 - 6 in a rough game six at the Haig Bowl. In that game, four players were banished for stick-swinging fights and automatically given suspensions for game seven. The A's suffered more from this as they lost John "Bucko" Inglis and their stalwart of the defense, Pat Pelletier, while Long Branch lost two lightly used spares. With Moore injured, two key players suspended and another important offensive player simply refusing to play, the Athletics fell to Long Branch by 11 - 7 in the deciding game. After the game, Athletic President Ab Frick said, "we are more than pleased with the way the team played all season. We are already planning bigger things for next year."

1959
Team Name:	ATHLETICS
Venue:	Haig Bowl
Coach:	Bob Melville	(former Sr. Athletic)
Notable Players:	Wally Thorne	(Port Dalhousie boy)
	Frank Asadorian	(hardest shot in junior)
	Pete Berge	(Ont. Hall of Fame in 2007)
	Wayne Young, Bob McCready, Gerry Cheevers
Regular Season Standing:	2nd place in a 5-team league
Playoff Results:	won semi-final by 4 - 1 over Peterborough Petes
	lost Ontario final by 4 - 1 to Brampton Excelsiors
Season Recap:	With so many good youngsters available and now with a year of Junior "A" experience to build on, a quiet confidence existed in the Athletics camp as the season began. It was evident from the early going that the clubs from Long Branch, Peterborough and Whitby would not offer a strong challenge to unseat the double-blues from second place, so the team would set their sights on the defending Minto Cup champs from Brampton as their main competition. Perhaps the team's regular season highlight would come in mid-July when their crew-cut goaltender Bob McCready back-stopped the A's to 7 - 2 home win over Brampton, then followed that up a week later with a 13 - 10 win in Brampton on the strength of four goals from defenseman Frank Asadorian. In between those two big games came a 14 - 5 road victory on an evening when temperatures were reported to hit 105 degrees F. in the Whitby Arena. This team was on a roll. The Athletics also succeeded in generating the best fan support in many years for junior lacrosse in St. Catharines. The venerable Haig Bowl was now a mere shadow of its former self as the old 4,200 seat facility had gradually been dismantled whenever sections of the aging wooden stands threatened collapse. By 1959 the seating for only 300 remained. But the entertaining Athletics would fill those seats and also line up all the available standing room with their supporters. This was enough to prompt the City Parks Board to move a 100-seat section of stands from the baseball diamond over to the bowl as the playoffs got underway. A modest renewal perhaps, but the sight of lacrosse fans standing two and three deep around the old lacrosse stadium would provide the impetus for the city to rebuild the Haig Bowl for the 1960 season. The 1959 Junior Athletics would win their semifinal playoff against 4th-place Peterborough by four games to one and celebrate their first playoff series win since 1952. But then the much-anticipated Ontario final would open on a 10 - 6 loss in Brampton with league scoring champion Bert Naylor sparking a five-goal third period rally for the A-B-C Excelsiors. The Athletics rebounded in game two to beat the Dominion champions by a score of 7 to 2 on an evening that had a touch of magic. A nostalgic Jack Gatecliff would write the next day in The Standard, "Lacrosse may be in failing health in St. Catharines, but the rickety remains still breathe fitfully at the Haig Bowl. In the city which produced so many lacrosse greats, the sport is now kept alive by a group of youngsters who have been playing the game as a team for several years. It was not merely the "win for our side" which was encouraging to people who love the game. It was the crowd (a large crowd) that cheered and yelled lustily around the skeleton-like bowl. Lacrosse was not dead for them." Amen, brother. You could close your eyes and almost hear radio sportscaster Rex Stimers with his "Come on you double-blues" wail raining down from his broadcast location at the old Haig Bowl just as it had some twenty years earlier. But as John Prine would say, "sweet songs never last too long on broken radios." The boys of this summer were facing a hard reality and about to be outmatched by their strong adversaries from Brampton. The Excelsiors were on the verge of their third Minto Cup title in three years and would close out this series with wins in each of the next three games. The crumbling and tired old lacrosse bowl fell silent again.

1960
Team Name:	ATHLETICS
Venue:	Haig Bowl (rebuilt)
Coach:	Bob Melville	(WW2 vet - Italian campaign)
Notable Players:	Wally Thorne	(team captain)
	Bernie Olsen	(defenseman turned goalie)
	Pete Berge	(Teepees '60 Memorial Cup)
	Wayne Young, Don Bryson, Brian Thomson
Regular Season Standing:	tied for 2nd in a six-team league (relegated to the third seed)
Playoff Results:	lost semi-final by 4 - 3 to the Whitby Red Wings
Season Recap:	A newly-rebuilt lacrosse box at the corner of Haig Street and Pleasant Avenue stood as a hopeful symbol of renewal and rebirth for the ancient game at one of it's former haunts. The "game is making a comeback" had been proclaimed before, but now with the optimism of a new decade, a good junior team returning nearly intact, and even the runaway senior team returning home, all indications were that it was true. The Juniors of 1960 would thrive in their refurbished home and would never walk off their floor in defeat. But oh, what a different story it was on the road. One win away from home all year. The team could have sealed first place in their final game of the season at Whitby and then controlled home floor advantage throughout the entire Ontario playoffs. But the Red Wings with "a sparkling goaltending display by Port Dalhousie native Bob McCready," held on to their first place position with a 9 to 6 win in the season closer. Former Athletic McCready had been enticed to Whitby with a job offer and was fast becoming a leading nemesis to his old team. The playoffs would open just four days later right back in Whitby and true to form, the A's would lose on the road. Coach Bob Melville credited Bob Coull, "Bucko" Inglis and goalie Wayne Morningstar as his only players that "played anything resembling good lacrosse" in the 12 to 6 loss. But back at the Haig Bowl for game two would be a different story...a 11 to 9 win for the double-blues. Frank Asadorian had just returned to the A's late in the season from school in Detroit and on this night, the hard-shooting defenseman would put four behind McCready. Goalie McCready would later charge ex-teammate Wayne Young in the closing moments of the game and within seconds every player on the floor was involved in an ugly skirmish. Game three in Whitby was a blow-out, 19 to 3 win for the Red Wings. A frustrated Coach Melville said after the game, "we're not that bad and they're not that good and unless some of our players shake it up, they'll be a few of them spending more time on the bench." The proactive coach brought changes for game four by going with two forward lines instead of three, and more drastically, putting defenseman Bernie Olsen into the nets for the first time. Melville made it clear that his young goalie Morningstar wasn't to blame, but he wasn't "getting the protection every goaltender needs. Maybe with a new man in there the players will realize that they just have to get back there and check." Olsen would let in four goals on Whitby's first four shots before the husky 20-year-old settled down and the A's went on to register an 11 to 6 win to tie the series at two. This strange game featured a surly crowd badgering Bob McCready unmercifully until some of the Whitby fans intervened, and then things really got out of hand. Ultimately the police had to be called in to restore order. The Athletics would play their best road game of the season in game five but still come up short. The 11 to 7 Whitby win was the cleanest game played in the series to date. The Haig Bowl homesters prevailed in a tight 8 to 7 game six win with the "fleet-footed" Gerry Cheevers scoring three times to help push the series to the seventh and deciding game. But Whitby's elusive Terry Davis would score four in that final game and the Athletics' season ended with a 12 to 2 road loss. The Whitby Red Wings would go on to win the Ontario title over Brampton before losing in the Minto Cup finals to New Westminster. The 1960 Junior Athletics would finish the year with a 13 - 0 record at home and a 1 - 13 road record.

1961
Team Name:	ATHLETICS
Venue:	Haig Bowl
Co-coaches:	Joe McCaffery	(1947 Minto Cup team)
	Bobby Coull	(player from 1960 team)
Notable Players:	Pete Berge	(team captain)
	Gerry Cheevers	(NHL Hall of Fame goalie)
	Pat Cheevers	(younger son of Joe)
	Tom Teather III, Brian Thomson, Jim McGrath
Regular Season Standing:	4th place in a seven-team league
Playoff Results:	lost semi-final by 4 - 0 to the Hastings Legionnaires
Season Recap:	With the age-limit claiming ten players from the 1960 team, the Athletics fully expected to undergo a steep learning curve in 1961. And it wouldn't be getting any better when they lost returning coach Bob Melville after just a couple of games into the season when he accepted the coaching position with the new Niagara Falls Senior "A" club. The Junior Athletics wouldn't claim their first victory until six games into the schedule, and that would come on a bitterly cold mid-June night at the Haig Bowl. But then again maybe the frosty temperatures were just what this team of hockey players needed to get them going. In that game, a 4 to 3 win over Long Branch, Pete Berge from the 1960 Memorial Cup St. Catharines Teepees opened the scoring, defenseman Tommy Teather from the '61 "Teeps" registered the second, and then late in the third period, Gerry Cheevers of the 1961 Memorial Cup St. Michael's Majors netted the winner. Even the low score seemed more akin to hockey. The 1961 Junior Athletics had a few good veterans who were big contributors offensively, Gerry Cheevers could hit full speed after one step and had inherited his father's deadly accurate shot, while captain Pete Berge was a skillful and unselfish playmaker. But as the season wore on, some of the youngsters like Jim McGrath, Bill Thorne (brother of scoring ace Wally), Art Graham and others began to find the net with some regularity. The disastrous start to the season would give way to a six-win in seven-game stretch in mid-July, and the rebounding team had climbed all the way up to third place. In early August the A's even gained some measure of revenge for the prior year when they ended Whitby's playoff hopes with a 16 to 12 victory. On the night, both Pat Cheevers and Billy Thorne scored three apiece, but the real talk could have centred on the seven goal - three assist effort chipped in by a very young John Davis of the Whitby Red Wings. A sample of things to come. The A's would lose their last couple of games of the season, drop to the fourth and final playoff position, and would match up against the second-place Hastings Legionnaires. Hastings was a first-year Junior "A" team manned largely by Peterborough raised players. The series would open in Hastings with the A's absent of Gerry Cheevers, Wayne Young and goalie Bob Dick, all due to work commitments. The teams battled closely and Hastings held a 8 to 6 margin after 40 minutes. But the A's goaltender Gary Van Schagen was returning from a recent appendix operation and was unable to take the floor for the final period. His place in goal was taken by forward Brian Thomson in a move reminiscent of Joe Cheevers in a Mann Cup game exactly twenty years earlier. Unfortunately the gallant Thomson wasn't as lucky as "Curly" and surrendered five third-period goals in a 13 to 6 Hastings win. Game two at the Haig Bowl would see the visitors put together a stretch of six unanswered goals to claim a 7 to 5 victory. The A's fell to Hastings by 15 to 7 in game three before the sweep was completed with an 11 to 4 score against what The Standard described as a "lack-lustre" Athletics team. In the final game Gary Curtis scored three for the Legionnaires while the two goals apiece from the Cheevers brothers were the only shots to elude Hastings' goalie Ted Higgins. Hastings would go on to win the 1961 Minto Cup in what was claimed as their first season of lacrosse in thirty years.

1963
Team Name:	ATHLETICS
Venue:	Haig Bowl	(new concrete floor)
Coach:	Pete Conradi	(coached undefeated '62 juvs)
Notable Players:	Doug Favell	(NF Flyers '65 Memorial Cup)
	Jim McGrath	(hungry goal scorer)
	Pat Cheevers	(student at McMaster Univ.)
	Gary Van Schagen, Art Graham, John Bergsma
Regular Season Standing:	4th place in a eight-team league
Playoff Results:	lost semi-final by 4 - 1 to the Brampton Armstrongs
Season Recap:	Long-time lacrosse benefactor Fred Conradi came back to the junior game in 1963 and resurrected the A's after a one-year absence for the team. These lads knew fully well how to win at the juvenile level and even marched through an undefeated season in 1962 to claim the Ontario title. But they were untested at this level and veteran Pat Cheevers would be their only regular with any Junior "A" experience. The boys would open the season with a confidence building 15 to 5 win right at Mimico, and Coach Pete Conradi couldn't have been happier. "I couldn't believe my eyes. They played in almost mid-season form," said the impressed coach after the game. 1963 would see future NHL goalie Doug Favell burst on the junior lacrosse scene and the 18-year-old would rely on his sprinter's speed to score 75 regular season goals. The St. Kitts juniors were continuing a good track record with their second generation lacrosse stars. Jim McGrath was another high-scoring youngster on the team and was just coming into his own before a cracked ankle sidelined him until the playoffs. In fact, the injury bug would have a big impact on the complexion of the entire team as they lost eight players to injuries over an intense five-games-in-eight-day period in mid-season. By late July, there were nights when they played with just five juniors plus seven or eight call-ups from the juveniles or midgets. The team was engaged in a tight late-season race with the Guelph Mohawks and the Long Branch Castrolites for the final playoff position, but a July 30th win over Long Branch would push them into the lead to stay. On that night, juvenile call-ups Bob Cleverley, Dave Landry and Jim McDonald contributed a total of six goals for the cause. The playoff-bound Junior Athletics with a 12 - 12 record would seem to be over-matched against the first place Brampton Juniors with their 21 - 3 record, and the blues suffered a 13 to 6 loss in game one with only ten players in uniform. But game two back at the friendly confines of the Haig Bowl would be the best-played game of the season for the young Athletics as they beat the defending Eastern Canadian champs by a score of 16 to 5 . Setting the pace for the St. Catharines attack was Doug Favell and Jim McGrath with five goals each, and Pat Cheevers and John Bergsma notching deuces. Portions of this game would devolve into excessive rough play with the 165-pound Favell getting special attention from a couple of the Brampton players. But ultimately Brampton was a very good veteran club with half of their team in their final year of junior eligibility, and this experience would shine in their wins of 14 to 7, 14 to 8, and 16 to 4 in the final three games to close out the season for the Athletics. Brampton would eventually lose in the Ontario finals to the Minto Cup bound Oshawa Green Gaels while the St. Kitts Juniors, with almost their entire team returning in 1964, started planning for better days.

1964
Team Name:	SUPERTESTS
Venue:	Haig Bowl
Coach:	Pete Conradi	(resigned as O. L. A. exec)
Notable Players:	Doug Favell	("fastest in junior lacrosse")
	Jim McGrath	("rocket shooting forward")
	Dave Landry	(calm, proficient rookie)
	Gary Van Schagen, Bill Young, John Bergsma
Regular Season Standing:	3rd place in a eight-team league
Playoff Results:	won quarter-final by 3 - 2 over the Hastings Legionnaires
	lost semi-final by 3 - 2 to Brampton ABCs
Season Recap:	Team manager and sponsor (and service station owner) Fred Conradi introduced a new club name to St. Catharines’ junior lacrosse in 1964 with the creation of the Supertests. The Supertests were essentially the boyish 1963 squad with a year’s experience, and they would feature a terrific one-two scoring punch in Doug Favell and Jim McGrath. But the team was more than just that dynamic duo…an exciting rookie in Dave Landry with 45 regular season goals, tough defensemen in Art Graham and Bill Hallett, great two-way play by John Bergsma, Sandy Doberstein and Bill Young, plus the solid, if not courageous, goaltending of Gary Van Shagen. This team broke slowly from the gates and could only muster one win in their first four games. Coach Pete Conradi would say, “I’ve been handling lacrosse teams for years, I can honestly say that I’ve never seen one of my clubs play so poorly. They couldn’t pick up the ball, didn’t back-check, and most of them were off in their shooting.” However the month of June would be kinder to the boys and a five-game win streak would elevate the team into third place. The slim, bespectacled Jim McGrath was emerging as an outstanding goal scorer and would finish the regular season with 81 tallies, second only to the 91 picked up by Oshawa’s colossal John Davis. Jack Gatecliff of The Standard would describe McGrath as a “fast-stepping forward” with a “fake shot and shift that works to perfection.” Teammate Doug Favell’s solid 55-goal production was twenty below the output of his rookie season, but first a cracked wrist and then a badly sprained ankle would hamper this speedster’s effectiveness. And throughout the season, the Supertests received outstanding goaltending from Gary Van Shagen. The tall goaltender was particularly adept at throwing a long, accurate pass that often landed in the stick of a fast-breaking Favell. Van Shagen’s performance was all the more remarkable considering the back pain he was enduring and The Standard would reveal that the goalie had a “slipped disk.” He would wear a back brace and in some games he “was in such pain that he actually had to lean on the goalposts for support. However he refused to be replaced.” Late in the season Van Shagen would add a groin injury to his health woes, but still this wasn’t enough to knock this tough 19-year-old from the line-up. The junior boxla game itself in 1964 was a rough and tumble affair, it could even be described as mean and nasty. In one game against Alderwood, rookie Bob Melville was charged by one of the Terriers and was to be carried from the floor by his teammates. Later in the same game, Bill Hallet was severely gashed in a stick-swinging fight with another Terrier. In a game against Hastings, Jim McGrath was brought down hard by the defence and was knocked unconscious for five minutes after striking his head on the floor. Two nights later he was back playing and picked up two goals in a game at Brampton. It was indeed a tough sport, but then on some nights it was still filled with all the grace and beauty that the game is capable of. Late in the season the Supertests defeated the best junior team in the country, the Oshawa Green Gaels, in a fast game at the Haig Bowl that showcased the sport at its best. Jack Gatecliff: “The game last night afforded ample proof that when two running, passing, shooting lacrosse teams are on the same floor the result is certain to be an outstanding spectacle.” John Davis, Gaylord Powless, Favell, McGrath, and the rest, playing the game as it should be. The team finished the season with a winning record and secured third place in the eight-team league. They matched up in the quarter-finals against the sixth-place Hastings Legionnaires and this best-of-five series went the distance as the home team won each match. The semi-final against the second-place Brampton ABCs also went the distance, but this time the Supertests didn’t hold the home floor advantage and their season ended on a late August night in the Rose City. In that final game, Brampton played a 2 – 1 – 2 zone defence and this innovation seemed to completely baffle the fast-running Supertests’ attack. Jack Gatecliff would write that Brampton “put together the best basketball-type zone defence seen in junior lacrosse in years while the St. Catharines rearguard, their Achilles heal all season, was often simply non-existent.” Thus ended a bit of a landmark season. The 14W – 10L record of the 1964 Supertests was the last winning St. Catharines junior lacrosse team until the mid-1980’s. The following season would be the first of 13 straight losing seasons before the juniors eventually folded after the 3W – 19L 1977 season. The sport’s great popularity and success in St. Catharines in the 1930’s and 40’s would inspire and influence the development of a multitude of great, young players in the years that followed. But did the public’s indifference to the game in the 1950’s give rise to a lacrosse drought in the 1960’s and 70’s? The baby-boomers of St. Catharines just weren’t raised to love the game to the same extent as their parents, grandparents and great-grandparents had been. Oh, but it was not for lack of trying. Dedicated people like the Conradis and the Melvilles and the Fricks and the Rhiels and McNultys and others kept lacrosse going in St. Catharines for years even while it was failing in other centres. And the city’s $10,000 investment in refurbishing the Haig Bowl in 1960…new boards, paved floor, new stands, was a sign that hope still prevailed. For some with fond memories of the golden days, it was just too hard to let it all slip away. Just too hard.

1965
Team Name:	SUPERTESTS
Venue:	Haig Bowl
Coach:	Gary Moore	(Senior A's top scorer in '64)
Notable Players:	Doug Favell	(Ont. Hall of Fame in 2005)
	John Bergsma	(82-point regular season)
	Dave Landry	("curly-headed forward")
	Terry Boyd, Gary Van Schagen, Jim McGrath
Regular Season Standing:	5th place in a nine-team league
Playoff Results:	lost quarter-final by 4 - 0 to Oshawa Green Gaels
Season Recap:	The enigmatic 1965 Supertests had plenty of returning talent and appeared well-positioned to build on the fairly good record of the previous season. But in the drama-less O. L. A. junior circuit of 1965, where eight-out-of-nine teams made the playoffs and all admitted that one "stacked" club had a virtual lock on the title, the Supertests quickly became just another team running in the pack. The untouchable Oshawa Green Gaels were in the midst of their seven-year run as Minto Cup champs and featured a near all-star line-up with such luminaries as John Davis from Peterborough and Gaylord Powless from Six Nations. The Supertests would open the season against the Gaels at the newly-built Oshawa Memorial Gardens and before 3,000 partisan fans, the visitors would be crushed by a 24 to 6 score. Coach Pete Conradi would say, "the Green Gaels played as if they never stopped running since winning the Minto Cup eight months ago. I've never seen a team in such good condition so early in the season." After the team sputtered to a 2 and 4 start, Coach Conradi decided to step down and see if a new face could fire up the boys. Gary Moore had been planning a quiet summer away from the game, but soon found himself not only coaxed back into playing for the Senior Athletics, but coaching the juniors as well. Among the players who stood out for Coach Moore were John Bergsma, who finished eighth in the league scoring, and the cool-headed Dave Landry just two points behind. The Standard's Jack Gatecliff would describe Landry as "a young man who coasts around a lacrosse crease like a sailboat among a group of racing hydroplanes. Easily the calmest player on the floor, Landry seldom appears to extend himself but makes every move pay large dividends." Doug Favell also provided another sterling lacrosse season with 49 goals in just 16 games to compliment his just completed hockey season with the Memorial Cup champion Niagara Falls Flyers. The Supertests' most noteworthy regular season game would come in mid-July when they hosted the Green Gaels at the Haig Bowl and the "homesters" attempted to employ a league rule to avoid an obvious defeat. O. L. A. regulations stated that a game must reach five minutes into the third period before it becomes "official." So when Gaylord Powless scored at 4:33 to push Oshawa's lead to 12 to 6 as the rain clouds opened up, the Supertests goalie Gary Van Shagen judiciously went off for some equipment repairs amid the protests of the Oshawa bench. Eventually the referees determined conditions had deteriorated enough that the 27 seconds needed to put the official seal on the game wasn't possible and the entire match was then cancelled. But the reprieve was short-lived as the next day the O. L. A. awarded the game to Oshawa, fined the St. Catharines club $25 for deliberate stalling and even imposed a $10 fine on goaltender Van Shagen for his part in the affair. Ouch! The Supertests would eventually climb from seventh position to fifth and thus be "rewarded" with a playoff match-up against the 18 - 1 - 1 Oshawa Green Gaels. Superstar John Davis was suspended by his coach Jim Bishop for the first two playoff games for missing a practice, but the talent-laden Gaels still cruised to a 21 to 13 win in game one. In game two the Supertests put together a Herculian effort before an empty-net goal sealed a 10 to 8 win for the visitors at the Haig Bowl. The Green Gaels would complete the series in the minimum four games and then march on to their third straight Minto Cup title. Jack Gatecliff would close out the junior's season by reporting that "the Gaels play lacrosse the way it was intended...accurate passing, quick breaks, tough yet usually clean checking and almost perfect conditioning. It may seem like a large statement but we haven't seen a lacrosse team in almost 20 years which has such a variety of plays. That includes junior and senior clubs." But Gatecliff also had some kind words for one of the home-grown stars..."It's been a long, long time since an individual St. Catharines player has turned in such a tremendous performance in a losing cause as Doug Favell. The Green Gaels double-teamed him throughout most of the series but he still came up with 14 goals in four games. His running, quick shifts and over-the-shoulder shots have been a feature of the otherwise not too successful season."

1966
Team Name:	SUPERTESTS
Venue:	Haig Bowl
Coach:	Dave Hall	(active player with Senior A's)
Notable Players:	Doug Favell	(12 NHL seasons)
	Brian Melville	(57 goals as a 16-year-old)
	Dave Landry	("stick-handling wizard")
	John Hoculik, Neil Stevens, John Swain
Regular Season Standing:	4th place in a nine-team league
Playoff Results:	lost quarter-final by 4 - 2 to Hastings Legionnaires
Season Recap:	A veritable roller-coaster of highs and lows would mark this junior season as memorable despite the Supertests rather nondescript 11-win and 13-loss record. A young team rebuilding after a massive graduation class of '65, they would struggle through the early weeks of the season and claim only a pair of victories in their first eleven games. This was a team that could score goals aplenty and a number of rookies such as John Hoculik, Neil Stevens, John Swain and particularly, midget-aged Brian Melville, proved that they were quite ready for the offensive aspects of the junior game. But the Supertests' play in their own end was the big concern, along with a disturbing penchant for late-game collapses. Eventually with rookie coach Dave Hall's guidance, the defenders pulled together under a zone defense format and then a very different team began to emerge. The final catalyst for the launch of the Supertest rocket through the league standings was the return of scoring ace Doug Favell from his sore-knee purgatory, and it would all begin with rather unexpected home-and-away victories over the Hastings Legionnaires. The boys followed this up with wins against Toronto, Huntsville, Long Branch and Etobicoke, and the Supertests climb from inglorious ninth-place to fourth-place respectability occurred in just about two weeks. The six-game win streak would then come up against a stern test versus the invincible Oshawa Green Gaels, and on a night when league scoring leader Gaylord Powless of the Gaels was resting his damaged knees, the Supertests went down to a resounding 24 to 3 defeat. But by 1966, most O. L. A. teams conceded that the Gaels were in a league of their own, and the Supertests just rolled off this momentary set-back with a couple more wins to even their season record at 10 wins and 10 losses. Eight wins in nine games, an upper-tier position to secure a good first-round match-up in the playoffs, and the fans taking a larger interest in the team...life was good...right? Well, no. What could defeat this team more convincingly than much of the junior O. L. A. opposition was internal dissention. The Standard's Jack Gatecliff would report that a couple of the players had quit in a huff after being criticized for not back-checking. And then later in the week a practice was called and only three teenagers turned out. Gatecliff would conclude, "you sometimes wonder, what's the matter with kids today?" Manager Pete Conradi would be quoted in Gatecliff's column, "Don't ask me what's gone wrong. We had better spirit on the club when we were losing. Now they seem to have a couldn't-care-less attitude and if they don't snap out of it there's no sense in going further." The team would win just one of it's last four games, finish in fourth-place, and face the eighth-place Hastings Legionnaires in the quarter-finals. The short-staffed Supertests would need to bring in two players from the Paris-Oshweken Junior "B" team, including Gaylord Powless' younger brother Gary, but still they would lose game one at the Haig Bowl by a score of 13 to 9. Game two at Hastings was even worse...an 18 to 8 blowout. The Supertests added a couple more reinforcements from the Paris-Oshweken club and managed to bounce back to take the next two games. But a 10 to 9 loss in game five at the Haig Bowl followed by a 14 to 7 loss at Hastings brought a disappointing end to the Supertests season. Manager Pete Conradi would say, "our problem was lack of depth. We finished the season with just nine of our regular players." The Paris-Oshweken Junior "B" additions raised that count to just thirteen in a Supertests uniform for the playoffs. This series brought to a close the amazing junior career of Doug Favell and true to form, he contributed 16 goals in the six games. Jack Gatecliff offered this description of a native son in the closing days of his Haig Bowl lacrosse career..."Favell, playing a magnificent game, twisted his way through the entire Hastings team to cut the margin, then added his third of the night on a crease-length pass from goaltender Powless." Douglas Robert Favell...one of the all-time greats of junior lacrosse in St. Catharines.

1966 - EPILOGUE

People spilled off clanging streetcars while Packards and Oldsmobiles prowled hungrily for that last vacant spot believed waiting just around the next corner. The lines stretched along Pleasant Avenue as the sun still hung high in a blue summer sky, and someone shouted and pointed “Hey, there he is!” Maybe it was “Tank” or maybe it was “Gus,” from this distance we weren’t quite sure, but he paused momentarily under a felt fedora and offered a quick wave to the hundreds of eyes turning in his direction. It would take some time, but when that first ticket window awoke and yawned open, everyone took an eager half step forward. And in the steady advance were old married couples and people on their first date, kids with the quarter they earned collecting pop bottles and codgers still sharing stories of when they saw Petey Barnett play on the island. “Now there was a real player!” The staccato of footfalls on plank, the smell of fresh popcorn, an occasional chuckle punctuating the steady murmur, a plea to sit closer together and let more in, the old shades of blue dancing a customary warm-up ritual, a familiar face, and another…these were our hometown boys, they were just like us…ah, bless them all. Bless us all.

This frozen image stretching across the decades was a cherished memory for some, something to reach out for and to cling to, and something that surely could be real again. For others, it was just a tired old story that perhaps had been retold all too many times by now. This was your past. It was time to let it go.

By 1966, it seemed that any lingering grip on the past had finally been pried free. The citizenry at large had long abandoned any kinship to the game or any of its “homebrewed” heroes. And eventually, the players themselves lost interest and started to walk away. In mid-summer, the long tradition of Athletics senior lacrosse came to an end in a St. Catharines parking lot when a handful of diehard players finally decided they couldn’t play yet another road game with the usual one or two spares. What is remarkable is that this situation carried on for as long as it did and was a testament to the passion and dedication that some players like Ted Howe and Bob McCready still carried for the game. The story wasn’t too much better with the juniors. In 1946, a number of young players came to minor lacrosse sponsor Fred Conradi and pleaded with him to start a junior team. They just wanted the chance to play. But by 1966, some of the new generation of young players, with a different set of life experiences and values, were more apt to “flip the bird” at authority and then move on. Hey, it’s the sixties man.

And maybe all of this purging was really necessary. What once was couldn’t be repackaged or recycled or rejuvenated or reinvented…all of that had certainly been tried before. Maybe all of this was necessary to allow the game to be reborn another day with its own identity, its own sons of the game and its own standards for comparison. The game’s innate beauty would always endure, and maybe another generation would discover it and claim it for themselves. Maybe the time wasn’t ripe for these baby-boomers…but just you wait.

1967
Team Name:	LAKESIDES
Venue:	Port Dalhousie Lions Bowl
Coach:	Ron Winterbottom	(played with Sr. A's in 50's)
Notable Players:	John Swain	(team captain)
	Neil Stevens	(55 goals to lead team)
	Geoff Crane	(improving goaltender)
	John Hoculik, Ken Holder, Jim McMahon
Regular Season Standing:	8th place in a nine-team league
Playoff Results:	won quarter-final by 4 - 2 over Mimico Mountaineers
	lost semi-final 4 - 0 to Toronto Township PCO's
Season Recap:	New management, new team name, new home floor, and a lot of new faces all suggested that this would be a rebuilding year for the St. Catharines juniors in Canada's centennial year. This struggling young team would go winless through its first six games before Coach Winterbottom shortened his bench, dressed only twelve select players and squeaked out a narrow 16 to 14 home victory over the Brampton juniors. "Now that the heat is off, we can concentrate on returning to a more normal approach," said the optimistic coach after the game, "after all we can't afford to have a tired team when we reach the playoffs." The home of the '67 St. Catharines Lakesides was the 20-year-old bandbox Port Dalhousie Lions Bowl...a facility completely utilitarian, spartan and even unattractive. But it was nestled in a relaxed old-town neighbourhood, and on any comfortable summer evening at the "Port" when the floodlights were sparked up and the boys took to the floor, many residents would stroll down to enjoy a game under a clear darkening sky. This team would actually lose many more than it won, but the community took to these boys and the open-air Lions Bowl became a beautiful place to watch lacrosse in that summer of long ago. Perennial Minto Cup champion Oshawa Green Gaels would visit "Port" in mid-June and send the Lakesides record to 3 and 9 on a night when the phenomenal Gaylord Powless would score ten goals for the visitors. But also noteworthy of that game was Oshawa coach Jim Bishop's innovative tactic of pulling goalie Merv Marshall while the teams were at even strength and pressing to the attack, a move that many long-time lacrosse observers had never seen before. The Lakesides season-long struggle with the Toronto Marlboros for the final playoff spot took a severe blow when five good players quit the team in mid-July. The Standard's Jack Gatecliff would even explain that, "a couple of the teenagers left because they claimed there were too many practices." But Gatecliff would also add, "the lads who have stuck with it are producing interesting, often exciting lacrosse and the way the fans are continuing to turn out is evidence that they appreciate those efforts." The team would clinch a playoff spot in the last seconds of their last game when captain John Swain scored at 19:58 to give the Lakesides a 12 - 11 win over Brampton. The eighth-place Lakesides would then meet the fourth-place Mimico Mountaineers in the quarter-finals, and the series opened with a surprise 12 - 11 win over the Mounts. Coach Winterbottom had these boys fired with determination and the over-achieving Lakesides would go on to take the series in six games over their heavily-favoured opponents. "All I can say is this is the greatest team I've ever seen," said the elated coach after watching his team come from a four-goal deficit to win 9 - 8 in the final game. But the Cinderella story of the St. Catharines Lakesides of '67 ended when they met the powerful Toronto Township PCO's in the Ontario semifinals and lost to the second-place finishers in four straight. A decisive finale, but still the story of this season was a heartening success. This was a team beset with players quitting and even some key injuries at a bad time. But they battled to the last second to earn a post-season position and then through sheer will, made their way past a better team in the first playoff round. Team President John Stevens would wrap it all up by saying, "We've learned a few things this year. I guess we made a few mistakes but we'll be back next season trying even harder. The effort by the lads who stuck with the club just couldn't be faulted."

1968 & 1969
Team Name:	LAKESIDES
Venue:	Port Dalhousie Lions Bowl
	Garden City Arena for 1969 playoffs by O. L. A. decree
Coach:	Ron Winterbottom	(honorary "Old Boy")
Notable Players:	John Hoculik	(team captain in '68)
	Bob McMahon	(sons of long-time Sr. A's standout Jimmy McMahon)
	Jim McMahon
	Jim Hoculik, Bill Hoculik, John Swain
Regular Season Standing:	5th place in a nine-team league (1968)
	7th place in a nine-team league (1969)
Playoff Results:	lost quarter-final by 4 - 0 to Oshawa Green Gaels (1968)
	lost quarter-final by 4 - 0 to Etobicoke PCOs (1969)
Seasons Recap:	By the late sixties, the long-suffering sport of junior lacrosse in St. Catharines had secured a comfortable niche market at the old lacrosse bowl on Main Street in Port Dalhousie ward. Though swallowed up by the sprawling City of St. Catharines in 1961, old “Port” still faithfully clung to much of its small town charm and quickly adopted the Lakesides as their own team. The relationship of community and team, plus the rare ambiance of the game played in a traditional outdoor lacrosse box gave a typical Lakesides home game a nostalgic feel. But could all of this last? The Lakesides were the last Junior “A” team still playing outdoors and just as the old Town of Port Dalhousie was powerless to fend off amalgamation by its burgeoning neighbour, the traditional outdoor lacrosse box was soon facing external threats of its own. The Lakesides of this era featured the scoring prowess of the son of a legend of the old double blues. Jimmy McMahon’s boy Bob made the early jump from midget lacrosse in the spring of 1968 and the 16-year-old registered 45 regular season goals in his rookie junior season. When he followed that up with an impressive 69-goal campaign in 1969, many a veteran lacrosse observer started comparing him to the McMahons of old. But Bob McMahon was also a defenseman with the Memorial Cup contending St. Catharines Black Hawks and the hockey team seriously frowned on his summer pursuits.1969 would be his last season of junior lacrosse. Other notables on the team included the three Hoculik brothers, veteran John Swain, and Bob McMahon’s older brother Jim Jr. John Hoculik was voted captain in 1968 by his teammates and Coach Ron Winterbottom said, “Huck would sooner play lacrosse than eat.” Middle Hoculik brother Jim was a spirited antagonist who endured his share of injuries and penalties, while young Bill Hoculik was a pure stick-wizard of old. But though they and several others played with style and panache, the teams of these two seasons rarely enjoyed the heights of success. The 1968 Lakesides finished the season in a three-way tie for fifth place and then were given the dreaded playoff match-up of the undefeated Oshawa Green Gaels. Coach Jim Bishop claimed that his 24 – 0 Gaels actually played more close games than his 23 – 1 team of 1967, but this provided little in the way of comfort for the Lakesides. They lost in four. In 1969 the team lost top players John Hoculik and Neil Stevens, but many still felt that the number of good returnees would propel them higher in the standings…an unfulfilled expectation. The Lakesides managed only seven wins in the twenty-four game schedule and finished the year in seventh place. All indications were that the club lacked any team cohesiveness and even Coach Winterbottom would remark, “there seemed to be too much individual power and not enough team effort.” Before the close of the regular season, the team received the disappointing news that they were being ordered by the Ontario Lacrosse Association to play all their home playoff games in the Garden City Arena. Team President John Stevens said, “I don’t know what their reasoning is. We’d have been satisfied to play outside, then go under the roof if it rained. But I guess we have no alternative than to schedule all our games starting next week at Garden City Arena.” And herein lies the real story of the 1969 Lakesides, the end of an honoured tradition. Throughout the hey-day of Ontario box lacrosse, the venue of choice was often the outdoor lacrosse stadium. These open-air “bowls,” with their creaky wooden seats surrounding olive-painted boards and fan-protective fencing, often contained a playing surface more similar to an over-sized clay tennis court than the unforgiving concrete slab of some hibernating hockey barn. They were for decades the stage for tragedy and triumph, conflict and comedy, ruin and renewal, and all of it played out before the heavens and mortals alike. Many felt that this was the game as it was intended. Summer breezes, sunset skies, quarter moons, and lonesome train whistles pouring in while eruptive cheers, stray arc-lighting and even the occasional sour grumbling or pointed admonishment spilled out. The close of the sixties effectively brought an end to the use of outdoor lacrosse bowls for anything beyond the minor game. St. Catharines was the last holdout. The practical advantage of dry arenas on rainy days clearly outweighed any of the general comfort or tradition or ambiance of the old lacrosse bowls. Progress for some, but most who loved the old bowls would mourn their passing. The team would have just one final game at the Port Lions Bowl, and it would be a beauty. The opposition being the vaunted Green Gaels of Oshawa, six-time Minto Cup champions, soon to make it seven, and the Lakesides came within a whisker of beating them. The home team put up a stunning performance, played an excellent zone-defense, received four big goals from Jim Hoculik, and never trailed until some penalty troubles late in the game opened the door for a Gaels comeback and a 13 – 12 win. Jack Gatecliff wrote that the Lakesides used a “heart-soul-guts approach.” A pleased Coach Winterbottom said it was, “one of our best team efforts all year. If we maintain that team attitude of mental and physical toughness in the playoffs we are going to be hard to beat.” Even Gaels Coach Jim Bishop offered praise, “For a long time now I knew that if this team ever played together as a unit they would be hard to beat. Tonight showed just that. A vastly improved and underrated team.” And so ended the Port Lions Bowl three-year run of Junior “A” lacrosse. It would continue its life as a home for minor lacrosse for several more seasons before being torn down in the early 1980’s. In the playoffs, the Lakesides would offer their coach the team attitude that he tried to instill in them, but two heartbreaking overtime losses in games one and two against a good Etobicoke team dashed their hopes. They lost in four.

1970
Team Name:	LAKESIDES
Venue:	Garden City Arena
Coach:	Gary Moore	(Ont. Lacrosse Hall of Fame)
Notable Players:	Brian Melville	(former star returns to team)
	Bill Hoculik	(exceptional stick skills)
	Randy Rigby	(husky goaltender)
	Al Thompson, John Mouradian, Kevin Sweitzer
Regular Season Standing:	7th place in a eight-team league
Playoff Results:	won quarter-final by 3 - 1 over Mississauga PCO's
	lost semi-final 4 - 1 to Bramalea Excelsiors
Season Recap:	1970 would mark the end of the seven-year reign of the Oshawa Green Gaels as the absolute power in Canadian junior lacrosse. Jim Bishop brought a heretofore unheard of level of professionalism to the junior game with his innovative coaching techniques, an aggressive approach to recruiting talent, and a devotion to rigorous conditioning and strict discipline. The string of seven consecutive Minto Cup championships would eventually warrant Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame induction for the teams that few could dispute had elevated the bar to stratospheric heights. But with Bishop departing for a position in the Detroit Red Wings organization, the door was now opened for a more competitive junior O. L. A. and along with that, an upswing of interest in the junior game. No longer was the title conceded each spring to the same team as the talent-laden Green Gaels would pummel away at any and all opposition, year after year. Why now even a lowly seventh-place team had reason to feel that they had a shot. In St. Catharines, the juniors reluctantly made their permanent move indoors to the 31-year-old Garden City Arena and actually drew a respectable 1,500 for their home opener. The “Gas-O-Rama” Lakesides would welcome a new corporate sponsor and a fresh leadership team with the legendary Roy “Pung” Morton as club president along with the soft-spoken and capable Gary Moore behind the bench. Though they lost the services of scoring ace Bob McMahon, now rumoured playing for Rochester of the North American Lacrosse League, they happily picked up the talented Brian Melville who missed several Junior "A" seasons after scoring an eye-popping 57 goals as a midget-aged rookie in 1966. This team would hold a .500 record into mid-June despite suffering through three painful home losses, each on a single goal scored very late in the game. A frustrated Coach Moore would comment, "The other teams just did a little more digging in the last few minutes and that's how games are won. We've got to start playing 60 minutes of lacrosse. Anything less just isn't enough." In late June, the Lakesides embarked on a very rough eighteen-day period when they lost seven out of eight games. But then a noticeable improvement occurred just about the time they brought in netminder Randy Rigby. In a day when lacrosse goaltenders wore minimal equipment and they counted more heavily on cat-like reflexes to shut the door, the large-framed Rigby could effectively square up to the attackers and rely more on his size and good positioning to protect the cage. Rigby's solid goaltending was a real late-season shot in the arm for the Lakesides. In the closing week they mustered a couple of close home victories over a still potent Green Gael team and though they were entering the playoffs as a seventh-place underdog, they now carried a new-found sense of confidence. Jack Gateliff of The Standard would write, "Coach Gary Moore, the executive and the Lakeside players feel that despite their relatively low position they'll give an excellent account of themselves in the upcoming playoffs." The best-of-five quarter-final playoff would open on Tuesday July 28th at the Port Credit Arena against the third-place Mississauga PCO's, and the hustling Lakesides would come away with a surprise 14 - 7 victory. One night later at the Garden City Arena, the over-powering Lakesides out-shot the PCO's by 64 to 37 to emerge with a 2 to 0 series lead on their 19 - 13 win. It was an exciting night as PCO's goaltender Gary Powless kept the score close through two periods before the Lakesides erupted for 9 goals in the final period. Barry McNaughton of The Standard would report, "The turning point of the game came early in the final period when Melville scored a shorthanded goal to ignite a three-goal outburst. Twenty-seven seconds after his first effort, Melville knocked in his own rebound to give the Lakesides a three-goal lead. Then right from the face-off, Tom Stockwell picked up a loose ball and walked in to score on the shell-shocked Powless." Game three was back in Port Credit on the very next night and Mississauga would stave off elimination with a 16 - 15 overtime win. But then after a rare day off, the Lakesides would complete the series upset on a 10 - 5 win with Bill Hoculik notching three goals and two assists. Hoculik was in his final year of junior eligibility and came up with a remarkable fifteen goals and eleven assists in this series. There was very little that the third Hoculik brother couldn't do with a lacrosse stick, for whatever he lacked in foot-speed was more than made up for with his good old-fashioned stick savvy and a very creative mind. This series win had a feel of redemption for the St. Catharines Lakesides and a gratified Coach Moore would give all the post-game credit to the boys by saying that they "played their hearts out throughout the series. In every game they gave 100 percent and their hard work has paid off." The Lakesides squared off against the well-rested Bramalea Excelsiors in the best-of-seven semi-finals and the first two matches were low scoring Bramalea wins, 4 to 2 and 9 to 4, with much credit bestowed upon goalies Randy Rigby of the Lakesides and Larry Smeltzer of Brampton. (Smeltzer was the first winner of the Bob Melville Memorial Award given to the goalie with the fewest goals against --- it was named for the former Sr. A's player, Jr. A's coach & wounded WWII veteran that had passed away suddenly in May of 1970. Bob was also the father of Brian Melville of the '70 Lakesides). After Brampton opened up a three game series lead, the Lakesides captured their only win with a 13 - 10 penalty-filled victory in St. Catharines on a night that Al Thompson and Tim Howe each scored three. The Excelsiors then closed out the Lakesides season with a hard-fought 12 - 10 win to move on to the Ontario finals. The regular season standing of the St. Catharines Lakesides of 1970 really belied what was in fact a pretty good little lacrosse club, a team that provided plenty of exciting lacrosse for the disappointingly small crowds that showed up at the their new indoor home.

1971
Team Name:	LAKESIDES
Venue:	Garden City Arena
Coach:	Gary Moore	(played for '71 Mann team)
Notable Players:	John Mouradian	(played field lax at Ithaca)
	Kevin Sweitzer	(44-goal season)
	Bob Peppler	(St. Kitts Jr. A hockey)
	Bruce Jackson, Bob Luey, Ken Holder
Regular Season Standing:	7th place in a seven-team league
Playoff Results:	lost quarter-final by 4 - 0 to Peterborough P.C.O. Teepees
Season Recap:	With the circus booked into the Garden City Arena, the Lakesides played a May 19th home game at the Port Lions Bowl and came away with a convincing 19 - 3 win against the defending Minto Cup champion Lakeshore Maple Leafs. And then three nights later back in the arena, they edged the Mississauga PCO's to build some early expectations that this team could compete with the very best in the junior O. L. A. of 1971. But the boys were to register only three more wins that season and finish with a last-place record of 5 wins and 25 loses. A difficult nine-game losing run through much of June would only be surpassed by an agonizing ten-game losing streak to close out the regular season. The Lakesides returned seventeen players from the not-so-awful 1970 team, but on this new season they would hunger for the missing goal-scoring prowess of former mates Brian Melville and Bill Hoculik. Perhaps the most interesting wrinkle of the 1971 team was the addition of Huntsville's Bob Peppler in mid-July. Peppler was an enormously popular hockey player with the Ontario Junior "A" champion St. Catharines Black Hawks before bringing his considerable lacrosse talents to the home of some of his best hockey memories. He was no stranger to losing lacrosse teams after scoring 86 goals for the 1 and 27 Huntsville Hawks in 1970, but few athletes ever played with any more heart or more determination than the 5' 9" fireball Bob Peppler. Peppler had won the Dennis McIntosh Trophy as league MVP in 1970 and on the evening that he was given O. L. A. permission to play with St. Catharines...the eager 20-year-old leaped over a railing at the arena, dropped about six feet to the concrete floor and raced full speed to the dressing room to get ready for the third period of a Lakesides game already in progress. He would be a welcomed addition to the club and add some punch to the offence, but little could save the fortunes of this star-crossed team. The attendance at the final regular season home game was reported in The Standard as 132 payees...50 adults, 50 students and 32 children. Lakesides' Vice-President Ron Winterbottom would say, "We've averaged around 200 and usually clear $100 after paying the arena percentage and the referees. But $100 isn't enough to cover us for an away game and we'll be lucky to break even at the end of the season." The game was going through some difficult times in the once proclaimed home of lacrosse, and the Lakesides season would close after a four-game playoff sweep to the eventual Ontario champion Peterborough Teepees. Post Script: For Coach Gary Moore there was much more to come in that summer of '71. Just as the Lakesides season was winding down he joined the Brantford Warriors (Sr "A") as a player and became part of that great Mann Cup team alongside Bob McCready and Ted Howe of St. Catharines. McCready, Howe & Moore