Sports

It’s a rebuilding year for the Junior B Northmen

April 16, 2026   ·   0 Comments

By Brian Lockhart

Lacrosse season is almost here, and that means Orangeville, one of the most successful lacrosse centres in the country, will once again be filling the local arenas with fans to watch their teams battle it out for the 2026 season.

The Town is one of only a couple of centres across the country where the sport has such influence that it supports three junior-level teams.

The Orangeville Junior B Northmen are going through a rebuilding season this year.

After a successful 2025 season, the Junior A ranks were depleted due to player graduations. That means the A ranks are drawing from the B roster to fill their line-up for the season.

The Junior B team must now fill its roster with new upcoming players. They have already played a couple of pre-season exhibition games.

“We lost 15 players from last year’s team. Ten of them will probably move up to the Junior A team, and five of them went over age,” explained Junior B Northmen General Manager Lindsay Sanderson. “It’s a rebuild year that we are working on.”

A rebuild year is not new for Junior sports clubs. As players advance or graduate, coaches and general managers begin looking for new players to fill roster spots.

The higher-level teams always draw from the other teams in an organization.

“The Junior A club, they’ve been in the Minto Cup for the last two years. When you’re challenging for the cup, you have to make trades and try to get the edge,” Sanderson explained. “They’ve had to rely on our team to fill a lot of their void. The nice thing about it is we’re a lacrosse town and there are some really good quality kids that played for us last year that will do well with the Junior A’s.”

Sanderson said they are now looking at players who graduated from the Minor system last year.

“There will be four or five of the top U17 players that will make our team and we will probably take three or four from the Junior C team who have played a couple of years at Junior C and now they’re ready for Junior B. We also brought in a couple of young men from Nova Scotia on an inter-provincial transfer, so we’re filling the void.”

The Ontario Junior B Lacrosse League has 24 teams in two divisions this year. The Northmen are in the West Division.

The Orangeville Junior B Northmen regular season will get underway on Thursday, Apr. 23, when they travel to Hamilton to take on the Bengals.

The Northmen Junior B home opener is scheduled for Saturday, May, 2, when they will host the Wallaceburg Red Devils at the Alder Street arena in Orangeville.

Game time is 7:00 p.m.

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