This is Part III of my III-part season in review wrap-up. Part I included awesomes and not awesomes for each team from Buffalo through Oshawa, and Part II included each team from Ottawa through Vancouver. This one is about the league in general. There are more Not Awesome entries here than Awesome but don’t take that to mean that 2026 was anything other than a fantastic season for the NLL.

Awesome

Regular season standings come down to the wire

The last two playoff spots were decided on the last weekend of the season, as Halifax and Ottawa played each other for one spot and Las Vegas and San Diego played each other for the other. There was even a scenario going into that weekend that the very last game of the season, between two teams not involved in the battle for those spots, could decide one of them. That didn’t happen but other than that, could you have written a better ending to the season?

Unexpected playoff results

I have heard some talk that the NLL should scrap the “one-and-done” playoff format in the first round and go with at least best-of-three series in every round. The reasoning includes this season, where the #1, #2, and #3 teams were all eliminated in the first round, and so they believe that this means we don’t have the best teams getting to the finals. Well technically they’re right – we have the teams that beat the best teams getting to the finals. This is kind of why we have the playoffs in the first place. If we don’t accept that this kind of thing can happen, why bother having playoffs at all? Give the Championship to the #1 team at the end of the regular season and there you go – the best team won.

The first place team, but not the Champions

I think the 2026 season is solid reasoning for keeping the one-and-done format, at least in the first round. We always say that anything can happen in the playoffs, and that makes everything more exciting.

Attendance

Buffalo led the way as always, averaging 18,290 fans per home game. That is insane. 19 out of 32 NHL teams averaged less than that in 2025–2026 – including the Buffalo Sabres in a season where they returned to the playoffs for the first time in a thousand years.

In addition to the Bandits, Calgary and Halifax each averaged over 10,000 fans per game. The Warriors and Mammoth were over 9,000, and Oshawa and Las Vegas both had lower absolute numbers but in terms of percentage of the arena capacity, Las Vegas is third at 91.2% and Oshawa is fourth at 90.0%. (First is Halifax at 97.6% and second is Buffalo at 95.9%.)

The Tom Borrelli Award

I can’t list the awesome things that happened this year without mentioning the Tom Borrelli award. I was nominated two years ago and ended up as a finalist, which was amazing. I considered that a sort of “thank you” from the announcers, broadcasters, players, coaches, etc. who used my stats site, and didn’t expect to be nominated again. But this year I was, and then was a finalist, and then I actually won the damn thing. This was unquestionably awesome, and I’m very thankful to those who nominated me, voted for me, and congratulated me when the award was announced. I am beyond honoured to join the ranks of the amazing media people who have won this award in the past.

However.

Ashley Docking does an excellent job providing analysis and she’s as knowledgeable about the game and the league as any male announcer. In addition, she is also great at interviewing players, asking meaningful questions. One thing that makes interviews fun to listen to is the rapport between the people involved. The best interviews aren’t just questions and answers, they sound more like a conversation. It’s even better when it sounds like a conversation between friends, and Ashley is great at turning any interview into just that.

Maki Jenner has had two groundbreaking years in a row, becoming the first woman to do colour commentary on an NLL broadcast in 2025 and then the first woman to do play-by-play on an NLL broadcast in 2026. And when she’s not up in the booth, she’s between the benches as the on-floor reporter. She’s really good at all three of those jobs and just like Ashley, she knows the game as well as anybody.

I feel like it’s time that a woman won this award and 2026 would have been an ideal time for that to happen. Honestly, there’s a part of me that feels bad because I got in the way of that.

Replays

This was the first year with the new review system in place. The league constantly referred to it as a “cloud-based” system, which just means “it uses the internet”. I’m not sure why that piece of information is necessary but anyway, I was happy with the system overall, and I think that replays in general were more accurate than in previous years. In addition, there were probably fewer reviews requested by coaches because they could watch the play from multiple angles on the bench before deciding whether to throw the flag.

Hall of Fame

The NLL announced on Tuesday that the NLL Hall of Fame is still a thing! They announced that eighteen people have been nominated for induction into the Hall of Fame, and eight of them will be chosen this summer. This is the first time they’ve done something like this; in previous years, they’ve skipped the voting piece (or at least not made it public) and just announced the people who will be inducted. I won’t go over the nominees or who I think should be inducted, but I’m sure it will come up sometime later.

Not Awesome

TD Coliseum

After a year in Mississauga during renovations on First Ontario Place, the Rock returned to the Hamilton to play in the newly renamed TD Coliseum. I wrote about it here but in a nutshell, I wasn’t too happy with the renovations. After a season of getting used to it, I think I’ve softened a bit in the sense that I don’t hate the place. But the seats are still narrower, the concourse is still dark, the sound is still messed up, and the food that sits under heat lamps for who knows how long is still very expensive. We no longer buy dinner at the arena when we go to games.

Replays

I mentioned the awesome part of the new replay system above, but there was still a problem. In a nutshell, many of them still took longer than we’d like. Some of them were completed very quickly, but we still had some that took 4–5 minutes. As I’ve said before (multiple times), I understand that the officials want to get every call right but there has to be a limit. If you can’t tell within two minutes whether a goal should count or not, you just have to call it inconclusive and go with the call on the floor. It’s possible that we might end up with the wrong call now and again but if it takes that long to decide, it’s not wrong by much and we won’t be (a) killing the flow of the game, (b) boring the pants off of the TV viewers, and (c) adding stress to the broadcasters who have to talk about the same play for five minutes while waiting for the call.

Hartley hit on Charbonneau

Rylan Hartley’s hit on Steph Charbonneau was certainly a Not Awesome incident during the 2026 season. I wrote about it here but once again, we had a goalie come out of his net to lay a huge hit on an unsuspecting player who couldn’t possibly have seen it coming. Considering the concussion problems that Hartley has had in the past, it’s a bit surprising that he wouldn’t have thought about that as he was about to hit someone with his back to him.

The hit didn’t end Charbonneau’s season, but it did seem to have a significant effect on Hartley. In the seven games before the hit, Hartley had a 10.13 GAA and an 80.2% save percentage over an average of about 51 minutes per game. In the eight games afterwards, he was 14.01 and 73.2% over about 39 minutes.

Season-ending injuries

Thomas Hoggarth has never been the top scorer on his team, at least not in the NLL. But any coach or teammate will tell you how important he is to the offense. The Thunderbirds lost Hoggarth in game 1 and while they clearly had a good season anyway, making it to the Finals, there’s no question they are looking forward to having him back next season.

I wrote about Colorado’s Ryan Lee’s struggles with injuries earlier this season as well. In 2026, he only played 4 games before being sidelined. In the four seasons from 2023–2026, Lee played 28 games and missed 47. On the upside, think about Colorado’s offense next season with both Lee and Eli McLaughlin returning to play with Jack Hannah, Andrew Kew, and Will Malcom.

Ryan Lee

Chase Fraser only played 6 games with his new team before injuries took the rest of his season away. As I said in Part I of this series, Fraser scores some amazing goals but his contribution to his team goes far beyond that.

Of course there were other players who were injured partway through the season and were lost for the rest of it, but these were likely the biggest names. Also the loss of Michael Grace in the playoffs certainly had an impact on the Swarm’s last couple of games but he may miss much or even all of next season, so that’s there the bigger impact will be.

Attendance

The Ottawa Black Bears have arguably the best lacrosse player in the world on their team. But it’s not enough to bring people in to see games. Sure, the team hasn’t had a lot of on-floor success, but they were in the playoff hunt until the last weekend of the season. The New York Riptide had even less success than the Black Bears, and Ottawa’s attendance in 2026 was lower than any of New York’s four seasons.

I’ve talked about the Saskatchewan Rush’s attendance a few times this season, how they were the darlings of the league when they came in, filling SaskTel Centre and leading the league in attendance in 2018 and 2019. But it turns out that that popularity was based on their success on the floor and once their Championship dynasty ended, the fans left and didn’t come back. Even last season when they started 10–1 and finished third overall, attendance didn’t change.

That description mirrors almost exactly the early years of the Toronto Rock. Championships all over the place, filling the arena every game, leading the league in attendance, then the success ends, the fans leave, and don’t return. Getting only 7,800 people for the first game of the Finals – THE FINALS – was really disappointing, especially when Halifax sold out game 2 in about three days.

The Wings

I’m running out of ways to talk about NLL teams folding or moving. Recently we’ve had Albany → Oshawa, New York → Ottawa, Panther City → nowhere, New England → Albany, and Rochester → Halifax, and that’s just since COVID. Now Philadelphia is either moving or folding, and there are rumours about other teams as well. Of course I don’t have a solution, but I’m starting to agree with those that say the real answer is to stick to the smaller cities and arenas. If your team is only bringing in 6,000 fans but they are actually making money because the arena doesn’t cost a million dollars a night, that’s a lot more sustainable than bringing in 10,000 fans and having to move or fold because the owners are losing money every year. Every new city wants to be the next Buffalo or Calgary and fill the building every night, but I’m not sure how many Panther Citys the league can afford to take a chance on before they hit the next Halifax.