The Ville

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I went to a party recently hosted by my friends Doug & Ashley at their new house in Orangeville, a small town (population about 28,000) about an hour from my place. Other than stopping at Tim Horton’s a couple of times on my way to or from Collingwood, I had never been to Orangeville. But if you follow lacrosse at all, it’s hard not to know the significance of this town in lacrosse culture. At the party, I estimated that more NLL players come from Orangeville than any other single town, with the possible exception of Peterborough. It turns out that I was mostly right; from the 2016 rosters, Orangeville and Coquitlam BC each had 13 players in the NLL. Peterborough and St. Catharines had 12 each. But Coquitlam, Peterborough, and St. Catharines each have four times the population of Orangeville.

Even much bigger cities like Toronto or Hamilton don’t have the same numbers. Hamilton has almost twenty times the population of Orangeville but only had 7 NLL players in 2016, and that’s if you include Stoney Creek, Dundas, and Millgrove. But bigger cities certainly don’t have the same sense of community – two players may both have been brought up in Toronto but rarely played against each other, where that’s just not possible in smaller towns where everybody knows everybody.

Nick Rose with the NorthmenMany NLL fans know about the Sanderson family’s connection to Orangeville. Indeed, Sanderson’s Source for Sports (formerly owned by Terry Sanderson and now, presumably, by Josh) is right there on Broadway. Six different Sandersons have played in the NLL (Brandon, Josh, Nate, Phil, Ryan, and the late Chris; all but Nate played at the same time in 2002-2003) and two more (Terry and Lindsay) have coached.

But considering the size of the town, the number of lacrosse players that have come from the ‘Ville is astounding. Obviously we have the Sandersons. Pat Coyle. Brodie and Patrick Merrill (though Patrick was born in Montreal). Jon and Greg Harnett. Jason and Jeremy Noble. Glen Bryan. Andrew Suitor. Bruce Codd. Rusty Kruger. Brandon Miller and his late brother Kyle, who never played in the NLL but was a great field lacrosse goaltender. Dillon Ward. Evan and Mike Kirk. And one of Orangeville’s (and particularly the Orangeville Northmen’s) greatest promoters, Nick Rose. I’ve probably missed some.

It’s not just that there are a lot of players from Orangeville, there are a lot of great players. The list above contains three NLL Hall of Famers (Josh, T, and Coyle) and at least one future HoF’er in Brodie Merrill. The 2016 finalists for the NLL Goaltender of the Year award are Rose, Ward, and Evan Kirk who all played for the Northmen.

While driving into the town on my way to the party, I passed Sanderson’s and when I turned off of Broadway, I saw a sign pointing to the Tony Rose Memorial Sports Centre. This is where all the different Northmen teams play and was named for Nick’s father. It turned out that Doug and Ashley can see the “bunny barn” from their deck. I tried to impart on them the significance of this but they’re not huge lacrosse fans (or at least not as big as me) so its meaning was kind of lost. But even though they’ve only lived there for a matter of months, they’ve noticed people playing lacrosse everywhere. It’s a part of Orangeville culture.

Only two other towns in Canada even come close to Orangeville’s production in terms of great lacrosse players per capita. One would be Victoria BC. The population of Victoria is around 78,000, only double that of Orangeville. But Vic had seven NLL players in 2016, and many great players have come out of the BC capital, including the Gaits, Tom Marechek, Ryan Ward, Kevin Alexander, and last year’s Tom Borrelli award winner, Teddy Jenner.

The other is a different entity altogether. The Six Nations reserve in southern Ontario has a population of around 26,000, about the same as Orangeville. Nine players in 2016 called Six Nations home, and many other NLL players in the past have grown up there. The names Bomberry and Powless are all over the history of the NLL and lacrosse in general, and there’s a Bomberry and two Powlesses playing now. I’m guessing you’ll hear those names as well as names like Jamieson and Staats in the NLL many times in the coming years.

I called it a “different entity” because as much as lacrosse is a part of Orangeville culture, it’s even more ingrained in Native culture. It’s not just a fun game to play to pass the time or a game you play because everyone else plays it, it’s part of their belief system. But that’s an article for another day.

The 2016 NLL draft: the rich get richer

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The draft order for the 2016 NLL entry draft was released on Friday. The defending champion Saskatchewan Rush have three first round picks, including two of the top three. Talk about the rich getting richer.

You might think the Vancouver Stealth or Toronto Rock might have the first overall pick since they finished last in their divisions. Normally, you’d be right but the Stealth traded that pick for Corey Small. The Rock do pick second overall and the Stealth pick first in the second round.

You might also think that so many first round picks would be a great thing for any team but there’s a bit of a problem. In order to have room for the new guys, the Rush will have to drop some players from the existing lineup. Given that they won the last two Championships, there isn’t a lot of deadwood around to get rid of. Make no mistake, this is a much better problem to have than, say, finishing last and having no first round picks at all. But it’s going to be a lot of work for Derek Keenan and his staff trying to figure out what to do with all of these great players. From a Rush perspective, it might be nice if they could defer those top picks to a future year. Of course, there’s no mechanism to do that.

So maybe they could try to trade this year’s first overall pick to someone else for next year’s first overall pick. But they can’t guarantee that; the best they could do is trade their pick for someone else’s first round pick, which can be quite different than the first overall pick. What they might be able to do is find a team who might want a first round pick now and offer them the 9th overall pick in exchange for that team’s first round pick in the 2017 or 2018 draft. Since this is the last pick in the first round, the Rush might have to throw in another, a second or third rounder maybe, to sweeten the deal a little. Obviously a team would have to have a first round pick for 2017 or 2018 available to trade, which immediately removes the Stealth from the picture.

Chad Tutton, drafted 5th overall in 2015, with Ed Comeau and Andy Arlotta

In Major League Baseball, the players drafted generally don’t even make it to the majors for several years. In the NHL and NBA, drafted players get to the big leagues much faster. Guys like LeBron James and John Tavares (no not that one, the other one) can have an immediate impact on their teams as rookies, but mostly it takes a year or two before the impacts are really felt.

And then there’s the NLL.

In the 2016 season, every player drafted in the first round of the previous draft not only played but had a significant impact on his team. Randy Staats led his team in scoring, Jesse King and Wesley Berg finished third on their teams, and Chad Tutton and Graeme Hossack are already considered among the top transition players and defenders in the league. Of the twelve players drafted in the second round, only two didn’t play in a game and some second rounders like Anthony Malcom, Mitch de Snoo, and Jordan Durston played almost every game.

But the 2015 draft was one of the deepest ever so it’s not surprising that 19 of the top 20 players made it to the show right away. If the 2016 draft isn’t quite as deep, Keenan may not have a problem drafting someone and trading him for a future first round pick.

We all know that Derek Keenan is one of the best GMs in the league so I’m anxiously awaiting his undoubtedly clever solution to this “problem”.

The home floor advantage

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We all know that teams have an advantage when they play in their home arena. The fans are on your side, the home players don’t have to travel while the opposing players do, and the PA guys get excited about your goals and their penalties but not the other way around. The numbers back this up – in the 30-year history of the NLL (in all its forms), the home team is 973-796 (.550) in the regular season and 92-58 (.613) in the playoffs. Over 1769 games, the home team has won almost exactly 10% (actually 10.006%) more games than they’ve lost. The difference isn’t huge but it’s there, and it’s even more pronounced in the playoffs.

But there’s one home floor advantage that is, in my opinion, too much of an advantage and should be removed. But I’ll get to that.

Much of the advantage is the fans. I’ve heard a number of players say that they tune out the crowd while playing but if the fans are really loud, they do get heard. Having the fans on your side gives you a little mental boost, while having loud fans cheering against you can be deflating. Conversely, we’ve all heard visiting teams try to grab a lead early to “take the fans out of it” since playing in your home arena to silent fans is pretty deflating too.

Buffalo fans cheering Kedoh Hill

The travel thing I mentioned is not really an advantage in the NLL. The majority of NLL players come from either southern Ontario or southern BC so for most teams, playing in Toronto or Vancouver means the least amount of travel regardless of where the team is based. When Georgia visits Colorado, most of both teams have to travel but when they play in Toronto, it’s almost a home game for both.

But as I said above, there’s one difference that’s too much. It sometimes gets overlooked as an advantage but can really have a huge impact. When the visiting team scores a goal, the video replay guy shows the replay of the goal on the video screen as soon as he can, so that the home team’s coaching staff can watch for crease violations and such and know whether to throw the challenge flag. This also happens when the home team scores a goal that is waved off by the refs because of such violations. Depending on the arena’s camera placement and video system, you may get multiple angles and slow motion to make it easier for the coaches.

But the visiting team doesn’t get that courtesy. When their goals are waved off or the home team scores a goal that’s even remotely close to being questionable, you will not see a replay, or at least not until the time window for issuing a challenge has elapsed. The visiting coaches have to decide whether to throw the challenge flag from what they saw in real time, and this is much more difficult.

And it’s wrong.

The intention of the coach’s challenge is to make sure that the refs get the calls right. Clearly we want as many calls to be correct as possible, so that a team that legally scores ten goals is credited with scoring ten goals, not nine or eleven. But to get that right as often as possible means either the refs replay every single goal, or the coaches have as many challenges as they want. Coaches challenges can take a fair bit of time which disrupts any flow the game has and kills any momentum for either team. It’s also boring for fans, particularly those on TV who might leave to watch something else. We have to balance “getting all the calls right” with “don’t disrupt the flow of the game”, and so we limit the number of challenges.

Refs are human and so they’re going to make mistakes from time to time and we accept that. That’s why the challenges exist. But for a team to be able to handcuff the opposing coach and not their own is too much of an advantage, in my opinion. Suppose we said that the home team should get four challenges and the visiting team only two. Or that the visiting team is allowed one fewer coach on the bench. Nobody would accept those changes. But somehow it’s OK if the home team gets better insight through technology as to when to use their challenges?

The home team already gets a number of advantages, as I listed above, though most are “intangible”. But this one is not and in my opinion gives the home team too much of an advantage. The goal should be to get calls correct, as many as possible, so that the players decide the outcome, not honest mistakes made by the referees (who also have to make goal/no-goal calls in real time). To make this process more fair, replays for all goals should be put up on the video screen as soon as possible, and we should tweak the rules for challenges so that all coaches have a chance to see the replay before deciding whether or not to challenge.

Memories of Josh (Part II)

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Yesterday I shared some of my memories of Josh Sanderson, but I had more to say so I broke it into two articles.

Sanderson was given the nickname “Shooter” and as has been noted many times, it’s a little misleading. Make no mistake, Josh can score with the best of them – only five players have scored more NLL goals. But he’s more associated with assists than goals. He’s set the record for assists in a season several times. Only John Tavares has more in his career, and only Garrett Billings has a higher assists/game average than Sanderson.

Josh SandersonSanderson was best known as a “playmaker”, the quarterback of the offense. He’d watch the floor and see where the defense was setting up, who was covering who, where the goalie and defenders (and his own teammates) were weak or strong, and come up with a game plan on how to score, adjusting the plan in real time as things developed. Sometimes he’d score himself, but even more often he’d pass to someone else who’d score. Sometimes he wouldn’t end up with credit on the goal at all but was nonetheless instrumental in making it happen. He wasn’t the biggest or the fastest guy on the floor – in fact at 5’7″, he was one of the smallest. But none of that mattered, because he might have been the smartest.

Josh had played for his father Terry in Albany, Calgary, and twice in Toronto but nobody accused Terry of nepotism for acquiring him. Josh was one of the best offensive players in the game his entire career, so any GM who traded for him was getting a great player, son or not.

Congratulations to Josh Sanderson on an outstanding playing career. He was a goal-scorer, an assist master, an expert playmaker, a captain and alternate captain, a two-time NLL champ, and a Championship game MVP. He’s also a no-doubt future Hall of Famer. In various seasons he led the Rock, Roughnecks, Attack, and Stealth in scoring, and had the best Movember moustache this side of Andrew McBride.

And given that he’s the GM of the MSL’s Oakville Rock, it may not be a big stretch to say we might see Josh Sanderson back in the NLL in a different capacity before too long.

Memories of Josh (Part I)

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My first real memory of Josh Sanderson was the 2002 Championship game. It was my second season watching the Toronto Rock, and the Rock went to the Championship game for the fourth straight year. The Rock finished the season 11-5 but were playing the 14-2 Albany Attack. The game was in Albany but was on TV so I met all my lacrosse buds at my friend Steve’s house to watch the game there. The Rock won the game 13-12 thanks to a few goals from some unlikely sources: defensive guys like Dan Ladouceur, Drew Candy, and Ian Rubel.

Sanderson & John Gallant

Aside: That Rock team also featured five current NLL head or assistant coaches in Dan Stroup, Pat Coyle, Glenn Clark, Blaine Manning, and Jim Veltman, and one former coach in Dan Ladouceur. Other coaches Chris Gill and Kaleb Toth were on the team the previous year. Colin Doyle, Anthony Cosmo, and Sandy Chapman are the only remaining active players from that team.

But back to the 2002 Championship. Another thing I remember was the play of Albany’s Josh Sanderson. I knew who he was, since he was one of the league’s leading scorers. He had picked up 103 points during the regular season, finishing fourth in scoring. But in the Championship game, he picked up 10 points and was the clear offensive leader of the team. At the time I even thought he should have been named game MVP, despite being on the losing team. I also remember an interview he gave after that game, in which he criticized the people of Albany for not coming out to support the team.

After another season in Albany, the Attack began their migrant ways (as ill-timed as Josh’s comments were, they were correct) and moved to San Jose but in the summer of 2004, Sanderson was traded to Toronto in a deal that came to be known to Rock fans (for a while anyway) simply as The Trade.  Adding Sanderson to Colin Doyle and Blaine Manning was (not unexpectedly) genius and the Rock, with one of the strongest offensive teams in NLL history, won the Championship in 2005. Sanderson, Doyle, and Manning became the first trio of teammates to eclipse 100 points in a season, a feat that has still not been repeated.

If there was one thing he was occasionally criticized for (sometimes by me), it was taking his time getting back to the bench on the O-to-D transition. Instead of running (or sprinting a la Sandy Chapman) to the bench to let the D get out there, Josh would casually saunter back. He also wasn’t the greatest defender in the game – I remember seeing him get caught on the floor and have to play some D and wishing the other Sanderson (Phil) was out there instead of Josh. But even that got better over the years. By the end of his career, I still wouldn’t have called him a great defender but he could certainly hold his own at the other end of the floor – though perhaps less so against the 6’5″+ Crowleys and Dawsons and Matthewses of the league.

I have more to say about Mr. Sanderson, but I’ll leave the rest until tomorrow. Until then, enjoy this overtime goal from 2015.

My NLL 2017 wish list (part II)

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Yesterday I began a list of changes I’d like to see in the NLL next season. There were only two but they got kind of long so I broke the rest out into today’s article. Did I miss any? Leave a comment with your 2017 wish list!

Better schedule – Some teams had a great schedule in 2016. The Stealth had a bye in week one and then played exactly one game per week until week 18. The Bandits played twice in weeks 8 and 16 and only missed weeks 1 and 12.

But the Black Wolves played twice in one weekend four times and had four bye weekends. Between March 25 and April 9 (16 days), they played five games. Rochester played their fifth game on Feb 13, the same night the Mammoth played their eighth. The Rock and Rush played in Toronto one night and Saskatoon the next. Creating a schedule when many of the teams in your league are the second- or third-highest ranking tenant in their building is challenging but it’d be nice if it was a little more balanced. And since this is a wish list, let’s hope for all Friday and Saturday games.

And like every other year, it’d be nice if Eastern teams played more games out west and Western teams played more games in the east. Of course, that increases travel costs quite a bit and so I suppose it’s not likely to happen.

The Rock won’t suck – It sounds like Josh Sanderson is done as an NLL player, and it wouldn’t surprise me if Colin Doyle retires before next season as well. That puts the Rock down two strong lefty forwards. While I’m sure guys like Dan Lintner (though he’s a righty) and Turner Evans are looking forward to more floor time, I imagine the Rock may be looking for other solutions. But barring a trade for Shawn Evans or Adam Jones (and I know Evans is a righty but I imagine they could still make it work), the Rock may be in for some offensive struggles for a season or two.

Then again, you may remember back in the summer of 2010 when the Calgary Roughnecks lost two of their biggest offensive threats in the same offseason – Tracey Kelusky and, coincidentally, Josh Sanderson. We all thought that the Roughies were in for a rough (see what I did there?) 2011 season but they ended up 11-5 and won the West. Why? Well, some of it was a rookie named Curtis Dickson, some of it was Kaleb Toth and MVP Jeff Shattler each increasing their offensive output by 50% from 2010, and some of it was the addition of Cory Conway and Daryl Veltman. They didn’t replace two superstars with other superstars (though Dickson eventually became a superstar), but the changes they made were more than enough.

The next Superman?

It might be a tall order for the Rock to win the East next year without Sanderson and Doyle but if one of Lintner and Evans turns into Curtis Dickson, Hellyer and Leblanc score 171 and 105 points respectively, and the Rock bring in two other 50-point scorers, they could be fine. Of course I’m kidding here, but the point is that while it will be tough, the Rock could still have a successful season despite losing Josh and Colin. It’s far too early to make a prediction either way, but again, this is my wish list, not a prediction list.

Gains in Swarm, Black Wolves attendance – Another wish that is not a prediction, unfortunately. Perhaps the fact that both teams made the playoffs in 2016 will help to increase attendance, but there have been too many teams whose on-floor success was not correlated with butts in seats to really believe that. In fact, you can look at the Black Wolves themselves: In 2015 when they were 4-14, they averaged 3915 per game. In 2016 when they were 10-8 and made the playoffs, their attendance actually went down by about 160. Their two lowest attended games of the year were their third-last and last games, meaning that they had already cemented themselves as a playoff-bound team. Didn’t matter.

The Swarm averaged 4668 per game, almost a thousand more than New England but about half of the 2015 Minnesota Swarm. The off-season build-up seemed to work – they had over 9000 out to the first home game. But the very next game it dropped to 4850 and pretty much dropped steadily after that to a low of 2957 in the second-last game, and then jumped again to about 5300 in their last game.

Part of the problem in both cases was the schedule. The Swarm went from January 18 to March 17 – TWO FULL MONTHS – with a single home game. Each team also had three Sunday games, which are rarely good for attendance. In contrast, the Bandits, Knighthawks, Mammoth, Rush, and Stealth had NO Sunday home games. The Rock and Roughnecks had one each. If we can get rid of the Sunday (and Monday and Thursday) games, surely that will help with attendance as well.

Both the Black Wolves and Swarm are young, talented, and exciting teams to watch. The Wolves have one of the best players in the league – last year’s MVP and possibly this year’s as well. The Swarm have a crop of young players who have the potential of turning into one of the best offenses the league has seen in many years. If each team can beef up their local and social media presence, community involvement, etc. maybe they can get those attendance numbers up to the 6000-7000 range, ironically where the Philadelphia Wings and Minnesota Swarm were in their final years.

My NLL 2017 wish list (part I)

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At the end of the 2015 season, I posted a list (Part 1 and Part 2) of my wishes for this past season. As expected, some of my wishes came true while others didn’t. In fact, one of them didn’t (the Edmonton Rush did not stay in Edmonton) but I think things actually turned out better overall than if it had.

So let’s do this again. Some of the wishes that didn’t come true last year will carry over – I’m still hoping for a new hi-def camera setup for Rochester – but I’m not going to list all the wishes again. Again, remember that this is a wish list, not things I think will happen.

Just like last year, it got kinda long so I’m splitting it into two articles.

NLLTV for all games – The league experimented with this new video streaming service in the playoffs this year and I have to say, I was impressed. The feeds were solid, the picture and sound were great, and the games were (mostly) easy to find. The ability to rewind and fast forward the stream, go back 10 seconds with a single button click, play in slow-motion, and then rejoin the game live are invaluable. Best of all, you can watch games after the fact: the next day, a week later, or whatever. This replay ability alone is worth the switch, but given all the other advantages, it’s a no-brainer.

Ideally, this will be available for all games next season for free, but I suspect this will be a pay service. Maybe they’ll give you 3 free games and then you have to start paying, which would help to get new fans interested (or at least it wouldn’t immediately turn them away). Maybe there will be a “season ticket” package for each team, and a “golden ticket” package for those of us who will watch any and all games. I can’t speak for anyone else but as long as it’s not going to cost me $100 for the season and the quality stays high, I’ll pay it.

Expansion – I did mention this last year, but I’m going to list it again. Given the number of NLL-calibre players that did not play in 2016, spent the season on the practice roster, or were cut mid-season, I think the league could definitely support two more teams.

The league has a new commissioner who has been talking about expansion a lot, so I’d be very surprised if we don’t have at least a couple of new teams by 2018, and possibly 2017. Oddly, I haven’t heard any significant rumours of where the league might expand, so Mr. Sakiewicz is playing it pretty close to the vest.

Better be..... EDMONTON!But where to put them…? How about Edmonton and Minnesota, for starters? Both the Rush and Swarm had decent (though not great) crowds but finances were their downfalls. I wrote last year about NHL ownership, and I think an Edmonton team owned by the Oilers and a Minnesota team owned by the Wild would be pretty successful. It might be tough for Edmonton fans to go from the Championship Rush to an expansion team that will probably be terrible for the first couple of years – they’ve already had more than their share of “sucky expansion team” years. Lucky Minnesota fans won’t have to worry about that – the Swarm were never that good anyway. If you want to call that “lucky”.

Other possibilities: the Portland LumberJax failed but not due to low attendance, so with the right ownership, Portland could work. I might consider giving Philadelphia another shot. Boston too, with the right arena deal.

As for new NLL cities, I have no idea. But then again, nobody else does either without having done a ton of market research. Looking solely at population hasn’t worked (right New York? Chicago? Anaheim?), and lacrosse popularity hasn’t worked either (right Baltimore? Albany? Syracuse? Vancouver?). On the other hand, few expected Saskatoon to be successful because it had neither population nor lacrosse popularity. Denver is a big city but I’m not sure the popularity there was expected either. To find the next NLL success story, we need a lot of market research and a little bit of luck.

2016 NLL Awards

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As we do every year, the IL Indoor staff have each submitted our choices for a number of annual awards. On Addicted to Lacrosse a couple of weeks ago, the three of us went over our choices for those awards as well. Here are the picks I announced on A2L:

  • MVP: Shawn Evans, New England
  • Rookie of the Year: Randy Staats, Georgia
  • Transition Player of the Year: Alex Kedoh Hill, Buffalo
  • Defender of the Year: Chris Corbeil, Saskatchewan
  • Goalie of the Year: Nick Rose, Toronto

Not all of the IL Indoor winners have been posted yet, so I’ll just include the ones here that have. My choice is listed first, followed by the winner in brackets.

Goaltender of the Year hasn’t been announced yet but I’ll say here that when doing my IL Indoor picks, I changed my mind and voted for Dillon Ward (sorry Nick). I’m now… well, not exactly regretting that decision since Ward did have a great season but if I were to submit my picks now, I think I’d stick with Rosey (sorry Dillon).

But there are a couple of other awards that weren’t included in either list, so I wanted to cover them here.

Tom Borrelli Award (Media Person of the Year)

Teddy Jenner. I mean no disrespect to the recent winners of this award, all of whom are deserving, but I’ve had Teddy as my Borrelli pick for several years now. Given how much he does for lacrosse every year, I’m kind of surprised he hasn’t won this. He is an all-around sports guy for sure (from hockey to basketball to Teddy Jennerrugby – huddy huddy, whatever that means), but clearly lacrosse is his passion. He does colour for various TV broadcasts, he’s been doing his Off the Crossebar podcast for several years, he writes for IL Indoor (and his 30 Second Shot Clock articles this past season were awesome – insightful thoughts from his many-times concussed head), he had a lacrosse radio show (also called Off the Crossebar) in Vancouver for a couple of years, he was the on-floor host of the Stealth when they were in Washington, and he’s active on twitter. Did I miss anything? Probably.

He clearly knows the NLL but he’s just as knowledgeable (if not more) about the WLA, MSL, MLL, NCAA, as well as senior, intermediate, and junior A, B, C, and any other letters there are. He knows the game as well as anyone and loves to talk about it, and we love to hear him talk about it.

Full disclosure: I’ve never actually met the man in person but we’ve been Twitter-buds for a few years. Then again, Teddy’s Twitter-buds with everyone. He interviewed me on his radio show once, and I interviewed him for this blog a few years ago.

Honourable mention: Paul Tutka. Given his year-long twitter rant about how to improve the NLL (which came down to “change everything but the game itself, and even change some of that”), it’s unlikely that the league will honour him again, but three-time Borrelli winner Tutka is still one of the most knowledgeable lacrosse writers around. He wrote a preview of the 2016 Champion’s Cup series which is about as in-depth as any article you will ever see. I read stuff like that and think “WTF am *I* doing writing about lacrosse? I don’t have a hope of covering things to that level of detail.” The old adage about “he’s forgotten more about lacrosse than I’ll ever know” has never been more apt.

But I’ve decided that I cater to a different audience. I’m going for the “I want to read articles written by someone who doesn’t know anywhere near as much about lacrosse as Paul Tutka” demographic. And I’m killing it, thankyouverymuch.

I guess more full disclosure: The Money Ballers column that I’ve been writing on IL Indoor for the past five seasons was created and written by Tutka for the previous five seasons. Again, though, I’ve never met him personally.

Executive of the Year

Lee Genier, Saskatchewan Rush. The lowest attended game in Saskatoon this year was their second game, when they had 8,624 come out. Again, that’s the lowest attendance this year. The Edmonton Rush only had three regular season games higher than that in the previous six seasons. They went from 7th in the league in average home attendance to 3rd in one year. Saskatchewan averaged 11,737 per game, an average higher than every Edmonton Rush season – in fact the Edmonton team only had four games higher than that ever. One of those four was a Championship game and another was $1 ticket night.

Lee GenierWe certainly can’t give all the credit for the success of the team in Saskatchewan to Mr. Genier, the President of the Rush, but there’s no question that he’s been instrumental. The Rush didn’t have the crazy theme nights they had in Edmonton, when they put Twitter handles on their jerseys and brought in wrestlers and GSP (who, it turns out, is not me despite those being my initials) and the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders and other celebrities. Not that these were bad ideas, but if you’re filling your arena based solely on the lacrosse team, those extras just aren’t necessary.

They even held a rally on a Friday afternoon (not a game day) and got a thousand people out. Can you see that happening in Edmonton?

Now, Edmonton averaged over 10,000 per game in their first two seasons, and then it started to drop off until it was down in the mid-6,000’s by 2015. Could that happen here too? Sure it could. But the first season of the Saskatchewan Rush has been an unqualified success, regardless of how the team does in the finals.

Honestly, I have no way to know if Mr. Genier himself is the architect of the plan that brought in the big crowds. Maybe the award should go to owner Bruce Urban, or the entire Rush marketing team, or someone else. But Genier is one of the more public NLL team Presidents, popping up on social media and doing radio and TV interviews and such. The way that Saskatoon has embraced the Rush is partially due to lacrosse being an exciting sport and partially due to their team being the defending champs and one with a very good chance of repeating. But getting the word out to the public and getting the local businesses and politicians involved takes significant work and Genier and his team have done an outstanding job.

Sportsmanship Award

I have no particular opinion on this award, but I will fearlessly predict the three finalists for the 2016 NLL Sportsmanship award:

  • Eli McLaughlin, Colorado
  • Corey Small, Vancouver
  • Travis Cornwall, Vancouver

If they don’t want to put two Stealth players on the list, the third would be John LaFontaine from Saskatchewan.

It’s not really much of a prediction, it’s just the non-goaltenders with the most games and lowest penalty minutes. None of these guys picked up a single penalty in 2016. McLaughlin and Small played 18 games, Cornwall 15, and LaFontaine 13.

Liveblog: Calgary @ Colorado

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I tried a “liveblog” last weekend and it was kinda fun, so I’ll try it again. I guess it’s similar to twitter in that I basically enter my thoughts as I have them, but this gets recorded all together.

This will be a little different though since I can’t actually watch the game. I’m at my parents’ cottage for the weekend and not only do they not get TSN2, their internet connection is maxed out for the month so I can’t watch the game online without serious overage charges. I set my phone up as a hotspot so I can get internet but I’m almost over on my phone’s data plan as well so I can’t stream the game that way either.

So I’m “watching” the game through twitter and Pointstreak. This might make the liveblog a little different since there are sometimes long pauses between updates. I also didn’t start until halftime so this will only be the second half.

Halftime

  • The Georgia / New England game yesterday (which I also didn’t see) was close throughout and ended in OT. Could we see another OT game tonight? That would be pretty awesome, at least for those watching it. And not bad for those of us who write weekly Money Ballers columns.
  • Raptors won tonight! Up 2 games to 1 over the Heat. I will freely admit that I’m on the Raptors bandwagon now that they’re in the playoffs. I’ve watched more Raptors games on TV (and listened on the radio) more times in their 10 playoff games this years than in the entire regular season.
  • Game on yet? Nope.
  • The PVR is on but the TV is off. I think my mom is recording something.
  • Looks like the game is starting again.

 

Third Quarter

  • Cam Holding got a holding penalty. I made a joke about this on @NLLFactOfTheDay a couple of years ago.
  • Shorthanded goal for Calgary! Curtis Dickson. I should do an article about the players in the league who are the most fun to watch. He’s near the top of that list. Tyler Richards would likely be there too. Not only is he a great goaltender who makes some outstanding acrobatic saves, but when he gets ticked off he’s very entertaining.
  • I need a snack. There are some peanuts in the kitchen, maybe I’ll have those.
  • It’s Mother’s Day tomorrow. Must remember to pick up a hanging basket for my wife on the way home tomorrow. I always get her a fuchsia for Mother’s Day.
  • Seems to have been a long time since the last update.
  • The Roughnecks just tweeted that they are on a power play. I refreshed the Pointstreak page to find that the Roughnecks took three penalties at the same time a couple of minutes later and avoided giving up a penalty shot because the Mammoth took one too.
  • Adam Jones scored on the PP. Tie game again!
  • And then Dickson scores again. Roughnecks lead
  • Is that a bug on the wall over there? Oh no, it’s a screw where a picture used to hang. Maybe we’ll get my folks another picture to hang there for their anniversary in July.
  • End of the third, 7-6 for the Roughnecks. Low scoring close game. Probably amazing to watch, but following along on Twitter is fine. Just fine.

fine

Fourth Quarter

  • I love the banter we’ve seen recently between the team accounts on Twitter. Even the Knighthawks got into it despite the fact that they’re out of the playoffs.
  • Jeremy Noble scores for the Mammoth, and we’re tied again.
  • Jones again and the Mammoth have the lead!
  • Haven’t heard John Grant’s name much. Checked Pointstreak – he has TWELVE shots and no goals. Noble has four goals on only seven shots.
  • Dickson again for Calgary. He’s the only Roughneck who’s scored in this half. Tied again.
  • My four-year-old niece has finally stopped calling me “Aunty Graeme”. It was cute for a while but kinda got old. My sister thought it was pretty darn funny though.
  • Digby scores for Calgary but it’s being challenged. Andrew McBride tweeted that it’s inconclusive and the call on the floor stands but I don’t know if that’s his opinion or the actual call.
  • Good goal. Then Cupido scores right away and it’s tied at 9.
  • Before I finished typing that, Jones scored again to give Colorado the lead.
  • No updates for a while. Those peanuts were pretty good. Might have a few more. #protein
  • Oh wait, hashtags aren’t used in a blog.
  • McBride just tweeted that it’s “Been a well refereed game so far!” I think I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve seen anyone talk positively about refs during a game.
  • I think it’s raining again.
  • Only a handful of minutes left. No updates. <whistles>
  • <more whistling>
  • Under a minute left now… Calgary needs a last minute goal. If only they had a clutch goal scorer on their team.
  • Guess who. Dickson scores with 25 seconds left to tie it up. I swear I wrote that bit about “if only they had a clutch goal scorer” before the goal was scored.
  • This is fine. <sigh>

 

Overtime

  • OT goal-scorer predictions: Gotta go with Rosey and say Jones for Colorado and Dickson for Calgary. Though part of me thinks John Grant will step up and finish it like we’ve seen so many times before…
  • John Grant has twice as many OT goals (9) since 2005 as anyone else (Duch, Evans, Tavares, Pollock have 4 each).
  • F5 F5 F5 <more whistling> F5 F5 F5
  • So if I’m reading this correctly, the Roughnecks won.
  • Dane Dobbie with the winner and the Roughnecks are off to face the Rush. The Mammoth are now 1-8 all-time against the Roughnecks in the playoffs, but 0-7 in their last 7 meetings. The Roughnecks have knocked the Mammoth out of the playoffs in each of the last four years.

So that’s it for the first round. I didn’t get to see either game, but on the upside, I’m 2-0 in my picks so far. I also found that the new NLLTV.com thing does seem to let you watch games on replay, so maybe when I get home tomorrow I’ll watch the 4th quarter and OT of both games. Sure I’ll know the outcome but from the sounds of things, it’ll be pretty exciting anyway.

Liveblog: Vancouver @ Colorado

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I was out at my kids’ soccer games (my older son’s team won the consolation final while my younger son’s team won the Championship, though on penalty kicks. A sucky way to decide a championship in any sport) so I couldn’t watch the Vancouver @ Colorado game live. I did set the DVR to record it, so I started the game once I got home. I like to watch the game while chatting about it with other fans on Twitter, but that obviously wasn’t an option in this case, so I decided to do a “liveblog” just for fun.

First quarter

  • No Adam Jones for the Mammoth
  • Only a minute in and the Mammoth have already had a 30 second possession with no shots. Solid Stealth D
  • 10:55 – Ward has been solid so far, making a few saves. Richards hasn’t really had to make any yet
  • 8:36 – How many times have the Mammoth missed the net or missed passes so far? Looks like the first game of the season
  • 7:28 – Goal by Duch. Very nice pick by Billings to clear the lane. 1-0 Stealth
  • 6:30 – Beautiful goal by Mallory, top corner. Tied 1-1
  • There are taller players out there, but Callum Crawford just looks huge, like he’s towering over everyone
  • Duch had a wide-open lane but opted to pass, and almost threw it away. Ended up getting a shot off but nice save by Ward
  • Goal by Schuss, another laser into the top corner. 2-1 Stealth
  • 1:03 – Grant with a behind the back pass that was picked off by a Stealth defender. Grant loves him some behind the back action, doesn’t he? When it works (which, I admit, is most of the time) it’s a smart play but when it doesn’t, it looks showboaty.
  • Mammoth got away with it and regained possession
  • When under a minute is left, the game clock on the broadcast has “.0” at the end of it but never shows tenths of seconds. So why have the “.0”?
  • Noble scores to tie it up with a second left. Once again, top corner.
  • Wow, I’m bigger than Jeremy Noble. He’s 5’9″ 170 pounds, I’m 5’10” 180 pounds. Of course his 170 is very likely distributed a little differently than my 180…

Game is tied 2-2 after one quarter. This is a must-win game for the Stealth but they are not looking panicked at all. They seem confident and are playing with purpose. The Mammoth haven’t looked bad either but a little more sloppy than the Stealth. One wonders if the Mammoth didn’t think “Ah, it’s just the Stealth” coming into this one.

Second quarter

  • Nasty goal by Duch. Off the boards, hit Ward’s leg and deflected into the net. Just like in practice. 3-2 Stealth
  • 13:21 – Delay of game penalty against McCready. Don’t agree with that one. If a change of possession is signaled by the ref, you can’t drop the ball and then check the guy who picks it up, but that’s not what happened here. The change of possession was because of a shot on net and rebound, so the check should be totally legal IMHO.
  • Nice defense by the Stealth on the PK, keeping the Mammoth from getting any decent shots off
  • Man, these All Star RV bigfoot commercials are terrible.
  • Goal by Small. Standing on the doorstep and picked up a lucky bounce. 4-2 Stealth
  • Beautiful passing play resulting in a goal by Grant. Honestly, the passing was nicer than the goal itself but congrats to Grant for becoming the all-time Mammoth goal-scoring leader
  • Duch scores again – hit Dillon Ward who saved most of it but it still trickled across the line. 5-3 Stealth
  • Tyler Richards makes a dumb play, coming out of his crease and Dan Coates capitalizes. Not sure it should count because it looked like he batted it in rather than shooting it. I may be misremembering the rule though – I know you can’t reach into the crease and “poke” the ball into the net, but perhaps it’s OK out of the crease. 5-4 Stealth
  • Nobody mentioning this rule and no challenge flag, so I must have gotten the rule wrong.
  • Another behind the back pass, this time by Billings, that backfires.
  • Goal… or not. The shot clock expired before the ball went in. Surprisingly, no challenge
  • Loving the analysis from Shewchuk and Gallant. Obviously these guys know the game very well, and lots of other announcers do too, but hearing these guys discuss the pros and cons of the diamond vs. box defense on the PK was great.
  • Grant tries another behind the back pass and this time drops it
  • Rory Smith’s stick has a very cool black shaft.
  • 1:57 – Noble ties it up with – guess what? – a top corner shot. Tied at 5
  • Beautiful pass from Crawford who looked like he was going to shoot. Instead he passed it over to McLaughlin who had an open cage. That’s why Crawford is leading the league in assists. 6-5 Mammoth
  • Shewchuk nailed it – in a do-or-die game, you can’t be taking too many men or unsportsmanlike conduct penalties.
  • Is there a harder-working offensive guy than Joel McCready? Well, Shawn Evans is up there in that category too.

I’d be surprised if any thoughts of underestimating the Stealth remain on the Mammoth bench. The Mammoth have a 6-5 lead but this is anybody’s game.

Third quarter

  • Remember when Tyler Richards announced his return to the NLL and the Stealth said that Eric Penney was still their number one goalie? I wonder if anyone believed them
  • Stealth with a sloppy play giving the Mammoth the ball again, and they almost drop it themselves
  • Some more sloppy defense by Vancouver, giving Colorado a one-on-one chance. Richards bailed them out
  • Corey Small with a goal that, amazingly, did not go top shelf. Tied at 6. MOAR MONEY BALLER GOALS PLZ
  • Nice transition play by Ilija Gajic. That was at least the third pass interception by the Mammoth tonight and Gajic took off down the floor. Didn’t even have to run all that fast. 7-6 Mammoth
  • A couple of names I haven’t heard much in this game: Cupido & Billings
  • Of course, just after I typed that, Billings took a shot at one end and then Cupido took one at the other end
  • Excellent save by Dillon Ward with McCready right on the edge of the crease
  • Rhys Duch takes a huge hit, which knocks him to the floor but he keeps the ball, gets up, and puts the ball in the net though he went through the crease. Great play
  • Challenge flag is out. Looked to me like Duch stepped on the line before shooting. I’m not even sure that the ball went in the net at all
  • OK, the ball did go in but he stepped on the line. Here’s the call – no goal
  • Beers gets hurt, rolls around on the floor in pain for a while. Trainer tries to help him off, looks like Beers tries to wave him off then realizes his knee/ankle/something hurts more than he thought
  • News flash: Rhys Duch is a good player. Sweet goal to tie it up again
  • That was weird – Small picked up a rebound and all the Mammoth defenders seem to run away. Luckily for them he didn’t score but he was given a great opportunity
  • Nice spin-o-rama by Cupido, but great save by Richards
  • Corey Small with another one on a great pass by Billings. GB looked like he was going to fire it at the net but passed instead
  • Vancouver has 8 goals, Duch has 8 points (4+4)

Vancouver leads 8-7 but I’ll fearlessly predict this game will be tied at least once more.

Fourth quarter

  • Duch with another pretty one to give the Stealth a two-goal lead
  • Grant tries the Dane Dobbie style goal, coming off the bench straight to the net, doesn’t work
  • That one worked. Nice bounce shot from Grant through a defender gets by Richards. 9-8 Stealth
  • Now a pass interception for the Stealth. Doesn’t lead to a transition chance but they get a possession. No shots though
  • Almost the same shot again, Grant ties it up at 9. My fearless prediction came true.
  • What an effort from Callum Crawford. Fights off a bunch of Stealth defenders, picks up the ball, shovels it back to Gilles who’s wide open. Mammoth have the lead again, 10-9
  • McLaughlin scores, Crawford ties the single-season assist record. Mammoth lead 11-9
  • Hopefully the Stealth can kill this penalty off soon and then they might be able to get possession again. Oh wait, they’re not on the PK.
  • I’ve talked in the past (both on this blog and on the Addicted to Lacrosse show) about some dumb trades the Swarm franchise has made over the years. I think letting Crawford walk as a free agent tops them all.
  • Ward has been great in this game. Richards has been pretty good too, though with one or two shots that snuck by him.
  • It ain’t over yet… Corey Small gets the Stealth back to within one with 90 seconds left
  • Ward makes a save, then gets in the way of a Stealth player and gets knocked over… while standing in his crease. No call. Dangerous play by the Stealth given that there’s less than 30 seconds left in their playoff hopes but they got away with it

And that will do it. The Mammoth regular season is over and the Stealth are out of the playoffs. After winning twice in the past two weeks when they really needed to, they just couldn’t get it done tonight. A few defensive breakdowns here and there but I thought they put forth a solid effort. Rhys Duch came to play, and picked up 9 points in an outstanding game.

The Stealth have had a pretty lousy season but the last few games should give them hope for next year. Once they can get all the pieces together and stay healthy, they could do some damage.