Canucks: Paul Cotter insists little sister is the athlete in family to watch

Mileena Cotter is a junior midfielder with Syracuse, one of the top NCAA women's field lacrosse programs

Paul Cotter looks like a find for the Vancouver Canucks but he insists he’s not the “real athlete” in his own family.

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He bestows that title to little sister Mileena Cotter, a junior midfielder with the NCAA women’s field lacrosse powerhouse Syracuse University Orange. She’s the all-time leading scorer in U.S. national high school history with her 472 career goals, and she was named USA Today girls lacrosse player of the year and Detroit Free Press girls high school Athlete of the Year in 2024 after her Grade 12 campaign.

To hear Paul Cotter tell it, coaches from multiple NCAA field lacrosse programs showed up at the family’s Canton, Mich., home and the phones were going berserk there on national commitment day. Syracuse, who had been to six Final Fours in 10 seasons at the time, wound up being the pick.

“I am so proud of the athlete she’s become. I am so proud of the person she’s become,” said Cotter, 26, the free-agent signing this summer who’s been all the rage with the Canuck fan faithful so far after bagging four goals in his first four games this season.

“She’s the real athlete in the family. There’s no doubt. She’s taken the spotlight. I’m just trying to get a little of it back right now.”

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She grew up with two hockey-crazed older brothers. Jack Cotter, 23, is a junior forward with the Augsburg Auggies, an NCAA Div. III program in Minneapolis, Minn. And that combination clearly brought some challenges for Mileena Cotter, 20.

When they were youngsters, she would get coaxed into being the goalie for mini-sticks games in the basement. As the story goes, the games would last for hours, she would want to quit and her brothers would tell her that if she stopped five shots in a row that would end it. And then they would routinely find a way to tell her that the fifth save didn’t count.

“I think we at least helped her develop her eye-handed co-ordination forcing to play in net for so long,” Paul Cotter says with a smile.

Syracuse coach Regy Thorpe makes a hockey connection even for her today.

“She’s such a competitor. She plays every play like it’s Game 7 of the Stanley Cup,” Thorpe explains. “I’ve kind of nicknamed her that. She’s like Game 7. She’s always in that mode.

“And being around hockey so much growing up, I think she really understands turning it up in the playoffs. She was good for us in the regular season last year, but she really cranked it up for playoffs. She understands that playoffs have to be a different intensity.”

Cotter scored 21 times in 19 games in her freshman season for Syracuse, which made it to the second round of the NCAA tournament that campaign. She dipped to 13 goals in 20 games last season, but Thorpe says that drop was more a case of Syracuse having a deeper offence than anything else. The Orange lost in the second round of nationals.

“What do we expect from Mileena this season? Big things again,” said Thorpe, whose team begins play in February. “She’ll be one of our top midfielders, and she’s a two-way middie. She takes a lot of pride in her offence but she also takes a lot of pride in her defence. She’s also part of our faceoff unit, and she always gets a good break on the ball.

“We expect a good junior year out of her and she’s been stepping in a right direction every day for us.

“She was a pretty sought-after kid coming out of high school. She’s a tough, tough two-way middie, and in the women’s game two-way middies are not easy to come by. When you can get a person who can play both sides of the ball, they’re valuable to your program.”

The family bond is clear. Mileena Cotter wears jersey No. 47 with Syracuse. Her brother has that number with Vancouver, and he wore it the last two seasons with the New Jersey Devils. In fact, at one point all three siblings were sporting that number.

Having three kids playing elite level sports at the same time did keep parents Paul Sr. and Lisa Cotter on the go. Mom and daughter even spent parts of three summers living in lacrosse hotbed Maryland — an eight-hour drive from the family home — so that she could play at a higher level.

You can argue that speaks as well to Mileena Cotter’s competitive nature. Canuck fans have seen evidence already of that kind of drive and desire from the Cotters.

Paul Cotter insists that he tries to stay off social media, but after signing with Vancouver this off-season he started to see comments about how much the team was going to struggle this season. He’s saved some of them “just to have some receipts.”

“That’s the type of stuff that motivates you along the way,” he says. “We had high expectations coming into this, so I’m happy with how we have started. Obviously there’s a lot to clean up with where we want to be. But if no one has confidence in us, then it’s on us to prove them wrong.”

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