History

MANN, THESE GUYS ARE GOOD!

The Victoria Shamrocks began in 1950 and the team’s name has been inscribed nine times on the national box lacrosse championship trophy since.

The Mann Cup in the Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame

The following is an edited and updated excerpt from a Times Colonist article written by Cleve Dheensaw, originally written in 2009, looking back on the long legacy of a local sports institution.

To fully appreciate the Victoria Shamrocks’ current 75 + seasons of lacrosse, just look at the staggering number of local professional or Senior ‘A’ teams in various sports that have come and gone during that time. A partial list includes the pro Cougars and Maple Leafs and major-junior Cougars of hockey, O’Keefes and pro Vistas of soccer, Bates-Budgets-Royals of softball, Chinooks, Scorpions, Maplettes and Rawlings of basketball and pro Athletics, Tyees, Mussels, Blues and Capitals of baseball. That is the nature of the sporting business. Nothing is forever. Yet the Shamrocks have endured.

The inaugural executive committee of 1950

With the completion of the Memorial Arena in downtown Victoria in 1949, the Victoria Shamrocks joined the Inter-City Lacrosse League, known today as the Western Lacrosse Association, in 1950. The inaugural executive committee of playing president Andy Ovcharick, vice-president Alex MacDonald, secretary-treasurer Bob Mason, manager Ralph Baker and playing head coach Arnold Ferguson formed the team and began selling the game to the people of Victoria. In addition to Ovcharick and Ferguson, team captain and leading scorer Duff McCaghey, goaltender Bill Andrews, Norm Coates, John 'Red' McMillan, Fred Ranson, Art Green, Len Scott, Larry Booth, Bob Monaghan, Ed Popham, Daryl Popham, Steve Rynoski, Vic Sage and Tom Druce formed the backbone of that first Shamrocks team.

The team has operated continuously since and even more than the nine Mann Cup Canadian Senior ‘A’ championships the club won in 1955, 1957, 1979, 1983 (as Victoria Payless), 1997, 1999, 2003, 2005 and 2015, it is the franchise’s longevity that is its most impressive legacy. It would be hard to imagine the local sports scene without the Shamrocks.

It is reflective of lacrosse’s deeply laid roots here that, in 1999, when Sports Illustrated picked its list of the 50 greatest Canadian athletes of the 20th century, two of the three Victoria athletes cited were lacrosse players and former Shamrocks — superstar twins Paul and Gary Gait along with Olympic rower Silken Laumann.

After a strong start with two Mann Cup titles within its first decade of existence with starry old-school players such as Archie Browning, Fred “Whitey” Severson,Arnie Ferguson, Pee Wee Bradshaw, Jack Bionda, Jackie Northup and Geordie Johnston, there was a long dry spell as the team waited 22 years before its next national title in 1979.

It was only the exploits of the quicksilver and gifted Dillon brothers — Ranjit and Nirmal — that kept things afloat through the otherwise barren 1960s before the club found its footing again in the mid to late 1970s, led by legends such as Ivan Thompson and then Kevin Alexander. The next great era ran from 1996 to 2006, when the club practically lived in the Western Lacrosse Association finals and Mann Cup, winning the national title twice in that span with the fabulous Gaits.

Gary and Paul Gait in 1999

Current Shamrocks general manager Chris Welch says: “Whenever we draft local guys, they tell us they’ve been waiting their whole lives for this moment because they’ve always looked up to the Shamrocks.”

“The Shamrocks’ history and tradition is about a lot of things like the love this community has for lacrosse and the way this organization has conducted itself over the years representing Victoria and the game in general. There have been lean years, but overall, it’s one of the most successful lacrosse teams in history. It’s the pride that goes with that. And the players know it’s a great honour to play for the Shamrocks because of this history. We have players across the country wanting to play in Victoria. This breeds success because the players we get are quality individuals. And locally, from Greater Victoria minor lacrosse through to the juniors, players dream of playing for the Shamrocks because they grew up watching Shamrocks lacrosse.”

Jesse King in 2015

The late Chris Hall spent 19 seasons with the Shamrocks, nine as a player and 10 as coach. Hall was involved at the international level in field lacrosse with Team Canada but said his greatest memory in the sport remains his first game in Shamrocks green in the 1970s.

“I thought my feet would rise off the floor during the national anthem — that’s how emotionally high I was,” recalled Hall who coached in the National Lacrosse League, and whose father Leon helped found the club in 1950.

“After all those years growing up watching Shamrocks lacrosse, all of a sudden I was part of the team. It was such a heady feeling because I grew up surrounded by the tradition of this club and now I was a part of it.”

Shamrocks legends John Crowther, Chris Hall and Kevin Alexander

Victoria has a reputation of having articulate and knowledgeable fans in a number of sports, including rugby, soccer and baseball. Lacrosse is very much on that list. In a poll taken a few years ago of players in the professional National Lacrosse League, they voted Victoria fans the best lacrosse spectators in North America.

“The fans here are first class … these people know the game,” said former player, head coach and assistant coach Art Webster. “You talk to people who have been coming to Shamrocks games for over 50 years. They know their stuff and are loyal. When you have 2,400 people cheering for you in a 2,400-seat arena, it’s pretty exciting. We run it like a professional team. The players get treated very well and are looked after. Players who go on after playing for the Shamrocks always rave that it’s the best thing that ever happened to them in their careers.”

It is oddly distant to hear people from the prairies talk of playing hockey in winter and baseball in summer. In lacrosse hotbeds such as Victoria, New Westminster and Coquitlam in B.C. and Peterborough, Brantford, Brampton and Whitby in Ontario, the big connection has always been hockey in winter and lacrosse in summer. Gordie Howe of Floral, Sask., was a baseball guy in summer but Wayne Gretzky of Brantford was a lacrosse player. Books written about Gretzky and Victoria’s two-time NBA MVP Steve Nash show pictures of both holding lacrosse sticks as kids. That’s what comes with growing up in a lacrosse town. And — sorry Brantford — there is probably no bigger lacrosse town than Victoria.

‘The fierce loyalty of Shamrocks players and alumni is matched by the equally fierce loyalty to the club and to the game itself shown by Victoria lacrosse fans,” Hall notes.

The Shamrocks, however, now find themselves in a crowded Victoria summer sports calendar and up against the baseball Harbour Cats and Pacific FC of Canadian Premier League soccer and also this city’s famous penchant for running, rowing, cycling and sailing from the grassroots thousands right on up to the Summer Olympics.

Yet it’s no different than the dynamism at play when the Shamrocks came into existence in the 1950s, when every Victoria team held its own. The Shamrocks and Lester Patrick’s Cougars of the old professional Western Hockey League drew large crowds to Memorial Arena and the professional baseball Athletics and Tyees and soccer sides, which would often play top touring English clubs such as Fulham, did the same at Royal Athletic Park.

“Back then, there weren’t as many things to do like tennis, slowpitch, squash or curling and, as a result, crowds used to average 3,500 to 4,000 at Memorial Arena for our Shamrocks lacrosse games,” the late Archie Browning, one of the greatest Shamrocks stars of all-time, once noted. “Every sports team in Victoria drew well.”

Big Victoria crowds are happening again for hockey, baseball and soccer. Through it all, the Shamrocks continue to hold their own with a staunchly diehard and passionate fan base. If Tommy Lasorda famously bled Dodger blue, many in Victoria have oozed Shamrocks green over the years and continue to do so.

“It’s really hard to explain … people talk about bleeding green and about what it means to be a Shamrock runs deep,” Welch says.

“In its own way, it’s similar to the Montreal Canadiens in hockey — being part of a legacy that has been very significant in the community. Once a Shamrock, always a Shamrock. There is nothing like putting on the clover and wearing the green and white. You can’t put it into words, but you know it’s there and you are immediately immersed in it.”

Derek Malawsky in 2005

TEAM HIGHLIGHTS

Mann Cup Appearances and Results:

1953: lost to Peterborough 4 games to 1
1954: lost to Peterborough 4 games to 1
1955: defeated Peterborough 4 games to 1
1957: defeated Long Branch 4 games to 0
1978: lost to Peterborough 4 games to 3
1979: defeated Peterborough 4 games to 0
1983: defeated Peterborough 4 games to 2
1984: lost to Peterborough 4 games to 1
1996: lost to Six Nations 4 games to 0
1997: defeated Niagara Falls 4 games to 1
1999: defeated Brampton 4 games to 0
2000: lost to Brooklin 4 games to 0
2002: lost to Brampton 4 games to 3
2003: defeated Brampton 4 games to 1
2004: lost to Peterborough 4 games to 2
2005: defeated Peterborough 4 games to 2
2006: lost to Peterborough 4 games to 1
2013: lost to Six Nations 4 games to 2
2014: lost to Six Nations 4 games to 2
2015: defeated Peterborough 4 games to 2
2019: lost to Peterborough 4 games to 1
2024: lost to Six Nations 4 games to 1

Provincial Championships (22):

1953; 1954; 1955; 1957; 1978, 1979; 1983; 1984; 1996; 1997; 1999; 2000; 2002; 2003; 2004; 2005; 2006; 2013; 2014; 2015; 2019; 2024

First Place Finishes (24):

1951; 1952; 1953; 1954; 1957; 1976; 1978; 1979; 1986; 1997; 1998; 1999; 2000; 2001; 2002; 2004; 2005; 2006; 2009; 2014, 2015; 2016; 2019; 2024

Perfect Season:

In 2024 the Shamrocks became the first team in WLA history to record a perfect season with a record of 18 wins and no losses.

League Scoring Champions:

Ranjit Dillon 1967; Kevin Alexander 1980, 1981, 1983, 1984, 1985; Jim Meredith 1986; Rick Brown 1991, 1993, 1994; Tyson Leies 1996; Ted Dowling 2001; Lewis Ratcliff 2004, 2006, 2009; Rhys Duch/Corey Small 2014; Corey Small 2015; Rhys Duch 2016; Corey Small 2017; Jesse King 2022

League Playoff MVPs:

1978 Ron MacNeil; 1979 Larry Smeltzer; 1983 Bob Cool; 1984 Mac Maude/Kevin Alexander; 1995 Darren Reisig; 1996 Grant Hamilton/Chris Prat; 1997 Gary Gait/Chris Prat; 1999 Paul Gait; 2000 Gary Gait; 2002 Matt Roik and Blaine Manning; 2003 Andy Turner; 2004 Anthony Cosmo; 2005 Dan Dawson; 2006 Dan Dawson; 2013 Matt Vinc; 2014 Tyler Hass; 2015 Aaron Bold; 2019 Pete Dubenski

Mike Kelley Award Winners Mann Cup MVPs:

1955 Geordie Johnston; 1957 Jack Northup; 1979 Ivan Thompson; 1983 John Crowther; 1997 Gary Gait; 1999 Gary Gait and Paul Gait; 2003 Andy Turner; 2005 Anthony Cosmo; 2015 Corey Small

Winners of the George Blackstock Memorial Trophy as the Victoria Shamrocks Most Valuable Player:

1952 - Whitey Severson

1953 - Whitey Severson

1954 - Geordie Johnston

1955 - Arnold Ferguson

1956 - Bill Bamford

1957 - Jack Bionda

1958 - Tom Druce

1959 - Alan Gill

1960 - Alan Gill

1961 - Al Davies

1962 - Whitey Severson and Barry Forbes