The city of Coquitlam is situated in the southwest corner of British Columbia (Lower Mainland), twenty minutes east from the city of Vancouver. With the large population base of the area (2 million) lacrosse is played in most surrounding communities such as Burnaby, Port Coquitlam, Port Moody, New Westminster, Maple Ridge, Surrey, Langley, Richmond, North & South Delta to name just a few.
Lacrosse games between community teams are highly skilled, competitive events with a rivalry starting at U7 through to U17 for youth and U7 through to U22 for females.
Lacrosse season in our area runs from April through July with our provincial championships happening the end of July. CMLA hosts three tournaments during the playing season, the Jean Andre Tournament, the Female Adanac Challenge tournament, and the Trevor Wingrove Memorial. These tournaments are considered to be top rated tournaments in our area, and fill up with waiting lists the first day. Please visit the tournament page for updated tournament information.
Coquitlam Minor Lacrosse was established in the mid seventies led by Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame member Les Wingrove. Les had been involved with Lacrosse his whole life and understood the deep connections to the First Nations, the originators of the sport of Lacrosse.
Les commissioned a local artist originally from the Squamish Nation to freehand draw the current-day logo on the floor of the Poirier Main Arena. That same year, the logo was added to the jerseys which actually used a large letter "C" with the current runner with baby in Tikinagan (Cradleboard). It then changed to the current large letter "A" with the runner and baby in Tikinagan which continues to this day.
"The artist described to Les how he wanted to capture the roots and heritage of Baggataway which was the tradition of newborn male babies receiving a Lacrosse stick at birth as a connection to Earth and to keep that stick until they pass. The drawing was done to represent a young male warrior teaching his newborn baby the Creator's Game and to do so with pride. Also in the logo, the young male warrior wears a traditional headband with an Eagle feather proudly displayed. In Indigenous culture, warriors were awarded a feather when they won a battle or were particularly brave in battle. This is a treasured gift from the sky."
Our logo is filled with history, pride and tradition and is designed to capture the history of our game. We are extremely mindful of the current environment regarding teams reviewing their use of culturally insensitive names or logos which are insensitive representations and we felt it was important to provide our members with the history and meaning of our logo.
The artist and Les Wingrove have since passed away unfortunately but we have undertaken numerous steps to ensure we are following respectful acknowledgement of the people who gave us this game.
A few years ago, the City of Coquitlam commissioned a Senior Executive to engage with the Kwikwetlem First Nation and receive acceptance from them on the logo which would be placed on the floor at Poirier. This Kwikwetlem Nation provided approval of the logo with acceptance to use on City infrastructure.
