Lakeland Heat Jr. B are Provincial gold champs, silver at MacDonald Cup

With a stretch of 10 games in 10 days, the Lakeland Heat Jr. B Heat had one of the best runs in program history. Image credit: Lakeland Heat. 

The bar was set high, the highest head coach Daryl Hodinsky has ever set them to begin the season.

And why not? The Lakeland Heat Jr. B Heat were coming off of a silver medal at last year’s Provincials, had all but two players returning, and lots of youth to add to the team.

So to come through and be North Division Champs, Provincial gold medallists, and MacDonald Cup silver medalists — pretty, pretty good. 

“When we lost out in the gold medal final, the boys were already looking forward to next year and how nobody’s going to touch them,” Hodinsky told Lakeland Connect. 

“That was basically the story of our season, where we knew we had a goal, we knew what we needed to do to accomplish that, an we had plans. They just executed and worked their butts off.” 

Punching their ticket to Provincials in St. Albert after just a two-loss regular season, the Heat faced off against the Lloyd Xtreme, their rivals for years.

They claimed the North with a 7-4 victory to start Provincials, and then reeled off wins against Southern Alberta Cross and the Calgary Wranglers, to set up a heated rematch against the Xtreme.

Jared Cadieux and Jaxx Gale scored two goals each en route to a 5-4 win and the devoted goal of gold.

“The number one thing that probably kept us in games, or got us to a victory in the game, was our discipline, our ability to stay out of the penalty box. That was probably the biggest thing, and and the players really understood that,” he said.

“We needed to play five-on-five and and if we stayed five-on-five, nobody could touch us.”

But really, there was no time at all to prepare for the Western Canadian Junior B Lacrosse Invitational (MacDonald Cup), all but two days to head down to Brooks and get ready to see some teams they had just played, and a couple more from Saskatchewan that were well-rested.

As Hodinsky said, “We beat the s*** out of each other for four days prior to going to that tournament.”

The five-team invite tournament has been revived in recent times, and knowing it was on the docket, the band took their talents to southern Alberta.

After an early blip where the Southern Alberta Cross edged them out 7-6 in the initial contest, they reeled off of a win against Swift Current, before falling to Prince Albert.

An emphatic 23-6 in the final game against Calgary, it set up a semi-final against Swift Current. They avenged their defeat with a 12-8 win to set up the final against Prince Albert.

But it was not to be. Swift Current ended the Heat’s season, handing the a 12-4 loss, but their was no disappointment knowing what they accomplished.

“It was 10 games in the span of 10 days,” said Hodinsky. 

“The team had nothing left in them. They were completely exhausted, completely beat up…I’m just in awe that they were even able to compete at all in that last game. Even though they played that was their 10th game in 10 days, they just still played fantastic.” 

The team’s depth and skill was recognized in the MacDonald Cup with several players named at tournament’s end.

Seven players are set to graduate from this team, but the reputation of the Lakeland Heat Jr. B club has never been stronger.  

Lakeland Heat 2024 roster.