There is only one week left in the 2024 regular season, and every team has exactly one game left except Rochester, who has two. There are still two playoff spots up for grabs, and five teams (Panther City, Vancouver, Saskatchewan, New York, and Rochester, in descending order of likelihood) trying to get one of them. There are eight games next weekend, and even the very last one (Philly at Rochester, Sunday at 3pm EDT) could have playoff implications; there are scenarios where Rochester gets the last playoff spot if they win that game, and Vancouver gets it otherwise. Talk about down to the wire.

Awesome

Sellout in Banditland

The Bandits announced on Tuesday that their game on Saturday was sold out, and sure enough, they tied a franchise record (set four other times) with attendance of 19,070. This is tied for the fifth highest attendance in NLL history. Yes, they’re the reigning champions but this season is not going anywhere near the way they wanted it to. But they’ve won three straight and five of six, making them one of the hottest teams in the league right now. With their win on Saturday, the Bandits clinched a playoff spot so the Banditland faithful that made it to the game were rewarded. Every team says they have the best fans, and things can get pretty loud in Hamilton, Halifax, Calgary, Colorado, and more recently Vancouver, but for sheer numbers and volume, you really can’t beat Banditland.

Honourable mention to Rock City, which had over 11,000 at their game on Saturday. This is the highest attendance of the season, and the second-highest attendance since the Rock moved to Hamilton for the 2022 season.

Rylan Hartley

Rylan Hartley had a nasty concussion earlier this season and missed most of the season, but was activated from the IR last week. I listed him in the Awesome category then just because of the fact that he was able to play. He’s in the awesome category this week because of how well he played. Riley Hutchcraft started for Rochester and was pulled early just for a brief talk with the goalie coach, and returned a minute or two later. But Hartley started the second half and played the rest of the game, and looked like pre-concussion Hartley. He was back to making the exciting, acrobatic, and athletic plays that we’ve come to expect from him, and did a great job of keeping his team in a game that they weren’t really in. Unfortunately for the Knighthawks, Nick Rose was Nick Rose, and despite a valiant comeback attempt (see below), they never really did get back in it. But a silver lining for Rochester was the play of Rylan Hartley. His helmet was also awesome.

Desert Dogs moving to Henderson

The Las Vegas Desert Dogs announced this week that they will be playing their home games in the town of Henderson, NV next season. Henderson is a suburb of Las Vegas and the new arena is about 15 kilometres (9.5 miles) from Mandalay Bay, where they played their first two seasons. I imagine the rent at this place will be much less than any place on the Strip, and my understanding is that residents of Las Vegas try to avoid the Strip if they can. It’s a bit less convenient for tourists to take in a game – when I went back in February, we stayed at the Luxor and were able to walk to the game without even going outside. But a 20 minute Uber is really not a big deal and if it makes it easier for the locals to get to, I’m good with it.

Rock in the first half, Knighthawks in the second half

The Rock looked entirely in command in the first half of Saturday’s game against Rochester, outscoring the Knighthawks 10-1 and outshooting them 42-14. In the second half though, the Rock seemed to take their collective foot off the gas. Between their 10th and 11th goals, they had a 28+ minute scoring drought, almost matching the 30+ minute drought between the Knighthawks’ first and second goals. The Rock only scored three in the entire second half, taking 26 shots, while the Knighthawks scored five on 36 shots. When Rochester scored a couple in the third, the thoughts from the crowd seemed to be “meh, we’re still up by a ton” but when they scored two more and people realized that (a) it had been a while since the Rock scored and (b) Rylan Hartley was playing really well, it did seem that the tension level rose just a bit. Eventually though, the Rock scored a couple more and the Knighthawks never got closer than five. But kudos to the Knighthawks for turning their game around and putting up a strong second half.

Not Awesome

Name pronunciation

It appears that not everyone knows about the NLL Name Pronunciation Guide yet. On Saturday night, one of Colorado’s announcers was pronouncing Resetarits as “re-suh-TAR-dis”. The strange thing is that the other one was saying it correctly all night, so you’d think one would have said to the other “Hey, one of us is saying this wrong, maybe we should look it up”.

There was another odd pronunciation on Saturday night: I’ve never heard Mike Poulin’s name said any other way than POO-lin but the Saskatchewan Rush announcers were both saying as poo-LIN or poo-LAHN, with a bit of a French accent. I don’t know if that’s correct and POO-lin is wrong, but if so, everyone has been saying it wrong since 2007.

The Mammoth

Colorado had a fairly small chance of making the playoffs and they needed to win to keep that possibility alive, but on Friday night against the Wings, they played like they were already out. Some sloppy play, some miscommunication, and a few plays that made it look like they just didn’t care. I KNOW that’s not the case; there isn’t a player in this league who doesn’t care whether they win or lose. But watch the goal by Sam LeClair late in the third. The ball goes behind the net and no Mammoth defender even takes a step in that direction. LeClair does, grabs the ball, and dives and dunks. A camera view from behind the net shows no Mammoth defenders anywhere near LeClair, and a couple not even looking in the direction of the play. Philly, who was eliminated from the playoffs last week, looked more like they were playing for their playoff lives than the Mammoth, who actually were. Yes, losing Dillon Ward early in the game didn’t help, but that should make everyone else play even HARDER, and that’s not what I saw.

I didn’t see much of their game against Las Vegas on Saturday, but by that point they had been eliminated, but they played much better in a game that really meant nothing.

Ugly goal of the year

Friday night in Colorado. Mitch Jones takes a shot, Tyler Carlson makes the save but the rebound bounces straight out in front of him. It hits defender Tyler Garrison and bounces right back towards the net. Garrison leaves it for Carlson to stop but Carlson didn’t see it. By the time Garrison realized that Carlson wasn’t going to stop it, he tried to stop it himself but it was too late and the ball just rolled into the net. Jones didn’t touch it again but got credit for the goal.