Coaches Calls Brad Challoner

Welcome to NLL semifinals weekend!



Only four teams remain: Albany will play San Diego, and in the time-honored tradition of the best rivalry in lacrosse, Toronto will host Buffalo.



On this week’s podcast: Rusty Krueger. He is the offensive coordinator for the Toronto Rock and also the head coach of the Orangeville Northmen in the Ontario Junior Lacrosse League. Krug Dog, one of the most renowned offensive minds in the game, joined the Rock coaching staff in 2021. Prior to that, he served as an assistant coach with the Buffalo Bandits.



We often talk about coaching trees in sports, and I always like to trace back the lineage of who guys learned their styles and philosophies from. Well, when you’re from Orangeville, the answer is usually Terry Sanderson, but it’s also the guys you surround yourself with. Josh and Phil Sanderson, the Merrill Brothers, Matt Sawyer, and Troy Cordingley, who is there now, but Rusty Kruger is also a name synonymous with Orangeville lacrosse. He’s cut from the same cloth and has brought a tradition of excellence, a give-back mentality, and a will to win everywhere he’s played and coached.



As a player, he won an NLL championship with the Rock in 2005 and played 11 seasons total in the NLL. He’s won 6 Minto Cups as a player or coach – that has to be close to if not a record – as a player with Orangeville in ’93, ’95, and ’96 and as a coach in ’08, ’09, and 2019. One of the great captains in Northmen history, he also once sucker-punched Jake Elliott in the chin – so that’s not something a lot of guys can put on a resume. And all-around beauty, really.



On this podcast, we take a look at this weekend’s semi-final series against the Buffalo Bandits, what makes Orangeville lacrosse so successful, some of his offensive principles, and striking a balance between structure and creativity.



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It's playoff eve!



On this bonus episode of Coaches Calls, we preview the highly anticipated 2024 NLL Playoffs with exclusive highlights of conversations with the 8 NLL head coaches still competing for the NLL Cup.   

Insights, strategies, expectations and philosophies from Matt Sawyer (Toronto Rock), Mike Hasen (Rochester Knighthawks), Patrick Merrill (San Diego Seals), Tracey Kelusky (Panther City Lacrosse Club), Glenn Clark (Albany Firewolves), Mike Accursi (Halifax Thunderbirds), John Tavares (Buffalo Bandits), and Ed Comeau (Georgia Swarm).  



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John Lintz has a lacrosse path and resume like no other. And a chip on his shoulder.



Growing up in Edmonton, he had to roll the dice early and headed west to Coquitlam to try out for the Junior Adanacs in 2006.



Now as Head Coach of the Edmonton Miners Junior A team, he is a big reason why Alberta boys and girls don’t have to leave home anymore to carve a path to college or the pros.



He won three NLL Championships before stepping aside at 32 to coach the Vancouver Stealth’s defence. The youngest coach in the league at the time. He returned to the floor with the Colorado Mammoth in 2022 and won another title as a player.



As a coach, he took an Alberta team further in the Minto Cup than any Rocky Mountain Junior team had a gone before – to the finals against Whitby in 2022.



Edmonton with high hopes hosted the tourney in 2023 with heavy expectation to win it all. We’ll talk in this episode about why he thinks they fell short and the lessons learned.



A member of the Rush dynasty in Edmonton and
Saskatchewan, he also won an NLL Championship as a practice roster rookie in Calgary in 2009. We’ll hear how GM Terry Sanderson made players 1 through 25 feel like such an important piece of that team. A lesson Lintz still thinks about and uses today.



An educator and multi-sport coach, it won’t be long before Lintz is back behind an NLL bench when he’s ready and the right opportunity arises.



On this episode we talk about his coaching foundation of role definitions, honesty, and the evolution and growth that is so important to junior lacrosse players.



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Troy Cordingley’s NLL coaching career has come full circle, all in an effort to never stop learning, growing and changing. He's all about lacrosse.



A two-time NLL Champion head coach. 2008 Calgary and 2011 Toronto.



Two-time Les Bartley Award winner for head coach of the
year. 2008 Calgary and 2013 Toronto.



He is fifth all-time in career coaching wins with 107.



He started his NLL coaching career as an assistant with
Buffalo and after head coaching gigs in most of the NLL’s most important markets; Calgary, Toronto, Buffalo and Vancouver, he’s currently an associate coach for Josh Sanderson back in Calgary with the Roughnecks. Coaching next to the son of his mentor, the late Terry Sanderson.



He has coached junior ‘A’, minor lacrosse, Major Series and in the women’s game all while maintaining a career as an elementary school teacher in his home province of Ontario.



Known as one of the fiercest, most passionate competitors the game has ever seen, Troy is trying to marry some of his old school tactics with the modern game and player. In this episode we talk about his fundamental traits of the most successful teams, how to keep adapting as a coach and what the sport as a whole can learn from the women’s game.



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For the first since the 1993 Orangeville Northmen, the Minto Cup had a first time champion in 2023 – the Burlington Blaze.

From 2007 - 2022, only four teams have won Canada’s national junior A lacrosse championship - Six Nations, Orangeville, Whitby and Coquitlam.

History and tradition were not on Burlington’s side.

That all changed when Head Coach Dan MacRae’s vision started to take shape.   

An NLL and Mann Cup champion as a defensive stalwart player, MacRae brought a confidence and belief to the Blaze that had never quite fully developed before. A long-term plan.

They knocked off an undefeated Orangeville team in the
Ontario final, battled a travel nightmare to Edmonton, and came from behind in multiple Minto games, en-route to a magical national championship title. It is the kind of run movies are built to tell.

Dan MacRae is also in his first season as the defensive coordinator for the Colorado Mammoth in the NLL.

A proven leader and captain of 2 different NLL teams, he only retired from playing in 2023 so he is bringing a fresh perspective to a pro bench in a role that he’s learning and growing in towards a bright future.

Originally drafted by the Calgary Roughnecks in 2010, he played 12 NLL seasons, 9 under head coach Curt Malawsky in Calgary, and his final 3 with the then expansion New York Riptide.

The Oakville native played college lacrosse at RIT and his junior lacrosse in Burlington so it is close to his heart.

On this episode, we talk about getting Burlington to believe, what he has learned from Pat Coyle and Curt Malawsky and how his personal leadership style is taking form.

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The shorter the bio, the more impressive the man.

John Tavares is the GOAT.

The all time leader in goals and points in the history of the National Lacrosse League.

A three-time league MVP in ’94, 2000 and 2001. In addition, four time champion in ’92, ’93, ’96 and 2008. He was inducted into the NLL Hall of Fame in 2016.

Lacrosse’s Wayne Gretzky he is not. He is John Tavares. He is ours. He belongs to Banditland, the city of Buffalo where he played for 24 seasons, and now coaches and stares up at his retired #11 hung from the rafters of the Key Bank Centre. A place where up to 17,000 screaming fans go to watch lacrosse on weekends – in large part because of what he helped build. A culture of winning.

An intelligent, cerebral player with an edge, he played until his mid 40’s and is one of only two players ever to have played more than 300 games.

The Bandits tapped him to run their offence after he retired and after a few seasons he was named Head Coach. After falling in the finals in 2019 and 2022, Tavares led the Bandits to their first championship in 15 years when they defeated the Colorado Mammoth in 2023.

He is a low key kinda shy guy who avoids media stuff if he can. Maybe that is the key to his success? Nothing else matters. It is the locker room and being close to the game where he shines and you will hear in this chat that it is still the intricacies of the game that motivate him and that motivating others is still not his favourite thing to do.

On this episode, we discuss his in game principals, the pre-game speech, and the secret ingredient of the most
successful teams.

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