Weirdest. Season. Ever.

I know it’s only two weeks in and things can certainly change but I think I can safely say that nobody would have predicted many of the things happening so far this season. Give yourself a pat on the back if you saw any of these things coming:

• The New England Black Wolves start the year 2-0 with a convincing win against the Bandits and a blowout against the Knighthawks
• Rochester starts the year 0-2, averaging <10 goals per game
• Edmonton starts 0-2
• Calgary starts 0-2 despite averaging 15 goals per game
• Matt Vinc, Tyler Richards, and Mike Poulin all have GAAs above 15
• Dillon Ward’s GAA is over 14 and he’s 2-0.
• The Toronto Rock replaces Colin Doyle and Garrett Billings with Brett Hickey and NOBODY ELSE (on offense) and still averages >16 goals per game
• Josh Sanderson is averaging over 10 points per game
• Johnny Powless has 1 goal and 5 assists in 2 games. Transition player Ilija Gajic has more points for the Stealth than Powless.

On the other hand, there are definitely things that we did see (or could have seen) coming:

• Miles Thompson and Ben McIntosh have both been impactful in their first couple of NLL games
• Evan Kirk is looking like a Goaltender of the Year candidate. Kirk was outstanding in his rookie year of 2012 but after a dismal sophomore year, he came back a little last year in Philly and has been lights-out so far this season in New England.
• The top of the scoring leader list contains names like Sanderson, Grant, Evans, Duch, Jones, Jamieson, Crawford.
• Anthony Cosmo’s GAA and save % are both among the league leaders
• Colorado beat Calgary in overtime – their fourth straight OT game

Like I said though, all of these unusual things can and probably will change. Powless will get hot. The goalies mentioned will undoubtedly get better. The undefeated teams will lose and the winless teams will win. The Rock scoring average will probably drop, though how far is anyone’s guess.

But the unexpected is one reason why I love the NLL.

In the indoor lacrosse world, this is one of the best times of the year. It’s been seven months since the Championship series and over three months since the Mann Cup finished. But now the NLL training camps are in full swing, rosters have been announced, and we’re only a week away from the regular season beginning. Everything’s great, right? Not so much. This year, the entire lacrosse community is reeling from the passing of several people – including five within four weeks – who have had huge impacts on the sport.

Like every other community, the lacrosse family has come together in the past due to tragedy. Sometimes the outcome is positive, like the case of Jenna Pollock, wife of Swarm and Mammoth forward Sean Pollock, who fought breast cancer back in 2012 and won. Stealth coach Chris Hall missed most of the 2012 season because of cancer, but he beat it and was back behind the bench in 2013. Other times the story doesn’t end as well; despite never having met either of them, I know I shed a tear or two over the passing of Chris Sanderson in June of 2012 and Kyle Miller a year later.

But I don’t remember a period of time in which the lacrosse world was rocked by tragedy so many times.

At the beginning of June, Stealth head coach Chris Hall announced his retirement to focus on his health. The cancer that he had beaten a year before had returned with a vengeance. Chris was immediately nominated and elected into the NLL Hall of Fame.

After that, we had a pretty typical off-season until September, when multiple Mann Cup winner Dave Pirog died. Pirog may not be a name familiar to casual NLL fans, though he was a scout for both the Toronto Rock and Ottawa Rebel, an assistant coach for the Vancouver Ravens, and defensive co-ordinator for the San Jose Stealth. He won two Mann Cups playing in MSL and was a coach for several different junior teams both in MSL and the WLA.

On November 13, the Rock announced that GM Terry Sanderson had become ill while on vacation and would be taking some time off from his duties. T had suffered a heart attack while in Florida and passed away two weeks later on the 27th. The outpouring of sorrow from the entire NLL and the Orangeville community was immense; Terry touched a lot of lives in the lacrosse world and it seemed that everyone who played with him or was coached by him came away better for it.

A little over a week later, a name from the past resurfaced as former NLL commissioner Jim Jennings passed away from cancer. Jennings was commissioner from 2000-2009 and presided over the league during its most active period, when teams were being added, moved, and dropped all over the place. Not everyone agreed with all of the moves but there’s no denying that Jennings worked hard to try to expand and grow the league. He failed in places like Columbus, Chicago, and New York, but Colorado, Calgary and Edmonton also came into being on his watch so there were some big successes there too.

The very next day, Peterborough lacrosse player Mark Evans passed away. Evans had won three Minto Cups and three Mann Cups and was, I believe, the uncle of NLL players Shawn and Scott Evans.

But it doesn’t end there; in fact it just got worse.

On December 15, the Edmonton Rush announced that Derek Keenan would be taking a leave of absence from his GM and coaching duties to be with his wife Wendy, who is fighting stage four pancreatic cancer. Keenan actually disclosed Wendy’s illness at the NLL awards ceremony in September but the team knew about it last season. This may help to explain one of the most cohesive teams in NLL history – nobody was playing for personal stats or accolades, it was all about the team – or more accurately, it was all about Derek and Wendy.

Only two days after Keenan’s announcement came one of the most crushing blows of all, the passing of little Tucker Williams on December 17 after a year-long courageous battle with lymphoma. I never met Tucker and I’ve only met Shawn Williams once (and that was over ten years ago, before Tucker was even born), but Shawn’s uncle Mike and his family are very good friends of mine, and so this was difficult for me personally. I heard about Tucker in the morning while at work and spent the entire afternoon hoping nobody would come into my office and ask why my eyes were red. The outpouring of grief, support, and love for the Williams family on social media was just as amazing as the unfairness of losing an eight-year-old boy was incomprehensible.

I was part of the way through writing this article when I found that I had to extend it. Chris Hall may have won the cancer battle the first time around, but as it all too often does, cancer ended up winning the war. Hall succumbed to his illness on December 21, only four days after Tucker. Yet again the social media pages were awash in praise for CH the coach as well as CH the man.

With the holiday season upon us and the upcoming NLL season beginning, this should be one of the best times of the lacrosse fan’s year. I’m sure we’ll all be thrilled and excited once we manage to get past the devastating heartbreak.

#RIPT

#BraverThanBrave

#RIPCH

I bought this NLL jersey on eBay last week:

It’s obviously from the All-Star game in Portland in 2007, and it’s been signed by no less than eighteen NLL players. (At least, I’m assuming they’re NLL players.) Problem is, I can’t read most of them. Can you help? If you recognize any of them, please let me know in the comments!

If it helps, the players who played in the 2007 All-Star game are listed here.

First name could be Ryan. Ward, Cousins, Boyle, and Powell were all on the 2007 All-Star teams. Roy Colsey wasn’t but his last season was 2007.

Going out on a limb here. Gonna say Dallas Eliuk.

John Grant? Just going by the #24 here.

Kaleb Toth?

Kinda looks like Buck Martinez but I doubt it.

Peter Morgan?

Another John Grant?

Casey Powell?

Kind of looks like a heart-shaped balloon (more obvious in the picture above), which would seem odd for a lacrosse player’s signature.

There’s a new lacrosse show in town! Addicted To Lacrosse is a weekly talk show about the NLL done by fans, for fans. It features myself, Melissa Dafni, and Tyler Fitch in a roundtable format, and the three of us discuss NLL news as well as the previous weekend’s games, and make predictions for the upcoming games. We’ve all been big lacrosse fans (and NLL season ticket holders) for many years and love to talk about the game. We make no apologies for being fans of the Rock (Graeme), Mammoth (Melissa), and Stealth (Tyler), but we promise to cover all the games and teams.

The show will air every Monday night at 9pm EST (7pm MST, 6pm PST) and is done live via Google+ Hangout, with the recording available afterwards on YouTube. All previous episodes (including a few we did during the off-season as practice) are available at addictedtolacrosse.com or through the official YouTube playlist. Make sure you follow @LaxPodcast on Twitter, and if you have feedback, you can tweet it to @LaxPodcast or send email to feedback(at)addictedtolacrosse.com. Send us your comments and we’ll read them on the show, and if you send us questions, maybe we’ll add a Q&A segment!

We’re looking forward to getting together once a week to talk about the NLL, and we hope you can join us!

For the second straight year, I had the good fortune to be able to attend the NLL Entry Draft since it took place in the Toronto area. The 2012 draft was held at a hotel in downtown Toronto, while the 2013 draft was held at the Toronto Rock Athletic Centre in Oakville. This year’s location was even more convenient for me than last year’s since the TRAC is halfway to Toronto from my place. Again this year I will post my thoughts on the draft event itself, though I’m afraid I have little to say about the players drafted. I don’t follow the summer leagues or the MLL nearly as much as the NLL (and I don’t follow anything below senior lacrosse at all) so I just don’t know the players. If you’re looking for that kind of insight, head on over to IL Indoor or In Lacrosse We Trust.

I realize the event was broadcast on the internet so many of you probably watched it happen, but since I didn’t watch the broadcast, I don’t know how much you could see or hear.

The event took place on the floor of the carpeted rink at the TRAC. (There are two lacrosse rinks at the TRAC – one with turf and one concrete.) A stage with a podium was on the far side of the rink (in front of the benches), and nine tables (one for each team) were set up in three rows of three in front of the stage. To the left of the stage was a long table where NLL staff sat, including Commissioner George Daniel. To the right of the team tables was a line of tables for media, and to the left was a smaller table for hosts Andy McNamara and Stephen Stamp.

The team tables were assigned in alphabetical order, starting with Buffalo at the front right, and going across and then back to Vancouver in the back row on the left. From left to right, the front row was Colorado, Calgary and Buffalo; the middle row was Philadelphia, Minnesota, Edmonton; and the back row was Vancouver, Toronto, and Rochester.

Behind those tables were several rows of chairs for draft eligible players and their families. By draft time, those chairs were entirely filled. The stands were for the fans, though I don’t think there were more than about 30 people there, and I know a few of them were friends or family of the players. There were even a few people with media passes around their necks sitting in the stands. Last year, there was a combined seating area for players, family members, and fans, and I’m sure there were more people there than this year. I initially assumed there were just fewer fans this year, but maybe the players were told to try to limit the number of family members they bring since seating was limited, so that was the difference.

I talked briefly to Stephen Stamp before the draft started, and he said they were having trouble with their internet connection through the TRAC’s wifi. My internet connection was working fine, but then I was connected through my smartphone. By the time the draft started, I imagine they got that all sorted out since I didn’t see anyone on twitter complaining about the broadcast. One thing I did notice though: Stamp was using a Macbook at the beginning of the draft – I assumed it was to bring up stats and information on players as they were drafted. But later on I noticed that the laptop was either gone or closed, so whatever information he had came from his memory. Unfortunately for me, there was an eight foot wall of plastic (how do I know it was eight feet? Because Dan Dawson could just see over it.) between me and the PA system so I couldn’t hear much. I could hear most of the player announcements, though a couple of times I had to wait 30 seconds and check twitter to see who was just picked, but as for the insight into the players, I picked up precisely none.

The first few picks seemed to go as expected, with Logan Schuss and Jason Noble going first and second to the Swarm. After Colorado picked Dillon Ward, the Rush and Swarm made the first trade of the night – the Swarm sent Nic Bilic and the #5 overall pick to the Rush for the #4 pick. The Swarm picked Cameron Flint, and the Rush took Robert Church with their pick. It seemed odd to me that the Swarm felt moving up one spot was worth Nic Bilic, but I thought maybe they really wanted Flint and didn’t want to take the chance that the Rush would pick him. The Rush, however, had a jersey that already had “Church” on the back, so either (a) they had a few jerseys made up and grabbed Church’s when they picked him, or (b) they knew they wanted Church and made up one just for him. Maybe they felt getting Bilic from Minnesota was worth the possibility of losing Church, or perhaps they knew the Swarm wanted Flint and decided not to mention that they weren’t going to pick him.

What’s even more strange about this whole thing is that Minnesota had the top two picks, but did not have a jersey for Jason Noble with his name on it. I don’t know if they had one for Schuss since he wasn’t there, but it’s not like the Swarm didn’t know who they were going to pick beforehand. They had jerseys made up for Sorensen, Matisz, and Jackson last year.

After Edmonton chose Reid Mydske in the fourth round, I tweeted that he and his brother (Brett) would be playing for the same team. I joked “Checking to see if this has ever happened before.” I was surprised at the number of people who actually thought I was serious. People telling me about the Gaits, Powells, Selfs, Gajics, Dawsons, and even Squires. I’m sure I could come up with a bunch more without thinking very hard – of the top of my head: how about the Carnegies, Harnetts, and Malawskys – and that’s just Calgary (Derek Malawsky never played for Calgary but he and Curt played together on Rochester). Don’t forget the Sandersons (not Josh and Phil since they’re cousins, but Ryan and Chris on the 1999 Baltimore Thunder) (OK, that one I had to look up), Evans’s, Wrays, and Kilgours. This is not an uncommon thing in the NLL by any stretch.

Anyway, back to the draft. By the time it was over, most of the fans had gone. There were exactly five of us left, and I saw Mark Matthews chatting to three of them earlier on so I guessed they were friends of his.

I don’t imagine they’ll have the draft in the Toronto area again next year. Maybe if the league were based in Toronto I could see it, but the offices are in New York City. I think moving around the cities in the league would be good, especially for the western teams who’ve had to travel east two years straight. As I said last year, it was interesting to see the event happen live and watch “the inner workings of the league in action”, though I think I might have gotten more out of it by watching the internet broadcast. At least I would have been able to hear Andy and Stephen’s commentary.

But then again, Toronto Rock first round pick Ethan O’Connor was sitting right in front of me, and it was very smile-inducing to watch him and his family stand up and hug each other when his name was called. You can see that on the broadcast as well, but it’s very different when you’re there in person rather than watching online. That alone made the trip worth it.