Category Archives: Ottawa Black Bears

Trade frenzy on deadline day

Posted on by

Trade deadline day in the NLL was pretty uneventful and boring… until it wasn’t. And then it really really wasn’t. First, former MVP and Goaltender of the Year Christian Del Bianco was sent to the Vancouver Warriors for defender Brayden Laity and some pretty high draft picks. Del Bianco had been holding out this entire season, asking for a trade closer to his home in Vancouver, and since Calgary is the closest team to Vancouver that isn’t Vancouver, there was really nowhere else for him to go.

There were a few other deals made that day as well which I’ll touch on too.

Continue reading →

2025 NLL Week 14

Posted on by

The battle for first place was won by the Bandits… for now. There were low-scoring games all over the place in week 14 – only one of the five games featured more than 21 goals, and two of them had both teams held under 10. Unsurprisingly, goaltending is featured in a number of my Awesome entries this week.

Continue reading →

2025 NLL Week 13-14

Posted on by

This week’s report combined weeks 13 and 14 since I was away on vacation last week. The Bandits are no longer undefeated but are still in first place, the Rush and Thunderbirds are hot, the Wings and Rock are not. We’re more than halfway through the season now and the playoff picture looks vastly different than last year’s. Three of the top four teams in 2024 are currently out of the playoffs and two of the bottom three teams last year are currently in. Of course, there are still 51 games left to play and things can and most likely will change.

Continue reading →

2025 NLL Week 10

Posted on by

Another busy week in the NLL with seven games, though not much really changed. The Bandits are still perfect, the Rock, Knighthawks, and Thunderbirds continue their climb back into the playoff race, the Swarm and Rush continue their strong seasons, and the Black Bears are still having trouble scoring.

Continue reading →

2025 NLL Week 9

Posted on by

A light week in the NLL with only four games but it was another exciting week with no shortage of stories.

Continue reading →

2025 NLL Week 8

Posted on by

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.

Continue reading →

2025 NLL Week 7

Posted on by

An incredible week of games starting with one of the best rivalries in the game, despite the results in recent years (Buffalo has won 11 of the past 12 matchups with the Rock since 2022). As I mention below, every game was a comeback to some extent but some were significant comebacks. Halifax/Rochester was as close as a game can be, to the point where we still don’t really know who won it.

Continue reading →

2025 NLL Week 6

Posted on by

A light but impactful week in the NLL. There were only three games but one of them got rid of one of the two remaining winless teams (Las Vegas, only Toronto remans), another got rid of one of the two remaining undefeated teams (Georgia, only Buffalo remains), and the third set or tied a handful of NLL records.

Continue reading →

2025 NLL Week 5

Posted on by

How can we already be talking about Week 5 in the past tense? The season just started, didn’t it? We still have two undefeated teams and two winless teams. In addition, all the games for the 2024 calendar year are now done which means that my talking about the 2025 NLL season as being in progress will sound less like time-travelling. The league does refer to it as the 2024–2025 season, just like the last one was the 2023–2024 season, but I just use the higher number because it’s shorter and a greater percentage of the season will happen in 2025.

Continue reading →

2025 NLL Week 1

Posted on by

We’re back! The NLL is back, NLLStats.com is back, NLL podcasts are back (though some like Lax Class never left), and of course NLL Chatter is back. Every week I cover things that were awesome from the previous week and things that were… less awesome. Let’s jump right in.

Continue reading →