Apr 15 2024 62 mins 1
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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