Jamieson nets MVP and Mann Cup championship

Cody Jamieson has won yet another prestigious lacrosse championship.

The 26-year-old Mohawk was one of the main reasons Ontario’s Six Nations Chiefs captured the Mann Cup, the Canadian senior lacrosse championship.

The Chiefs defeated the host Victoria Shamrocks 4-2 in the best-of-seven national championship series.

Six Nations capped off the series with an 8-5 victory in Game 6, held on Sept. 13.

All of the matches in the national final were staged in Victoria as the event rotates each year between Ontario and British Columbia.

The Mann Cup final traditionally features the champs from the Ontario Lacrosse Association (OLA) and the Western Lacrosse Association.

Jamieson, who is from Ohsweken, led his hometown Chiefs to this year’s championship by racking up 29 points (13 goals and 16 assists) in six games. For his efforts, he was selected as the most valuable player of the series and presented with the Mike Kelly Memorial Trophy.

“I can’t say enough about his performance,” Duane Jacobs, the Chiefs’ general manager and assistant coach, said of Jamieson. “When we needed a goal or something to happen, he was usually the one to deliver.”

For the Chiefs, this marked their fourth Mann Cup title. Jacobs was a player with the Six Nations team when it won three consecutive national championships from 1994-96.

“Cody was just a young kid when we won,” Jacobs said. “He remembered it though and that was one of his goals, to win a Mann Cup.

“Now hopefully there was some young kid in the community who watched the team this year and it makes them want to be a part of it. Hopefully, it won’t be so long between victories.”

Jamieson has played for the Chiefs for the past five years. Though recent Six Nation teams were also rather competitive, they were unable, until this year, to beat a pair of perennial Ontario powers, Peterborough Lakers and Brampton Excelsiors, to advance to the Mann Cup series.

“I think it was just a matter of growing pains,” Jamieson said. “We had to learn to play at this level.”

A year ago the Chiefs had advanced to the OLA championship series, but they were downed 4-2 in the best-of-seven Ontario final by the eventual Mann Cup champions from Peterborough.
For Jamieson, who also plays the sport professionally with the National Lacrosse League’s Rochester Knighthawks, the Mann Cup was the second major title he’s won this year. The Knighthawks captured their second consecutive NLL crown earlier this spring.

Jamieson also has four other championship rings from his career.
He won a Minto Cup, a Canadian Junior A crown, with the Six Nations Arrows in 2007. He also won a pair of national junior college titles with the Syracuse-based Onondaga Community College Lazers in 2006 and ’07. And then he was a member of the Syracuse University men’s side that won the NCAA title in 2009.

Jacobs believes Jamieson has no equal in the sport these days. And that’s why he wasn’t surprised with Jamieson’s performances at the Mann Cup.

“Cody was terrific,” he said. “He did everything that was expected out of somebody that is the best lacrosse player in the world.”

Jacobs admitted he was somewhat worried whether the Chiefs would be able to bring home the national title since the Shamrocks had home-floor advantage throughout the series.

“I think there was some concern,” he said. “(Ontario teams) had won it seven years in a row prior to us winning. At some point that streak is going to come to an end. It’s usually tougher to win out west.”

Despite averaging almost five points per game in the Mann Cup series, Jamieson believes he won the MVP award, almost by default.

“It’s an honour especially with the number of quality players on our team,” he said. “Our defence, though, won us that championship. All of the guys played equally as great so they couldn’t give it to just one of the defenders.”

Victoria won the series opener before the Chiefs came back to register a win in Game 2. The Shamrocks again took the series lead with a Game 3 victory. Six Nations, however, reeled off three straight triumphs to capture the Mann Cup.

One might assume the turning point in the series was Game 5, when the Chiefs prevailed and took a 3-2 lead. But Jacobs isn’t quite so sure.

“I don’t know if there was a turning point,” he said. “I think we just kept going. We kept our foot on the gas. And we just wore them down.”