Six games this past week, and only one that was won by more than two goals. And other than the last eight minutes or so, that one was one of the closest games of the season. Lots of awesome to go around this week, starting with one of the most awesome stories of the year.

Awesome

Alex Pace

There’s a great story by Anna Taylor on NLL.com this week about Philadelphia defender Alex Pace. On Marvel’s Superhero weekend (that was the theme of both the Riptide and Warriors games), Taylor wrote about how Pace became a real-life superhero by donating stem cells, which were donated to a man in his fifties from Connecticut who had leukemia. I won’t tell the whole story here, so go read the article and be prepared to smile and to give Pace a virtual high-five.

A friend of mine had four organs transplanted when she was six months old. She’s now in her mid-twenties and has a college diploma, a job, a boyfriend, and a full happy life. Most importantly, she’s alive and wouldn’t be were it not for her donor and her donor’s family, so I’m a big supporter of organ donation. Donating stem cells is even better since you do it while you’re alive and you can meet the person, and family, you are helping.

Huge props to Alex Pace for doing this and for going public with the story. And huge props to Anna for writing it. I hope that enough awareness is raised that more people get out and donate stem cells. And everyone: please consider registering to be an organ donor. If you’re in Ontario, go here. For British Columbia, go here. If you’re in the US, go here.

Alex Pace

TD Ierlan

Ierlan is the dream player of NLL GMs over the last few years: a dominant faceoff specialist who is also a very good non-faceoff-related lacrosse player. In his first season with the Rock, Ierlan was the FOGO but was given a few shifts on defense here and there. Apparently he really dedicated himself to learning the position, and now he’s given regular defensive shifts even when he’s not taking a faceoff. Of course, if you’re trying to learn how to be a good box lacrosse defender, having guys like Mitch De Snoo, Brad Kri, Chris Corbeil, and Latrell Harris around you all the time can only help.

On Saturday night, there was one play that showed what a great job he’s done. I don’t remember the details (I think the Rock were killing a penalty, and I think it was off a faceoff, but I can’t be sure), but Ierlan ended up with the ball in the offensive zone and got trapped against the wall by at least two Roughnecks defenders. The defenders were relentless in their pounding of Ierlan, trying to get the ball away from him and even when he lost a shoe, he kept hold of the ball. He must have been holding them off for at least twenty seconds before he managed to get away from them with the ball (and without his shoe) and even got a decent scoring chance, though Christian Del Bianco stopped it.

The skill to keep the ball in his stick while mashed against the boards is not something you’d pick up in field lacrosse, so clearly he’s learned a lot since joining the Rock. But the tenacity to keep working and fighting in that situation is likely something Ierlan already had. It helped make him a great field lacrosse player, and now it’s helping make him a great box lacrosse player.

Goalies in the Hammer

Last week’s Toronto / Calgary matchup was the goalie battle everyone expected as the Rock won 9-7. Nick Rose was outstanding while Christian Del Bianco played very well but just wasn’t quite as good as Rose. This week, the rematch was almost as good with the roles reversed. Rose wasn’t at his absolute best but still had a strong night. But Del Bianco was excellent, making many of the “holy crap, how did he stop that” saves that very few others can make but have become almost commonplace for CDB. There was at least one save where I was halfway out of my seat to celebrate the goal that was about to happen – the shot that even CDB couldn’t possibly stop – when I realized that everyone near the net, who had started to stand up as well, were all sitting down again en masse. CDB had stopped the shot that CDB couldn’t possibly stop.

An honourary goalie awesome goes to Tom Schreiber, who ran back to play goalie when a broken play attempt resulted in Nick Rose sitting on the bench while a Calgary player raced towards the Rock net with the ball. Schreiber tried his best to block the shot with his body but it went in. As Kris Jamieson mentioned on twitter, I’m not sure how happy the coaches were with that decision given that Schreiber missed the first five games of the season (the last thing they need is for Schreiber to miss more games because he was hit in the shoulder by a 100 mph shot), but kudos to Schreiber for having the stones to even make the attempt.

One comeback and some almost-comebacks

Because lacrosse is such a high-scoring game, a “comeback win” is not that unusual. In December, the Roughnecks soundly defeated the Desert Dogs 17-11, but Las Vegas scored the first goal of the game. Was it a “comeback win” for Calgary? They were losing at one point so technically yes, but nobody thinks of it that way. There are no real criteria to define a comeback win in the NLL – losing by four or more in the third quarter or later, maybe? It’s one of those “you’ll know it when you see it” kind of things, and that game wasn’t one. But this past weekend featured one game that definitely was, and another few that almost were.

In New York, the Riptide were down by five at halftime, having scored one goal in each of the first two quarters. The third quarter got them closer, scoring three and only allowing San Diego to score one, but they were still down by three heading into the final frame. Both defenses played strong late in the third and into the fourth, and the game went over fifteen minutes without any scoring, and then the ‘Tide came in. They scored five goals in the final five and a half minutes and won the game 10-8. San Diego, with all their amazing offensive power, were kept entirely off the board for the final 22:52 of the game. This was, no question, an impressive comeback and character win for the Riptide.

Meanwhile in Rochester, the Swarm took the lead early in the first and built their lead to as much as five early in the third. The Knighthawks kept chipping away until they tied the game midway through the fourth. The game stayed tied for almost six minutes before the Swarm scored with less than thirty seconds left in the quarter, and then tacked on a second goal with only four seconds left to put it away. It was a huge comeback for the Knighthawks, just not a comeback win.

In Hamilton, the Rock were in almost the exact same situation. After allowing five straight Calgary goals in the second and third, the Rock were down by five to start the fourth. Spurred on by Corey Small’s pair of goals within the first minute of the fourth, the Rock got the five they needed. But in the middle of those five goals, Thomas Hoggarth got one past Rose to prevent the Rock from tying it up and the Roughnecks ended up winning by that one. Just like the Knighthawks, the Rock had a huge comeback but not a comeback win.

And in Halifax, we had more of the same. Las Vegas never led and were down by six in the second quarter, but managed to keep Halifax off the board for over twenty minutes and eventually got back within two, but that was as close as they could get.

I wrote about “The Almost Comeback” almost five years ago for Lacrosse Flash, and it still rings true. Mailing it in is not acceptable, so props to the teams who don’t.

Close games

Every one of the first 15 goals of the Saskatchewan/Vancouver game either tied the game or broke a tie. Nobody had a two-goal lead until 12:43 of the third quarter. It was tied at 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7.

Every one of the last 12 goals of the Panther City/Colorado game either tied it or broke a tie. It was tied at 1, 3, 4, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, and 13.

The Finer Points of Box Lacrosse

The NLL put out an amazing video this week starring Pat Gregoire and Connor Kearnan, doing an homage to a scene from the classic hockey movie Slap Shot. Gregoire was great as the interviewer and Kearnan completely nailed his part. I don’t know if took a hundred takes for them to do it with a straight face but however many it took, they were worth it. Kudos to the writers as well, describing over and back in way that’s completely accurate and yet utterly useless to someone who doesn’t already understand it. Penalties get you “two minutes by yourself, or even longer if you’re extra mean”. I know this part is straight from the original but the thought of players feeling shame while sitting in the penalty box makes me laugh as well. No wait, maybe that’s why you always see players shaking their heads when the call is made – they’re thinking to themselves “I really shouldn’t have done that.”

Anyway, great job Pat, Connor, and whoever at the league came up with the idea.

Not Awesome

Vancouver… still

I keep saying I’m not going there again, but I keep having to go there. That said, it’s not as bad as it looked a few weeks ago. The Vancouver Warriors are at the bottom of the standings, but they are not far and away the worst team in the league. The effort is there, over the last couple of games anyway. The defense looks good, and the offense is starting to come around. The goaltending isn’t Rose / Del Bianco level but Bold is generally keeping them in games. They’ve only been beaten really badly twice, once by six goals and once by seven. And they won one game by eight. You can’t even complain about their attendance, and in the NLL that’s significant. Against Georgia last week and against the Rush this week, they’re not stinking up the joint, they’re just not winning, which is not awesome. But they are improving.