Chaos set to compete for a MacDonald Cup

By Lethbridge Herald on August 6, 2024.

By Justin Seward

Lethbridge Herald

The Southern Alberta Chaos Tier II Junior B lacrosse are hosting some of the best teams from the west for this level in the MacDonald Cup this week in Brooks.

“We had a really good weekend last weekend in provincials,” said Jared Capner, Chaos head coach.

“We didn’t finish the way we wanted to finish but we had a lot of really good learning experiences come out of it, so we’re just going to take kind of what we learned from last weekend and implement it this week … We were pretty confident in what our team was able to do last weekend and what our expectations are for this weekend and with the extra pick-ups, that we’re going to be in a pretty good spot this week.”

The Chaos are using film to scout their opponents.

“The joys of today’s day and age is we have the ability to look for teams that have film,” said Capner.

“Every team that we’re playing against has a game or two here or there on You Tube or through different social media platforms that we’re able to kind of go back and take a look at and see what kind of systems they run, what kind of ‘D’ (defensive )systems they run, how they’re powerplay (and) penalty kill kind of operate.”

Capner said this is going to be a very fun weekend.

“I think all the teams that are going to be here are all very well matched up,” said Capner.

“I don’t think there’s going to be any major runaways.”

The Chaos have only been in the Rocky Mountain Lacrosse League Junior B Tier II ranks for three years and it’s huge for the team to host this event.

“Being able to host this tournament allows more people to see high level lacrosse in southern Alberta,” said Capner.

“It’s an awesome experience for these guys and for our fifth years, if we hadn’t hosted, this isn’t something they were (going to) get to do.”

The Chaos just came off their first-ever provincial experience where they took note of a few things for this week.

“(Those teams) capitalize on maybe  a missed opportunity on the defence or something like that,” said Capner.

 “So that was something that we definitely learned throughout the weekend here was we have to capitalize on those opportunities because you might not get another one throughout the game.”

The team learned how to handle their youth on the court.

“Like I said, we’re real young,” said Capner.

 “So when the average age of the offence on the weekend is 17 (and) going up against 21-year-old defenders, it’s a big step for these guys. So everybody handled themselves very well.”

The Chaos went winless at their Junior B provincial tournament in St. Albert.

The Western Canadian Junior B Lacrosse Invitational will see the Chaos, Calgary Wranglers, Lakeland Heat, Prince Albert Predators and Swift Current Wolverines compete for the title.

The event is in Brooks because their home arena in Taber has the ice put in early.

The event runs today through Sunday and results can be found at http://www.macdonaldcup.ca while the livestream can be found at m.twitch.tv/macdonaldcuplax/home.

The Chaos are made up of players from communities across Southern Alberta, includingf from Lethbridge.

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