Junior B |
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| Sport | Box lacrosse |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1966 |
| No. of teams | 26 |
| Country(ies) | Canada |
| Most recent champion(s) | Halton Hills Bulldogs |
The Ontario Junior B Lacrosse League (OJBLL) is a box lacrosse league sanctioned by the Ontario Lacrosse Association in Ontario, Canada.
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The Junior "B" level of the Ontario Lacrosse Association has been around since at least 1964. At the national level, the OLA-B has been extremely dominant at the Founders Cup tournament only losing out to other leagues a handful of times in the last 40+ years.
The league has changed formats few times in the last few decades. The league has played with no divisions (1990) and with as many as seven (2005). The league presently has 26 teams, but is ever expanding. In the past few years, the league has expanded to Oakville, Windsor, London, Cornwall, Hamilton, Niagara, Markham, Orangeville, and Welland. Also, for the 2007 season, the City of Caledon applied to resurrect its old Caledon Bandits franchise, but was offered a spot in the new OLA Junior C Lacrosse League in 2008.
In recent years, the most dominant team has been the Clarington Green Gaels. Between 1998 and 2004, the Gaels won 4 Founders Cups as Canadian Junior "B" champions and 2 OLA-B Championships. Of the recent expansion of the league, the Oakville Buzz have been the most remarkable franchise to be built. With only 4 losses in 40 games during the 2005 and 2006 seasons, the Buzz were favourites to win the 2005 league title and Founders Cup. Sadly, the Buzz fell short to the eventual Founders Cup champions, the Elora Mohawks, 3 games to 1 in the league final. In 2006, the team went 19-1 and strolled through the playoffs with little opposition. The Buzz went undefeated at the Founders Cup and crushed the hopes of the host Windsor AKO Fratmen, beating them by a score of 10-4 in the final.
Players from the OLA-B and the OLA-A are often drafted straight into the professional level of lacrosse, the National Lacrosse League.
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