Mark Bjarnason

husband, dad, part time boat driver and hockey coach

[RMLL @RMLaxL]

Congratulations to @JrBShamrocks for winning the bronze medal at the Founders Cup.

[Calgary Shamrocks @JrBShamrocks]

The Alumni Game is BACK for another year and we're looking for players. Former Shamrocks, get signed up!

[Calgary Shamrocks @JrBShamrocks]

Big game today! Go Shamrocks Go.

[Calgary Shamrocks @JrBShamrocks]

Safe travels to the Rocks, leaving on a bus to Saskatchewan today. What's the go-to snack?

[Calgary Shamrocks @JrBShamrocks]

Sign Up Here ⬇️

https://t.co/bJ1jLdLHbP

[Calgary Shamrocks @JrBShamrocks]

Reese and Sorin with the hats tonight.

[Calgary Shamrocks @JrBShamrocks]

Tyler Auger makes it 7-2 on the peeper.

Reese the Goalie gets in on the stat sheet with an assist.

[Calgary Shamrocks @JrBShamrocks]

Starting goalie for the night is Reese!

[Calgary Shamrocks @JrBShamrocks]

Help support the Shamrocks as we inch closer to the 2025 season!

https://t.co/YS6tAQOeMo

[Arik Krause @KrauseArik]

We have reached the penultimate day before the start of the #LarryBishop2024 Memorial Cup, so far we have covered three teams, with only the hosts and in my opinion, the best team in the @RMLaxL to go.

Today we will look into the South Division Champion @JrBShamrocks, the gold standard of box lacrosse this season in the prairies.

Calgary finished the season with a stellar 19-1-0 record, with their only loss coming exactly half way through the season to the Winnipeg Blizzard, funnily enough about the time I said "I don't think they are gonna lose a game this year". Sorry Calgary!

The Shamrocks are as well balanced, disciplined and business-like as you'll see from any Junior level team in any sport. Calgary only took 179 PIMs this season, only one other team took less than 300 and that was the Silvertips. Calgary also finished the season with a league leading +167 goal differential.

Led by Zane Fletcher offensively (43-49-92), the Shamrocks have a staggering 5 players with 50+ points (Fletcher, Cej, Miller, Dobbyn & Anderson) with Gavin Feradi close behind at 48.

Although the Shamrocks are able to get up and down the floor with the best of them, they are a team that is much more comfortable settling the ball in the zone and working the shot clock with their entire front gate on the floor.

Defensively is where this team shines, only allowing a league leading (Shamrocks basically led the league in every metric) 116 goals in 20 games, Calgary makes teams fight tooth and nail to get inside, make very little mistakes on switches in the defensive zone and whenever a mistake does happen more often than not Josh Pilsner or Reese Bjarnason are up to the task, the latter with a .869% SV% and only 4.2GAA. However, I would expect Josh Pilsner to get the majority of the look in the Larry Bishop, he played every minute in the South Final for the Shamrocks allowing only 8 goals and a .867% in two games.

The Shamrocks started the season with a convincing 18-8 home opening victory over the Mountaineers, followed by a closer game with the Marauders that saw the Shamrocks improve to 2-0 after a 13-7 win.

They would then go on to play a three-game series set against the Southern Alberta Rockies in which they outscored them 70-9. There are some that say a lot of the Shamrocks metrics are inflated because they were able to play the Rockies 4 times this season. I find it hard to discredit a team that went 19-1 on the season personally.

Calgary would play much closer games against the Mounties, Mavericks and Chill in the middle of the season, but would near the halfway point with a polished 9-0 record and looking unbeatable.

Queue the only loss for the Shamrocks this season, an 11AM game against the visiting Winnipeg Blizzard and the Shamrocks would come out completely flat. Winnipeg would take a 4-1 lead into the first intermission and keep pace the rest of the way to give the Shamrocks their only loss of the season by a 12-7 final.

Obviously this didn't seem to phase the Shamrocks to badly as two games later they'd go into Edmonton and give the @RMLLWarriors their first loss on home floor in roughly two calendar years.

They'd rattle off 10 straight wins to close out the year, punching their ticket to the South Final and await the winner of the Marauders & Mounties series.

The @JrBMountaineers would beat @marauders_lax in two games in the South Semi-Final, setting up an all Calgary matchup in the Final.

The Mountaineers were able to keep the first game closer than a lot of people may have given them credit for but a 4 goal second period by the Shamrocks would lift them to a 7-4 Game 1 victory.

Game 2, unfortunately, was much closer to how people expected with the Shamrocks jumping to a big lead over their crosstown rivals. The Shamrocks would take Game 2 by a score of 13-5, punching their ticket to the Larry Bishop for the 6th time in the 9 year history of the tournament.

Calgary is coming into the Larry Bishop as the clear favorites and I personally don't think there is a team in the RMLL that is better equipped to handle that pressure than the Shamrocks thanks to Coach @JCrook21 and his staff.

Anything can happen in a short tournament like the Larry Bishop and that's why we love watching it, but if I was a betting man, my money would be on the Calgary Shamrocks to win this tournament and punch their ticket to the Founders Cup for the first time since 2019.

Oh by the way, in 2019 the Calgary Shamrocks finished the regular season 19-1-0, won the Larry Bishop and won the National Championship, can history repeat itself?

[Calgary Shamrocks @JrBShamrocks]

Looking forward to August Long!

Come support the black, gold and white.

[RMLL @RMLaxL]

. @JrBShamrocks have won the South title and will complete for the Larry Bishop Cup next weekend.

[Calgary Shamrocks @JrBShamrocks]

SHAMROCKS WIN THE SOUTH AND ARE HEADED BACK TO THE LARRY BISHOP PROVINCIAL TOURNAMENT!

🧹

[Calgary Shamrocks @JrBShamrocks]

We all play for this time of year!

Come watch or tune in on @crowlaxtv

Step 1 starts here.

[Calgary Shamrocks @JrBShamrocks]

We're super excited to get off the sidelines with this season's playoffs.

We're into the action this Thursday. Can't wait.

[Calgary Shamrocks @JrBShamrocks]

OT Winner. ⬇️

[Calgary Shamrocks @JrBShamrocks]

Coaches Choice: Reese
Captains Choice: Hale

[Calgary Shamrocks @JrBShamrocks]

Mother's Day Matinee.