What a wild weekend! We had lacrosse being discussed on the most popular podcast in the world, every team played a game and a couple played two, a sellout in the desert, close games, comebacks, a blowout that turned into less of a blowout, the last winless team winning, and the second NLL broadcast in a language other than English.

Awesome

Lacrosse on Joe Rogan

I am not a fan of Joe Rogan. However there is no denying his influence – he has had the most popular podcast in the world for over ten years and millions of people listen to him and are influenced by him. So when he showed footage of the Gash/Belter fight on his podcast the other day, it was a big deal. Unfortunately, it was clear that Rogan and his co-hosts (or guests or whoever they were) knew nothing about lacrosse, as evidenced by these quotes:

• “If lacrosse does this, it might become famous” [Lacrosse has done this for a while]
• “So this is a new sport where you’re allowed to punch in the face” [“new sport” – suuuuure]
• “He was probably disqualified forever after that” [five minutes in the box]

Given how many people listen to Rogan every week, the number of them who go will looking for NLL video clips (or even better, tickets) because of that segment is probably not insignificant. But as much as lacrosse people like to say “bring a friend to a lacrosse game and they’ll be a fan for life”, it’s just not true. The vast majority of those people who Google “lacrosse” will watch some highlights, think “huh, that’s cool” and then never watch again. Many will instead Google “lacrosse fight”, watch enough to realize that there aren’t fights all the time in lacrosse, and give up.

But I put this entry in the “Awesome” section for a reason. There might be some who decide they like the game and they stick around, and maybe they’ll even become lifelong lacrosse fans. Since this didn’t cost the NLL anything, if even a handful of people do become NLL fans, that’s a win.

In my opinion, the best part of this is the “raise awareness” factor. All of the people watching Rogan’s show will now know that professional lacrosse is a thing. They may not watch it or pay attention to it, but they know it exists, which they probably didn’t before. Maybe lacrosse will come up in conversation sometime or they’ll see it on ESPN or TSN, or maybe they’ll see the PLL on TV in the summer and that will remind them of this. Maybe they’ll tell someone else about it and that person will go look it up. You can’t be the Next Major League if the vast majority of North America doesn’t know you exist. Raising awareness in itself doesn’t make the NLL any money or put butts in seats, but it may advance the Next Major League initiative just a little bit.

Goaltending in Ottawa

Both Aden Walsh (on his 24th birthday) and Zach Higgins (about three weeks after his 34th birthday) put on goalie clinics on Friday night as the Black Bears held off the Warriors in the TSN game of the week. If you’re going to have an outstanding game, you may as well do it in on national TV. Walsh was steady all night with a bunch of great saves including stopping Jeff Teat one-on-one near the end of the game (how Teat was allowed to run straight in for a one-on-one is a question the Vancouver defence will have to seriously think about). He didn’t allow a Black Bears goal for the last nine minutes of the game, allowing the Warriors to almost come back to tie it. Meanwhile Higgins made more saves in each quarter than the one before it and while he did allow three goals in the fourth quarter to get Vancouver within one, he closed the door in the last couple of minutes as the Warriors were pressuring.

Rock finally get a win

It’s eight weeks into the season, and the team with the best record in the league last year finally has a win. They’re still in last place (not even tied anymore thanks to a Las Vegas win on Saturday) but you gotta start somewhere. The return of Tom Schreiber and TD Ierlan certainly helped the confidence level and after a bit of a shaky start (some dropped balls and missed passes early in the game), they cleaned things up and played a strong game after that. Both Nick Rose and Frank Scigliano were excellent between the pipes, and both defenses were strong as well. Schreiber took up the quarterback position he’s either held himself for the last few years (or shared with Mark Matthews last year), freeing up Corey Small and Chris Boushy to do what they do best, be it seeing-eye shots (Small) or pounding their way inside (Boushy), and rookie Brian Cameron continued his strong season with a couple of goals.

The Rush defence was strong, as always, and Ryan Keenan had a very strong game. Robert Church was typical Robert Church though holding him to four points feels like a win in itself, and Zach Manns was held to a season-low two points. There was a very nice transition play as Mike Acchione flew up the floor in transition and then passed to Bobby Kidd III at the last possible second, and Kidd buried it behind Rose. A nice shot and goal by Kidd but a great play by Acchione.

There was also a very smart play by Mike Messenger. As many face-off specialists tend to do, TD Ierlan clamps the ball in the back of his stick when taking a face-off. Once he wins it, he tosses it a few inches in the air and flips the stick around so it’s in the pocket. After one such face-off, Messenger anticipated the flip and grabbed the ball out of the air mid-flip. He then ran down and took a shot. He didn’t score but manufactured an opportunity for himself with that clever play which demonstrated his lacrosse IQ as well as excellent stick skills.

Calgary broadcasting games in Punjabi

The Roughnecks announced on Saturday that their game against the Swarm would be broadcast live in Punjabi on the radio. People in the Calgary area who are more comfortable conversing in Punjabi than English can now enjoy listening to Roughnecks games, opening up the game to a wider community. I wonder how you say “OMG twister top cheese!” in Punjabi?

The Riptide/Rock game last season in Montreal was broadcast on local radio in French, so to my knowledge, this is the second non-English broadcast of an NLL game.

Once again, “Grow the game” isn’t just a slogan you put on social media posts, it’s a call to action, and the Roughnecks have answered.

Buffalo

Buffalo dominated, Dhane and Byrne scored a bunch (1+9 and 7+5 respectively), MacKay was great, Priolo was great, and Vinc is the GOAT. (Yawn) Same ol’ same ol’.

I joke that it’s getting old and boring, but you have to respect the powerhouse team Steve Dietrich has put together. This is the sixth straight season (including the shortened 2020 season) that the Bandits have been one of the top two teams in the league. They’ve been to the last four Championship finals, winning two of them, and have to be the favourites to win their third straight this year. Logic tells me that Matt Vinc will have to retire in the next year or two, but we’ve all thought that for a few years now and he just keeps playing at the highest level.

That said, the Bandits were outscored in both the 3rd and 4th quarters of this one as Philadelphia mounted an almost-comeback. It was 13–5 at the half and the Bandits had three different nine-goal leads, so perhaps they took their foot off the gas a little. The Wings scored nine goals of their own in the second half including six straight in about six minutes to get back within three. But I wouldn’t have thought of taking your foot off the gas as being a Bandits thing. They managed to hang on for a five-goal win. I didn’t see the game (though I might watch the compressed game when I get a chance) so maybe the Bandits were completely in control despite the Philly goals.

Some quickies

Las Vegas had their first sell-out at Lee’s Family Forum, getting over 5,500 out to watch them beat the San Diego Seals. Like in Toronto, the number itself doesn’t sound all that high but if the arena is sold out, you literally can’t do any better than that.

After a 19–18 nail-biting Halifax win over Rochester last week, the Knighthawks turned it around into a much lower-scoring 10–9 nail-biting win. Riley Hutchcraft had a bit of a shaky season as the mostly-full-time starter in 2024, finishing with a GAA over almost 13 and a save percentage of 75.6%. But he’s playing very well this year, cutting down the GAA by a full goal and a half and bumping his save percentage by almost four points. He’s allowed fewer than ten goals in three different games (zero last year) and has faced over fifty shots in each full game he’s played.

I imagine most Calgary fans are very happy to see Curtis Dickson and Dane Dobbie back in Roughnecks jerseys. I mean no disrespect to guys like Jesse King or Wes Berg or Tom Schreiber, who are all great scorers and who every team would love to have, but nobody can rip momentum away from the other team like Dickson and Dobbie. Sometimes it’s one or the other and sometimes it’s both (and of course it doesn’t always happen), but unless you’re down 17–4 with a minute left, if those guys are on your team, you know that the possibility of coming back late is always there and it makes for some exciting lacrosse. Saturday’s win over the Swarm was no different. The Roughnecks were down 10–7 until Dobbie scored three to tie it and then after Shayne Jackson gave Georgia the lead again, Dickson tied it again only 23 seconds later. That forced overtime, and allowed Haiden Dickson to put the game away.

Not Awesome

Albany

Similar to Toronto, after a strong 2024 season, the Albany FireWolves have been struggling this year. Toronto can point to injuries as one of the main causes of their slump, but the FireWolves don’t have that problem and they’ve added Dyson Williams to their offense. Williams has been good thus far, but I’m not sure a goal and two assists per game is the level they were expecting from him. But if you look at the numbers, Simmons, Walker, and Kurtz are all scoring at slightly higher rates (i.e. points per game) than last year. Travis Longboat has only played two games but Williams is roughly matching his scoring output from last year. Doug Jamieson’s GAA is a bit higher this year but so is his save percentage. Their goals scored per game and goals allowed per game are both a little higher. Nothing jumps out as “this is why the FireWolves are 2–5” – it’s likely more a matter of timing, especially since three of their five losses have been in overtime. But one of their two wins was a 15–4 win over the Rock, and one wonders if that really successful game has skewed the numbers.

Rock/Rush goal challenge

About four minutes into the third quarter of the Rush/Rock game, Chris Boushy scored a diving goal from behind the net, but the shot clock may have expired before the ball went in the net. But we (in the arena and on the broadcast) saw two replays that seemed to show different things. It wasn’t that one was clearer than the other, the views were actually different.

Here are images I took from the NLL+ stream. The first shows the ball (circled in red) behind Frank Scigliano while the shot clock still says 1. It’s not 100% clear that the ball has crossed the goal line but given that this was a dunk, it pretty much has to be in the net. But the point is that the ball is definitely out of Boushy’s stick with a second left on the shot clock. You can hear the crowd cheer when that view is shown because it looks like the goal should count.

The second picture is the overhead shot, where the ball is still in Boushy’s stick but the shot clock reads zero. The crowd was much quieter after this one because it looks like the goal should not count.

They can’t both be right. There must be some problem with the synchronization of the shot clock with one or both of these cameras. The goal was waved off, and I don’t fault the refs for making that call; the second view makes it fairly clear the ball had not crossed the line when the shot clock expired. But one of the two views was wrong. What if that was the faulty one?

End of Philly/Vancouver game

With a minute left in the fourth quarter of this game, the following things happened:

• the Warriors, down by one and NOT having possession, pulled their goalie. This is not a terrible idea, just risky when you don’t have the ball
• the Wings defence didn’t cover Keegan Bal, who ran straight towards the net and got a shot off
• after a Wings time out, Tony Malcom runs the ball up the floor towards the empty net. He then passes to Ryan Wagner who wasn’t expecting it and the first empty net opportunity was lost
• the Warriors ran back up the floor with 30 seconds left, Reid Bowering drops a pass and the Wings get possession back
• Mitch Jones takes a shot from just inside the restraining line at the still-empty net. He misses it and the second empty net opportunity was lost
• Ryan Martel shoots, Damude makes the save, the rebound hits Martel in the leg and bounces into the net. He was in the crease when the ball hit him, so the goal was waved off

That’s a lot of mistakes in a single minute.

Pools

I finished in third place overall (out of 85) in Preston’s Picks last season, and 19th (out of 89) in Who Ya Gott. This year, I’m in 50th and 101st place respectively. I am this year’s Toronto Rock of the confidence pools.