During the semi-finals, I noticed that all of the people listed on San Diego’s “Coaching staff” web page were very high NLL draft picks. I posted that to X and someone suggested that I do that for all the teams. I decided to add some additional information – when they played in the NLL if at all, whether they are in the Hall of Fame, and what awards they had won.
Continue readingCategory Archives: Ottawa Black Bears
2026 NLL Week 21
The 2026 NLL regular season has come to an end. The standings are final and the playoff bracket is set. You’ve probably seen the matchups in other places but just in case, next weekend we’ll have Vancouver hosting Halifax at 10:00 (all times Eastern) on Friday night, and three games on Saturday: Georgia hosting Buffalo at 7:30 and Colorado hosting San Diego and Saskatchewan hosting Toronto, both at 9:00.
2026 saw a couple of records set in terms of “best season of all time”, both by Brett Dobson. His save percentage of 84.7% beat Doug Jamieson’s 82.9% in 2020. His GAA of 7.86 is almost a full point better than second place Aaron Bold’s 8.73 in 2014. Ladies and gentlemen, we’ve just witnessed the best season by a goaltender, statistically, in NLL history.
2026 NLL Week 20
The regular season is almost over and the last two playoff positions are not only down to the wire, but both will be decided in the best way possible: head-to-head.
2026 NLL Week 17
What an incredible weekend of games. Keegan Bal and the Warriors clinched a playoff spot by holding off Jeff Teat and the Black Bears in a meeting of the two top scorers in the league, the Mammoth held off the Roughnecks who were never out of that game, and the Rock beat the already-clinched Rush. And the other three games each featured amazing comebacks including one record-breaking one.
2026 NLL Week 15
Week 15 wasn’t nearly as busy as week 14, but there were some important results this past weekend. The Rock and Thunderbirds had their offenses working while Colorado and Rochester didn’t, and the FireWolves held off a late surge by the Wings. Next week features a few matchups between teams near each other in the standings: Toronto at Halifax, Philly at Oshawa, Vancouver at Georgia, and Rochester at Las Vegas. Colorado and Buffalo aren’t really near each other in the standings but the way Buffalo has been playing lately, they might be before long. Only San Diego at Saskatchewan and Ottawa at Calgary feature two teams not really near each other in the standings, but would it really shock anyone if the underdogs take those games?
2026 NLL Week 14
There were ten games this past weekend, which ties for second place among the busiest weekends in NLL history – the last weekend of the 2007 season featured eleven games. Every team played, a bunch of teams played twice, and yet the standings didn’t change an awful lot. The Black Bears, Bandits, and Wings jumped, while the Rock, Seals, Desert Dogs, and Knighthawks dropped but even so, the jumps or drops weren’t huge.
2026 NLL Week 8
We’re about a third of the way through the 2026 NLL season. A bunch of teams are playing as well as expected or even better: Saskatchewan, Rochester, Colorado, Ottawa, Las Vegas, and arguably Georgia. Others are struggling: Calgary, San Diego, Philadelphia, Oshawa, Halifax. I wouldn’t say Buffalo is struggling exactly but maybe not playing as well as the Bandits of the last few years.
2026 NLL Week 6
As of week 6, every team has won at least one and lost at least one. Four teams are at .500, five are above, and five are below. The top four teams were in the top five last year, and three of the bottom four were in the bottom four last year. So not much has changed, right? No, it doesn’t feel like that at all, actually.
2026 NLL Week 3
After a busy week, all teams have played at least one game now. Halifax is 2–0, Rochester and Philly 1–0, Oshawa 1–2, Calgary 0–2, and Las Vegas 0–1. Everyone else – eight different teams – is 1–1, and four of those also have zero goal differentials. Things will almost certainly open up a bit more as the season progresses, but just as early season stats are fun, early season standings can be fun as well.
2026 NLL Preview: Part II
Here’s part II of my pre-season preview; part I was here. For each team (alphabetically from Ottawa through Vancouver), I’ll share where I think they will end up, and who might have a breakout year.
As I did last year, I’m not going to make specific standings predictions. I’ll break things up into groups: Top 4, Middle 4 (i.e. #5-8), and Miss Playoffs (#9-14).
NLL Chatter 