Photos: Claire Mikuska, Graphic: Dave Fryer

In recent weeks, The Lax Mag sat down with the Raiders Lacrosse Club General Manager Andrew McBride, his Rocky Mountain Junior A Lacrosse League team since winning the league’s regular season title and are on the verge of sweeping the Saskatchewan SWAT in the first round of the playoffs.

Last year, the Raiders shocked the RMJALL by upsetting the Edmonton Miners in the league final and then bringing what had to be the youngest team ever to a Minto Cup competition.

They went 0-3, and like Rocky Mountain teams often do at the national Junior A tournament, finished dead last after falling to Ontario’s and British Columbia’s best.

McBride and the rest of the Raiders roster and coaches see your social media comments and hear the constant criticisms of their team, the RMLL, and Alberta’s inability to win a Minto Cup after over two agonizing years of trying.

So, what’s their response?

Keep reading and find out in our very revealing Q&A with McBride, who knew he’d need to take a uniquely different approach to building this team and improving their chances of claiming that elusive first Minto Cup.

The Lax Mag: Let’s get right into it, shall we? Are RMJALL teams as far behind Ontario & British Columbia as the social media commentary would have us believe?

Andrew McBride: I mean we're aware of it and until you win, well… Sure, it can be frustrating, but that's my message to the group. We know how much time we all put in. We've really bought in from an organization standpoint amongst myself, our coaches and players, and we're really trying to do this at an elite level, the right way. But hey, until you win, you're not going to get that elite-level recognition. It’s fuel to the fire and not feeling sorry for ourselves. We want to prove everyone outside of our locker room wrong. The only way we're going to do that is by really playing at an elite level all the time, practicing at elite level all the time, and let's try to get to that next level. Listen, I totally understand the hate. A Rocky Mountain team winning the Minto is the only way we’ll end those criticisms. We get it. Keep it coming.

TLM: Last year, before the start of the season, everyone we talked to in Alberta told us the Raiders were going to, well, suck. You won the RMJALL title and took what had to be the youngest-ever roster to the Minto. How the hell did you pull that off?

AM: For me, the plan we’re on now really started back in 2022. I think one of the biggest things in lacrosse is people get caught in no man's land and they don't really come up with a set plan. Obviously, you need a little bit of luck and you need things to go the right way too. We made a big trade back in 2022 and acquired a lot of draft picks in certain draft classes. I’ve been to I think six Minto Cups now, and there’s a very common theme… You need great goaltending, you need a lot of top 21-year-olds, and you need a great core group of guys that are going to grow together and believe in themselves. So, we obtained a lot of draft assets, watched and scouted a ton at the younger levels, got a lot of feedback on a lot of guys, and got as much info as we could to be able to draft the type of player that fit into our plan. We also wanted specific types of players: big, athletic kids that can go both ways, and play the game fast. We were fortunate to get a bunch of great players that have all played together in various programs. A lot of them played together for Geoff Snider’s ELEV8 Lacrosse program too, and you could see the chemistry and comradery building between those players. At the start of last year, I remember going into training camp and watching these guys and saying, “Man, these kids have something special.”.

2024 Minto Cup Media Conference (Photo: Shelly Fey)

TLM: Last year and again obviously this year, what is setting the Raiders apart from the rest of the RMJALL and even other programs around the country?

AM: The best compliment I can give our coaches and our players is, and I don't have any hesitation in saying this, we practice harder than any team in the country. If you came to our practices and see how hard these kids practice, how dialed our coaches are, how many new drills we're doing, and how we're trying to do things like film off the floor with training, nutrition, well, that approach definitely makes us different. We're really trying to do things the right way, but it comes down to hard work and discipline and these kids and coaches have bought in to what it takes to play at an elite level. And not just now, but we’re doing this in the middle of winter on a Tuesday night when no one’s watching. We see what the top teams in the country are doing, we’re not ever cutting any corners, and we’re doing our best to rise to that elite level. Last year, as the season progressed, I think we just started to gain confidence, and that’s continued into this year. Our kids that weren’t away at school, all spent time in the winter training with ELEV8, and it’s paying off. Our goal is to win a Minto Cup. That’s our focus. We’ve embraced that. We talk about it; we don't shy away from it. We have hard conversations that lead to that, and sure, we don’t get everything right all the time, but we’ve built a winning-mindset into our culture, and everyone is on the same page as we continue to steer this ship.

TLM: You’ve mentioned ELEV8 a few times already. What’s the Raiders relationship like with a private group like ELEV8? Community clubs and private groups have a history of clashing in Canada, but it certainly seems like you’re easily co-existing here.

AM: Everybody says “grow the game”, but honestly, nobody really wants to grow the game. It has turned into the biggest lip service in lacrosse. We struggle for support at the RMLL level, at the league level, at the minor level. I'm sick of hearing “grow the game” when no one wants to grow the game because grow the game means everyone needs to make sacrifices and put the game first, and that's not what lacrosse is doing right now. And you know what, if that's the way it wants to go, I don't care. But I would rather people be honest about it, stop lying about it, stop saying we're doing this and then doing something else to benefit certain individuals or their team instead of the sport. I would love for them to just say, “Hey, we're worried about our own program. We're doing whatever we want. If you don't like it, too bad.” Just stop lying about it already.

As far as us and ELEV, I think we have a great relationship with them. I played with Geoff (Snider), and I know Bobby (Snider) really well. They employ a lot of our coaches that came through the program. I think what we love between them and us is the similarities in leadership styles, the similarities in expectations, and the similarities in growing elite athletes. They’re very clear on how you act, how you train, and at what level you should be performing. They do things the right way, I think their culture and our culture are very much alike. They put elite athletes in positions to succeed, so if our kids can benefit from that, why would we not encourage them to go there? I think the relationship is one of mutual respect with what we're doing trying to achieve. And you can see players that are going into that program, coming up to our program, and having ultimate success.

TLM: Speaking of coaches, your head coach, Mitch Banister, has been around for pretty much everything when it comes to the Raiders, first as a player and now in his current role. What does he had to this group?

AM: I mean to have someone like Mitch, who was drafted to the Raiders, played for the Raiders, won championships, and captained the Raiders… come on! I was lucky enough to coach him, he also benefitted by getting coach by Bruce Codd when he was here when things first got going. There's so many factors that go into understanding what a culture and a team is all about. Mitch has been here for so long now that he embodies everything there is when it comes to being a Raider. I think the development and the improvement Mitch is showing over the last three years, to take his coaching to the next level is something I'm probably the proudest of for him, which is saying something based on his history here. He has really worked on his craft in terms of practice plans, in terms of communication with the players. That's one thing we really try to focus on or dialling in is communication, language, wording, tones of voice, especially with this new generation. The difference of one word or the difference of the tone on how you get your message across is becoming absolutely vital to success in sports. Mitch has taken this very seriously. He's reading books on high-level coaching, he's listening to coaching podcasts, he's putting his ego aside and engaging people that he respects within our organization and outside of it, all in order to gather as much information, not to make him better, but to make this team better. This is a guy who's putting in 40, 50 hours a week in film, in reading books, and talking to his players to give them his best and clearest expectation of what we need to do to be successful. From player, to captain, to assistant coach, and working his way up to head coaching here, no one has a Raiders resume like Mitch. The players respect him and love playing for him. It’s honestly one of the best things in my 16 years being involved with the Raiders is to see his growth, maturation, and leadership.

TLM: What about the rest of this year’s staff?

AM: Yeah, I think we're lucky with our staff that we don't have a lot of egos and we all have really great resumes. Creighton (Reid)… 13 years in the NLL, he coached a Minto Cup-winning championship with Coquitlam. Brett (Hickey) was out in Burlington coaching, a former 50-goal scorer in the NLL. Ryan McBride's, our goalie coach who was a former Raider like Mitch, brings a lot too. Jesse (Fehr), who's kind of taken a role in management and developing players, talking to players…he's doing a psychology degree now too. I think our group’s collective best quality is we all want to not only win, but do what’s truly best for our players no matter what. Not sure any staff spends more time together than us. We watch every game in every league together - we're dialled in! If we had a trivia contest of what's going on in junior lacrosse, I'm pretty sure our coaching staff is going to smash everybody. One thing I really love about our group is that we have heated conversations. We don't agree all the time, but we've gotten to the point where we can have arguments, we can disagree, we can say, “Well that's the fucking stupidest thing I've ever heard,” but what that does is it fosters change, it fosters development, it fosters the ability to get out there and maybe try some things that are different and new. The way they've taken criticism, feedback and praise, it allows them to continue to push the envelope and go forward. I’ve said I’m proud of our players, but I’m also so proud of our coaches too.

TLM: In 2022, the Edmonton Miners came a win away from winning the RMJALL’s first Minto Cup in a truly thrilling performance in Brampton. They put the rest of the country on notice, but since then, Alberta’s teams have gone back to only beating themselves and losing to Ontario and British Columbia in every other game. Where is Rocky Mountain ball at right now in terms of taking the next step at the highest level?

AM: I think there’s a combination of things. I think number one, the talent level in Alberta has caught up to the rest of the country. I think that's the big one. Before, you'd go to these tournaments and you could say, “Okay, there's five kids potentially that could get to the next level.” That’s not the case now. I really believe in our team right now. We have probably ten to 15 kids that are going to be legit NLL players. I really do believe that. You've seen that with Edmonton; you've seen that on the other Calgary team. I know Sask right now is going through a bit of a hard time, but they have some great younger kids that are coming up through the ranks. So in terms of skill level, I think that's something that's really caught up in general. Of course there's the elite talent out there in all the leagues and there always will be, but from when I started with the program, it's been a 70% increase in talent level, easily.

Edmonton Miners, 2022 Minto Cup Final (Photo: Dave Fryer)

AM (con’t): Now it becomes the other things, like in minor. You look at some of these other provinces at a younger level, and they're playing triple the amount of games. They have more opportunities to train and compete with travel teams and get better in high-skill clinics. Our coaching here now has three or four generations of players that played lacrosse that are now giving back, and coaching in Alberta is one of these things that's just catching up. My daughter now plays U11. There’s 100 U11 girls getting coached by five former NLL players at that age. We didn’t have that before.

We don't have our own Junior B teams, which makes a massive impact. And to the outside person, that doesn't seem a big deal. But for example, all the kids I draft then get dispersed to seven Junior B teams that we’re not connected to really at all. So now we're trying to work with seven teams with seven different coaches with seven different cultures with seven different philosophies. It’s tough.

It is an unfair playing field. Everyone says, “Oh, you get to pick three guys up at Minto if you want and this that and the other thing.” Well, that doesn't help when you grab someone who's never practiced with your team and doesn't know your culture, systems, and everything else that comes to being a teammate for your career with one club. You look at Orangeville for example; they have a Junior B team, a Junior C team, then they affiliated with Elora this year, who won it all a year ago, and then maybe change that a year later when someone new wins the Founders. Look, I’m not trying to make excuses, but junior lacrosse across the country is not a level playing field.

So, where are we? We’re focused on ourselves and looking to get better every day.

TLM: The Raiders went on an exhibition tour in BC before the start of this year’s season, playing the likes of Coquitlam, Delta and New Westminster in mid-May. You went 3-0. What was that experience like?

AM: The Mounties have done similar maybe the past two years, but they’ve gone earlier. So, we looked at trying to optimize our trip the best we could. The trip is essentially a $30,000 weekend for us, so we had to make sure were benefitted from it the most we could. We thought to be successful, we needed the majority of our players there. Sure, we were missing six guys off our roster, but we did have like 20 that are going to be here for the next three years. We are fortunate to have great connections with those teams, and the schedule kind of came together. Look, it’s a big commitment, but it’s just something we have to do in order to get to the level we want to be at. There’s big value in a trip like that for us, playing those teams, getting our guys to play against Coquitlam, who we've obviously seen at I think every Minto Cup we've gone to now. So to be able to get out there and to play them with the majority of our roster - they were missing guys, but they still had a lot of their big-name players there - is huge for us. Three games in three days off a bus is a grind, but that is what we're trying to do. That's what the grind is going to have to be if we want to get to where we need to be. So it was invaluable.

Listen, I'd go out to Ontario next year if that was a possibility. I want as many games as we can get against competition that gives us a barometer of what we need to work on, because when you go there at the end of the year, you see what these great teams have, you see what the Orangevilles of our sport are all about. I think being able to get out to BC this year really has given our group the added motivation and a little bit of a confidence boost to say, “Hey, we are doing things the right way. It is going to be hard, but let's keep putting in the work, because we are getting there.”

Harrison Matsuoka, Raiders LC, 2019 Minto Cup (Photo: BCJALL)

TLM: The RMJALL is holding steady at four teams, so you’re constantly just playing the same three teams over and over again. What else have the Raiders done to kind of diversify your training and competition?

AM: We have brought in former Raiders, guys like Harrison Matsuoka, who’s obviously in the NLL now, to work with us. Like it's great how hard we compete against ourselves, but you need outside people to come in too. We've talked to the Rocky Mountain Senior B teams about playing a game against them. The Senior B League in the Rocky Mountain has lots of former NLL guys. The Miners are a great program. There's a lot of talent that way, but we're just trying to find different ways to change practices to compete differently, to make us better. We’ve talked to the National Collegiate Box Series teams too. We’d love to play those American teams. I would love to get a partnership where if they bring a league team, an all-star team, whatever, we’ll give them some games and help each other out ultimately. Hell, I’ll go to frickin’ New Jersey, Denver, wherever, if it means we can compete in a different way and get better.

In order to get to that next level, you have to get our of our comfort zone, and do things differently. We do different drills all the time. I guarantee, if coaches came to see some of what we do, they would literally be like, “What the fuck are these guys doing?” We have hectic drills, we have crazy random drills, we do it differently no doubt. There’s no standing around at a Raiders practice. We are constantly trying to ramp up the level of compete, work on attacking in close situations, and really quick decision making. We find new ways to compete, because once we get to the Minto, the compete level is elite and we need to be ready.

TLM: Not everyone will probably remember this setup, but in the early years of the RMJALL, the Junior A teams would play Senior B teams as part of their regular season schedule. Do you think that could work again today?

AM: I do. I think it's something you seriously need to take into consideration. It was done back then because we were short on numbers, but the worry was you’d have the Junior A kids getting beat up by the Senior B guys. Well, that's not the case now. So many players that are playing Senior B now were kids that came through the Junior A league and got great coaching, and many are still striving to play at the next level. Alberta Senior B has players playing in the NLL. I mean look at the Miners team last year, even them Mounties. So, I think to play even them once or twice a year would be a huge bonus and something we seriously need to look at to expand our development.

Not everyone will like this, but there’s too many Junior B teams here, and not enough players to fill them. So when I draft players this year, we're trying to run floor times and I have seven Junior B teams running floor times at the exact same time. Now the parents are like, “Well, my kids are getting burnt out.” And they 100% are. It's so backwards. We’ve got more B teams than we have players that can fill them. If that’s not going to change, then incorporating Senior B teams into our schedule should be seriously looked at.

TLM: Like we’ve already said, not many expected the Raiders to be in last year’s Minto Cup, largely due to your age. What were the team’s own expectations going into last summer’s Minto in Coquitlam?

AM: I think expectations were one of unknown. I liked on paper what we had done. I liked the hard games that we had got. I thought we played above where you would expect a team so young to be at. I thought our compete, energy, and overall pace of play was right up there for the majority of the games. One thing that really stood out to me was that we were behind physically. We were behind in the ability to get to the net at an elite level. We were behind in being able to sustain an elevated pace and the loose ball battles for the whole life of a game. But we were so young, there's no way we weren't the youngest team ever to go to the Minto. We had to have been to have two 21-year-olds and legitimately one 20-year-old. That’s remarkable for a team at the Minto. Cup winners are usually loaded with 20 and 21-year-olds, so for us to have already gotten there last year, that says a lot about this group. We’ve taken the lessons we learned last year, and we’re a better team for it this year.

TLM: How about this year?

AM: These kids really are trying to operate at a super-high level in everything we do. Their own expectations were high from the start of the season this year, and that’s big. We're pushing the pace, we're getting out of our comfort zone, and that's not easy to do. The leadership in our group with the young kids, the group as a team has really, really risen to that occasion and it's special to watch. I go to practice and I’m honestly inspired by them. I want to do all I can to help this team succeed because they're doing all they can. You look back after coaching - and it's funny because none of us have kids, we don't have any dogs in this fight - to see everybody pulling on the rope and kids come back in five years and talking about their time here, or they're asking you to be the reference on their resume. That's the stuff that's really special. And to see people that are so dialled into that, it's exciting and motivating, it makes me want to give them the best opportunity and do anything I can to help them foster this experience.

TLM: Often, the rest of the country is only discovering the Rocky Mountain’s top players once the Minto rolls around. Who are some Raiders everyone outside of Alberta needs to be aware of?

AM: He was at the Minto last year, but Wyatt Viste is definitely one of those players. He took a big step this year. I think he is one of these kids that's really coming to his own on the offensive end, really playing with a lot of confidence, really taking his game to the next level with or without the ball, and is the type of leader in what Brett (Hickey) wants on the offensive end. I think that the biggest compliment I can give him, is that he makes things happen. Those are the types of players you see at Mintos every year, making a difference and dictating how the games are won and lost. We’ve seen him making some unreal players this year and you feel like you’re watching an elite player from Ontario. That's the kind of thing that we need if we’re going to get this done. Wyatt had really elevated his game in terms of that.

And then on the defensive end, we've got a lot of guys. I mean Carson Mann's doing a great job bringing the energy, being an amazing captain, and kind of pushing the pace in transition, but there's other guys: Rhys Ursell, Noah Everson, Brody Tweit, Zach Moen, and the rest of that group are all really playing at an elite level, so it's hard to single only a few out.

Another offensive player to keep your eye on is Cole Morris, who had a great school season this past year. I think he was second in the country in goals per game, playing under John Grant Jr. at Lees-McRae College. He came back with a little swagger and he's doing some things that are, once again, at an elite level. His ability to shoot the ball, ability to get to the net, enter the floor with pace on a consistent level, well, it’s been really impressive.

With that said, I think our best skill is we're a by-committee team. Everybody's pulling their weight, everybody's doing their thing. I know that's what Brett likes on offense. It's like, man, we have guys that can get hot every game and everybody at a different time can heat up and take over. It’s exciting stuff.

TLM: The approach you’ve taken with the Raiders and the window of opportunity you’ve created by the way you’ve constructed this still very young squad is not really something we’ve seen before. Why should Canada pay attention to the Raiders Lacrosse Club this summer and at least until 2027?

AM: We understand people outside of our room don’t believe in what we’re doing, we see the comments that we’re less than Ontario and BC, that Rocky Mountain teams have an easy path to the Minto Cup, that we don’t deserve to be there. We embrace that. We’re very aware of who we are and where we come from, and that nothing short of a Minto win for this league will quiet the critics. The more you say we or the Rocky Mountain league sucks, the harder we work, the more we do things others aren’t willing to do, the more motivated we become. We want to prove the haters wrong, but we get it, and it’s a valid criticism. We’re doing everything in our power to change the landscape, and I truly believe that we have the players and coaches to make it happen. We graduate zero guys this year. We graduate five guys next year. This is our time. Whether we accomplish that or not during this window we’ve made for ourselves, we’ll see, but at the end of the day, I know that every player and every coach that has been part of this push will be able to look themselves in the mirror and say, “I did everything I could to win a Minto Cup.”

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