The Lax Mag posted their annual Player Poll last week. This is always a really interesting poll since it gives you insight into what the players think that you really don’t get anywhere else. The fact that it’s entirely anonymous means the players are more likely to give honest answers. I thought it would be fun (for me, anyway) to answer the same questions.

Are you happy with the direction the league is headed?

My answer: There’s lots of nuance here so to give a strict Yes or No misses a lot of it. But if I’m forced to pick one, I’d have to say no. There are certainly good things going on but look at this list of franchise changes:

• lost Philadelphia
• lost Ottawa
• Albany moved to Oshawa
• New York moved to Ottawa
• lost Panther City
• created Las Vegas
• New England moved to Albany
• created Panther City
• (old) Rochester moved to Halifax
• created (new) Rochester
• created New York

That’s just since the pandemic began.

Now, it’s not all doom and gloom. Halifax was an unqualified success, Las Vegas is looking good as well, and Oshawa isn’t getting huge numbers but they’re filling the building every night.

The NLL’s commissioner since August of 2022, what grade would you give Brett Frood for what he’s accomplished over the past four years?

My answer: B. Yes the team contractions listed above happened on his watch but weren’t his fault – at least the Philly and Ottawa ones weren’t. I don’t know all the details but from what I have heard, the fault for both of those lies almost entirely at the feet of their indifferent owners (see below).

Instead of grabbing a big city at random and throwing a team there, as has seemingly been done in the past, he’s had games in neutral site locations such as Laval and Edmonton. He appears to be judging interest in those cities before making the leap to giving them a team.

Dhane Smith, the best player in the league

Who is most to blame for the departure of the Philadelphia Wings?

My answer: Comcast Spectacor. They brought back the team on the assumption that it would make them money. It didn’t, so they just tossed the keys on the table and said “We’re out”. Most details haven’t been made public but it doesn’t sound like they made much of an effort to sell the team, leaving that up to the league.

Who is most to blame for the departure of the Ottawa Black Bears?

My answer: GF Sports & Entertainment. Similarly, it sounds like GF was hoping that the move from New York to Ottawa would revitalize the team and franchise but when it didn’t, they made no serious attempt to (a) fix that or (b) sell the team to someone who would at least try. I don’t know how much “due diligence” was done before choosing Ottawa as the destination but either (1) the due diligence was badly done and the team was doomed in that market, or (b) the market was OK and they could have succeeded but they didn’t do enough to market the team.

Are you concerned that the league is moving into smaller markets and arenas, or is this the right route for the NLL today?

My answer: Not concerned. Would we love to have a team filling arenas in New York City and Chicago and Montreal and Los Angeles? Of course, but most of the bigger cities just have not worked in the past. Even Toronto couldn’t sustain the Rock and they had to move out of town. Denver, Vancouver, and Buffalo seem like outliers while the smaller cities like Halifax, Calgary, Hamilton, and Rochester seem to be doing reasonably well. If the owners can make a profit in a smaller city because they’re not paying a million dollars to rent the arena for a single game, they don’t need to bring in 12,000 people per game.

That said, if someone who’d never heard of the NLL finds out about franchises in Oshawa, Halifax, Hamilton, and Saskatoon and none in New York, Boston, Philly, Atlanta, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Dallas, or Seattle (or worse – that they’ve been in over half of those and failed), will they take the league seriously as a top-tier sports league? Perhaps not.

Over the next five years, do you think the league will lose any more franchises?

My answer: based on history, it’s hard not to answer Yes here. I don’t know which ones but if I had to guess, here are three possibilities:

• Saskatchewan’s attendance has declined each and every year since 2017, dropping from an average of 14,921 per game in 2017, their second year in Saskatchewan, to only 6,475 last year. Some of that was due to the pandemic but at least the last three were not.
• Georgia has had three straight years of declining attendance.
• San Diego is moving out of downtown this season. That sort of move worked for Las Vegas, but if it doesn’t make a significant difference to the team’s attendance and revenue, the first step out of town might be the first step out of existence for the Seals.

Based on overall popularity and presumed profits (and excluding the big four: NFL, MLB, NBA and NHL), how many of these leagues do you feel are ahead of the NLL?

My answer: Major League Soccer, Canadian Football League, Professional Women’s Hockey League, Women’s National Basketball Association, American Hockey League.

The Premier Lacrosse League is a bit weird – they get far lower attendance at their games but seem to be making money hand over fist, have a TV deal with ABC / ESPN, and seem to get a lot more press in general than the NLL.

To avoid overlap with popular indoor leagues during the fall and winter months, should the NLL move to a summer schedule?

My answer: No. This is mostly for personal reasons – I’m more busy in the summer than the winter so I’d have less time to watch games, write articles, and update stats. My wife is a teacher so many of our bigger vacations take place in July and August. I’d prefer keeping the NLL as a winter thing.

How much has the NLL’s free-streaming site NLL+ helped grow the league’s audience?
My answer: A little. It’s great for us fans who already know about it, but I’m not sure how many new fans it’s brought in.

Launched in November of 2023, how impactful has the NLL’s UnBOXed initiative been?

My answer: Medium. Maybe I’m overly optimistic (or naïve), considering more than 90% of NLL players rated it “Low” or “Zero”.

I don’t know a lot of details or have stats, but I believe the NLL UnBoxed initiative has been successful in getting lacrosse sticks in the hands of thousands of kids who may never have otherwise had the opportunity, and lacrosse programs in many elementary schools who wouldn’t otherwise have had them. Is it making big news across North America? No, but I think idea is that in five to ten years, there will be a ton of teenage lacrosse players looking for places to play, and five years after that the NLL draft will have a lot more players from outside of southern Ontario, southern BC, and New York State.

Again, maybe this is just me liking the idea of this program and not how it’s actually working. But I don’t think we were expected to see big results quite yet.

Grade the overall presentation and production of this year’s NLL Entry Draft.

My answer: D. It was nice to see video from watch parties and see players and their families and friends go crazy when a player’s name is called. But the pandemic is over. The players being drafted deserve the experience of walking up to the stage, shaking the commissioner’s hand, and posing for pictures with their new hat or jersey along with the GM and coach of their new team.

Whether you were there in person or saw highlights from the event online, grade the overall presentation of this year’s NLL Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony?

My answer: B. This one was an actual in-person event, so that’s definitely a plus. Live-streaming the event would have been nice but wasn’t necessary. It should definitely be an annual event, or at the very least, every other year.

Who are the most marketable players in the NLL today?

My top three: Jeff Teat, Dhane Smith, CJ Kirst. Honorary mentions: Keegan Bal, Lyle Thompson.

Should the league market that players work another job or focus solely on them being pro athletes?

My answer: Focus on pro-athlete angle. Pointing out that the players have other full-time jobs may be interesting and makes the players look like “regular people” but people don’t want their sports stars to be regular people. You want them to be larger than life.

Heading into the 2026–27 regular season, who is the best player in the NLL?

My answer: Dhane Smith. Teat is a close second – Smith has better numbers but played on the powerhouse Bandits. Teat’s numbers were only slightly behind but he played on non-playoff teams. But if Dhane decided to switch to playing full-time defense, he could be a top 5 defender on just about any team in the league, so I’m giving it to him.

Will Jeff Teat and the Oshawa FireWolves make the playoffs this year?

My answer: Yes.

In order for a player to be considered for the NLL’s regular season MVP Award, do you feel they need to make that season’s playoffs?

My answer: Yes. As baseball manager Whitey Herzog once argued, the Chicago Cubs finished in last place with Andre Dawson on the team, and they could have finished in last place without him, so he shouldn’t be considered “Most Valuable”. Then again, Dawson did win MVP that year, so I guess the MLB voters didn’t buy that argument.

Similar to the NHL’s Ted Lindsay Award, should the NLLPA award an NLL MVP based on a player vote?

My answer: Yes. It would be interesting to see who the executives and media members vote as the MVP compared to who the players pick.

Reinstated and declared eligible for free agency in June, if you were an NLL GM, would you sign Austin Staats?

My answer: No. He’s had several chances in the past and squandered them all. Maybe he’s pulled his life together and I really hope he has, but it’s too late.

What trophy means more to our sport?

My answer: NLL Cup. There’s no question that I’m biased here since I watch every NLL game I can, while I don’t really pay attention to the summer leagues. It’s especially true now that it’s very evident that a Mann Cup can be bought while the NLL Cup cannot, or at least it’s more difficult.

Two months out, who are your preseason Top 3 teams in the NLL?

My answer: Toronto, Vancouver, Colorado. Same as the players’ top three. But I’d put Halifax higher than the 7th place the players had them, and while probably not in the top five, I’d move Las Vegas up the list.