December 25, 2024

Six Nations Chiefs Win Third Mann Cup in Four Years

The Six Nations Chiefs are a true dynasty you may think Yankees in baseball or Patriots in the NFL but when you think lacrosse you have to think of the Chiefs who just won their third Mann Cup championship in the last four seasons and their sixth as a franchise.

In their latest run at the cup most of the core players from their first 2013 and 2014 championship teams were still on the roster but they did have some new faces. Last year making big trades for Dillon Ward, Ryan Benesch, Dhane Smith and Brodie Merrill.

Along with this year making a deadline deal for Dan and Paul Dawson along with Ethan O’Connor were all big time players this whole season. And after finishing in second place to Peterborough during their season in the first round of the playoffs vs. Brooklin many players went down with injuries but the team had a talented eighteen year old name Austin Staats who played like a NLL veteran along side older brother Randy who won MVP of game five on the Mann Cup series.

Also Cody Jamieson one of those players who got hurt vs. Brooklin came back to lead his team to victory over Peterborough winning four straight games once he returned to the lineup after being on the brink of elimination. Cody is a franchise player and showed why on his way to winning his third senior A championship on defense this team had Sid Smith who is one of the best in the business along with Merrill who is a all time great in front up and coming Ward who showed in net why he is a young super star in net.

In this championship series the chiefs winning the titled in five games vs. Maple Ridge a team many people didn’t give credit it to but did seem to have some young players that really wanted to win this championship. Dan Dawson led the tournament with twenty-three points while Dhane Smith scoring 16 and Randy and Benesch tied with fourteen a piece. Face off man and transition player Jeremy Thompson was impressive all tournament while winning his first Mann Cup he came back to the Chiefs after playing Senior B the last few summers.

With the season now done many of these players will move on to the NLL this winter but will soon be back for next summer to defend their title and going into next season the Chiefs will be favorites to repeat as champions.