Georgia: The next big NLL success?

Posted on May 30, 2015 by Graeme

The NLL has announced that it’s returning once again to the place where box lacrosse franchises go to die: the American south. The Swarm are moving from Minnesota to Georgia to become the Georgia Swarm. Presumably the name was not changed so that all the t-shirts and swag that just says “Swarm” or “Hive” doesn’t have to be thrown away.

There’s no way to know how successful this franchise will be until they actually start playing. And by “successful” here, I’m talking about the ability to keep a team in that city for more than a couple of years. Success on the floor will help, but there are two problems there: (1) the Swarm haven’t had much of that over the past few years, and (2) as I mentioned the other day, lots of other NLL teams have folded despite on-floor success.

Let’s take a look at the available data to see if we can make our estimate of success a little more educated.

The NLL has some history in the south, but most of it isn’t so good. There have been five NLL franchises over the years that are south of Denver, Colorado:

San Jose Stealth – The Stealth were in San Jose for 6 years after Albany and before Washington. Their average attendance was 4707 per game. This is only higher than 8 other NLL teams in history – but 3 of those 8 are the Albany Attack, Washington Stealth, and Vancouver Stealth. San Jose also has the honour of hosting the game with the lowest reported attendance in league history: 1437 people came out to watch the Stealth beat the Edmonton Rush 14-6 in 2008.

Arizona Sting – The Columbus Landsharks played 3 seasons before moving to Glendale, Arizona, where they played for 4 years as the Sting. Despite never finishing higher than 9-7, they went to the Championship game twice, losing to the Rock in 2005 and the Knighthawks in 2007 (in the infamous circus game). In attendance, the Sting averaged 6216 per game, right about in the middle of all NLL franchises. For the 2007 Championship game, their last ever game, they managed to pull in almost 10,000 people which is quite respectable.

Anaheim Storm – The Storm played 2 years in Anaheim after a couple of years in New Jersey. They were pretty darned awful though, going 1-15 in 2004, their first season, but improving to 5-11 in 2005. At 4790, their attendance was just higher than that of the San Jose Stealth, but as we know that’s not saying much.

Orlando Titans – The New York Titans spend 3 seasons in the Big Apple before moving to Orlando, where they only lasted one year. On the floor they had success, finishing 11-5 and making it to the Eastern Final where they lost to the Rock. Their attendance was higher than that of both the Sting and the New York Titans at 7035; in fact that puts them in the top half of NLL teams.

Charlotte Cobras – The Cobras spent a single season, 1996, in the league and finished 0-10, losing each game by an average of 10 goals. They had the lowest average home attendance of any team in NLL history, at 2760. Two of the ten lowest-attended games happened in Charlotte.

(Note that Philadelphia almost made this list too: Philly is north of Denver by approximately twelve miles.)

So the Titans and Sting did reasonably well attendance-wise, but the others really didn’t.

Now let’s look at the pros and cons of this situation.

Pros

Rent will be much cheaper at the Gwinnett Center than at the very expensive Xcel Energy Center. Expensive rent is what killed the Blazers, Wings, and New York Titans, and is a major factor in why the Swarm moved and why the Rush may also be moving. If the Swarm don’t have to get rid of players as soon as they become expensive, they might have a chance.
Atlanta is a major airline hub so travel may not be all that bad. Travel to Mohegan Sun is likely a nightmare and Saskatoon wouldn’t be much fun either.
The MLL held their Championship game in Atlanta in 2014, and pulled in over 8,000 people. They are also considering expansion to Atlanta. Of course, field lacrosse popularity in a region rarely seems related to box lacrosse popularity in that region. Right Baltimore? Syracuse? Albany? Charlotte?
The team has lots of young talented players and four first round picks in next year’s entry draft, rumoured to be one of the best ever.

Cons

Atlanta is not known as a great sports town. In 2014, Forbes Magazine listed Atlanta #1 on their list of “Most Miserable Sports Cities” – and it wasn’t their first time at the top of that list. I wrote recently about how NHL ownership of NLL teams seems to be a pretty good model. The NHL has failed in Atlanta twice and currently has no team anywhere near there.
Hopefully travel isn’t bad since every player will be a fly-in. They had a bunch of players move to Minnesota in the past, but that has dwindled in recent years. I suspect they’ll get fewer players willing to move to Georgia.
The team won’t be playing in Atlanta, they’ll be playing at the Gwinnett Center in Duluth, about a half-hour from downtown Atlanta. This is the same setup as the Chicago Shamrox, who played in Hoffman Estates, IL. The Shamrox lasted two seasons. Interestingly, the Shamrox owner’s main reason for folding the team was that it was too hard to run things in Chicago from his home in Atlanta. This kind of suburban setup also didn’t work for Anaheim (outside of Los Angeles) or the Washington Stealth, based in Everett rather than Seattle, and it’s also how the current Vancouver Stealth are set up. The Stealth were last or second-last in attendance for the last 2 seasons (though they apparently have a great deal on rent in the LEC so the low attendance isn’t a problem).
The Arlottas still own and run the team. These are the guys who traded Benesch, Watt, Suitor, and Bilic, among others. They’ve had twelve first-round draft picks in the past four years – almost half of them aren’t on the team anymore. (The Rock, heading to the finals this year, have had one first-round pick in those same four years.) But with that many first rounders, they’ve got to be good now, right? Well, they haven’t made the playoffs in two years. That type of mismanagement isn’t likely to change.

Is is possible the Georgia Swarm will thrive and be a successful franchise? Sure it is. Maybe the cheaper rent will be enough of a change that they don’t have to trade players once they get good and start asking for the money they deserve. Maybe Georgia will turn out to love box lacrosse. But it seems to me that the odds are against them. Call me pessimistic, but I give them two seasons in Georgia before they either move again or fold.

The NLL is a niche league. Get used to it. (Part II)

Posted on May 27, 2015 by Graeme

Yesterday, I talked about how I have given up on the idea that the NLL can be the next major North American sports league. There’s just too much team turnover and financial issues that are unrelated to the product on the floor that I’m no longer convinced this is a problem that can be fixed. But I had an idea…

A possible solution

What if the NLL looked to the NHL for ownership of all new franchises?

The top 3 teams in the NLL in terms of attendance are the Mammoth, Bandits, and Roughnecks – the only NLL teams owned by NHL teams. The advantages are much lower costs – all of the non-lacrosse-specific employees (ticket sales, marketing, HR) could be shared between the two teams – and cross-promotion. Buy Sabres tickets, get a deal on Bandits tickets and vice versa. They could have Bandits ads during more heavily-watched Sabres games on TV. Even NHL stars doing ads – “I played lacrosse growing up and it made me into a better hockey player. You should check these guys out”. With costs fairly low, the NHL teams can pump the NLL teams enough to boost attendance to the point that they’re making money, and in return, the NLL teams get to continue to exist. Win-win.

There has been talk of the Oilers offering to buy the Rush from Bruce Urban but he’s turned them down on a number of occasions, and now their relationship is bad enough that they may not make such an offer again. I don’t know if the Stealth and Canucks have ever had any discussions. I also have no idea what kind of relationship the Flyers and Wings had, but with the talk that the NLL may return to Philadelphia, maybe that’s something that could be explored. The rumours for the Swarm moving to Nashville include the possibility of Predators ownership which might end up being a good thing for the Swarm, even if it sucks hard for the fans in Minnesota.

If they do make a change like this, they’d have to add a grandfather clause since nobody wants to get rid of Styres or Dawick as owners (and I’m not sure I want MLSE running the Rock). The Black Wolves ownership is a little different – there’s no NHL team within 100 miles (Boston is just over 100 miles northeast), but it’s not clear they’re really out to make money directly from the lacrosse team. The Black Wolves owners also own the Mohegan Sun casino where they play, and their goal, first and foremost, is to bring people into the casino. They might be quite happy to lose a bit of money on the team in order to do that.

But let’s face it: nobody is going to consider you a major sports league when you have teams in Langley, Uncasville, Saskatoon, and quite honestly, even Rochester. I know Rochester has been looked at as the Green Bay Packers of the NLL, since both of them fall into the “not even big enough to be a secondary market” category. But if you’re trying to get the president of the New York Rangers to take your call about expanding to the Big Apple (again), mentioning that one of your most successful teams is in Rochester may not help your case.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the Knighthawks (as much as a Rock fan can, anyway) and really want the team to stay there, which brings me to my final point.

Silver lining

Despite what might sound like despair above, I am not giving up on the NLL. I will still be tweeting, facebooking, blogging, and podcasting about it. That will not change. What does seem to have changed is my belief that someday lacrosse players will have one job and only one job – that of lacrosse player. As long as the NLL exists, we will still be talking about weekend warriors and how Joe Laxalot is a teacher / firefighter / stockbroker / whatever during the week. There will likely always be teams moving or folding because the owners don’t want to lose money for years before the team gets good or they still can’t get people into the arena despite success on the floor.

Could it be that this is the death knell of the league? I’ve seen lots of comments saying the league only has a couple of years left before it folds entirely. That could be, but given that not all NLL teams are having these attendance and financial troubles, I’m going to remain optimistic. The NHL option would be great for the NLL but how much incentive is there for the NHL owners to get involved? I imagine it would only be marginally interesting for some NHL teams and not interesting at all for most.

The silver lining here is that the NLL is still a great league full of great players and is still a lot of fun to watch and follow. Are they one of the big five leagues? No, but who cares? Other than issues like “Joe Laxalot can’t play this weekend / season because of work commitments”, it’s not a huge deal. With the Rush and Swarm we’re talking about relocating, not folding; as long as the league isn’t contracting, maybe it’s OK if it doesn’t grow. Yes, there will be team movement, but we’ll have to be content with the league in the places it’s in and not turn up our noses at options like Saskatoon. It’s a smaller market but the lacrosse played there will be just as good.

And I really do hope the league can still grow. But that hope is quickly turning into a wish – something I want to happen, but can do nothing about.

The NLL is a niche league. Get used to it. (Part I)

Posted on May 26, 2015 by Graeme

OK, that’s it. It’s over. Everybody out of the pool. With the Swarm announcing that they’re moving and the Rush announcing that they’re probably moving, I think I’m done with the whole idea of the NLL becoming the fifth major team sport in North America.

For years my hope has been that eventually, the NLL would be up there with the NHL and NBA as one of the major sports leagues in North America. Take hockey, mix in some basketball rules, take the ice away and what’s not to love, right? It’s bound to grow until the players are making millions and everybody knows about lacrosse!

But it never happened. The hope has always been there but reality is setting in, and I am now convinced that it’s not going to happen.

The problem

The bottom line: You can’t be a major sports league with this much team movement. But you can’t get rid of the team movement until you become a major sports league. Obviously there’s a problem there. The alternative is to have a bunch of committed owners who know they are likely to lose money but keep going anyway. The more Curt Styres’s and Jamie Dawicks the league has, the better. But even that isn’t enough. Bruce Urban is just as committed to his team, but look at where the Edmonton Rush are: top of the standings but near the bottom of the attendance list, and on the verge of relocating because they can’t draw enough people.

A few different solutions have been tried. You can’t be a big-time league without teams in the biggest cities, right? New York, Los Angeles (Anaheim), Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston – all failed. Maybe we should try the smaller but still big markets: Phoenix, Baltimore, San Jose, Pittsburgh – all failed. Even supposed lacrosse hotbeds like Syracuse, Vancouver, and Albany have tried and failed. Vancouver was given a second chance, but has come in last or second-last in attendance in each of the last two years. And now they’re talking about Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, a place that most Americans can’t say, let alone find on a map.

There are two categories here. Some of them folded because nobody wanted to see a losing team so attendance was low, and I guess ownership wasn’t willing to give it enough time to get better. Anaheim, New Jersey, Ottawa, and Charlotte (among others) all failed but their teams sucked so it’s at least somewhat understandable. But then there’s the second category, that of teams that failed despite success on the floor. Albany, New York, and Portland each went to the finals. Arizona did it twice. Washington did it three times and won one of them. Boston never got to the finals but were a very good team for three years. It’s frustrating because we can’t say to prospective owners “Yes, you’ll lose money for a couple of years but once your team gets good, you’ll be fine” because there are too many examples of where that hasn’t been true.

Now we have the same thing happening to both Minnesota in the first category (haven’t made the playoffs in 2 years, have only finished above .500 once since 2008) and Edmonton in the second (one of the best teams this year, arguably one of the best in NLL history last year).

The league can’t afford the bigger markets because rent at the big-name arenas is too high. This was a big part of the problems for New York, Philly, and Boston, and also the reason that the Chicago team was based in wherever-the-hell-it-was outside of the city. This is also a big concern for both the Swarm and Rush. Even the Toronto Rock have talked about moving because the rent would be cheaper. But they also know that attendance would plummet, so Jamie Dawick keeps coughing up the big coin to stay at the ACC. The Mammoth, Bandits, and Roughnecks get away with it because they are owned by the same people who own the arena.

Say, that gives me an idea…

Continued tomorrow

Game reports: Rochester 8 @ Toronto 11, Rochester 2 @ Toronto 8

Posted on May 24, 2015 by Graeme

I almost feel like I have to apologize to the Toronto Rock. I did pick them to win this series and head to the Champions Cup final, but not with much confidence, and I actually changed my pick since I originally had Rochester. (Note that the IL Indoor “NLL staff Picks: Division Finals Game 2 and 3” page has my picks listed incorrectly – I picked Toronto to win both game 2 and the mini-game. I also picked Calgary to win game 2 and Edmonton to win the mini-game. 4 for 4, baby.) But the way Toronto played on Saturday, there was almost no doubt from the opening whistle that Toronto was the better team.

The game started with something odd – rather than announcing each player one by one like they always do, they simply said “Here’s the Toronto Rock!” and the whole team ran out at once. Maybe they decided that they wanted to be viewed as a team rather than a collection of individuals and so they dispensed with the introductions.

The Rock came out on fire. They scored on their first two shots (both by Brett Hickey) and then Stephan Leblanc scored to make it 3-0 just over 3 minutes in. The Knighthawks got on the board then and the Rock calmed down a little, but the Rock had possession down in the Knighthawk end for the majority of the first quarter. In the second, Rochester seemed to get frustrated and got into a bit of penalty trouble, leading to two Rock power play goals. Stephen Keogh scored his second of the night with just a couple of seconds left in the half to cut the lead to 8-3, but it was clear the Rock was in control.

As much as I was enjoying the lead and the intensity with which the team was playing, I had to keep my enthusiasm in check. I have seen enough lacrosse to know that being up by 5 at the half is no guarantee of a win. Not to mention that even if they wiped the floor with the Knighthawks in game 2, there was still the mini-game to play. Momentum (and penalties) might carry over, but the score would not.

In the second half, the Rock seemed to let their foot off the gas. They still seemed in control for the most part, but Vinc played a lot better and the Knighthawks started to get back into the game. By a minute into the 4th, they were only down by two. I don’t know about other fans, but I started to get a little nervous. But then the D clamped down again and the Rock got a couple more by Vinc. I thought the Knighthawks were going to pull their top players to rest them up for the mini-game, but they didn’t; they seemed to continue playing for the comeback win, even when it got to the point of needing four goals in 3 minutes or so.

Brandon Miller was playing very well but I thought the defense in front of him was outstanding. I also thought that Rochester wasn’t making the most of their possessions; they’d frequently shoot when there was more than 10 seconds left on the shot clock. Matt Vinc had an uncharacteristically bad game. He was better in the second half than the first, but he was giving up goals that he normally wouldn’t. It wasn’t that he wasn’t making the “holy crap” saves that he usually does, he wasn’t even making the “normal” saves that most goalies usually do.

Stephen Keogh came to play, scoring 6 of Rochester’s 8 goals and really looking good. He took a penalty right at the end of the game, which carried over into the mini-game, though I don’t think he knew that. He came out of the box after game 2 ended, and was told by the refs to go back. Some folks on twitter suggested the Knighthawks should have scored on their own net before game 2 ended to negate the penalty, but apparently there was a memo from the league before the playoffs saying that this would result in an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty, as it should.

I was a little worried about the mini-game, since (a) Toronto had only scored 3 goals in the second half, and (b) Matt Vinc was looking much more like the Matt Vinc we expected to see. But the mini-game looked more like the first quarter, as the Rock came out on fire once again. I did not vote for John Lovell as Coach of the Year (well, I put him on the ballot but at #3 or 4), but now I think he should have been higher. They scored 7 goals on 8 shots in less than 7 minutes and completely deflated the Knighthawks. Vinc was finally pulled in favour of Angus Goodleaf but the damage was done by then.

So there have been 5 mini-games in the league in the past 2 years, and I’ve seen two of them. Have to say they’re very exciting to watch, but are they a good idea in general? That I’m not so sure of, but I may get to that in a future article. We’re now down to 2 teams and the first best-of-3 series since 1998. The Rush will be visiting the ACC next weekend, and I am looking forward to it.

Other game notes:

Only 10,000 fans at the game, but it was certainly the loudest I’ve heard the ACC in a couple of years.
There were several busloads of Rochester fans at one end, cheering loudly for the ‘Hawks. Unfortunately for them, “Hawks” and “Rock” rhyme, and so their chants of “Let’s Go Hawks!” quickly turned into chants of “Let’s Go Rock!” by the hometown fans. I thought it was great to see such a large group from Rochester, just like I love seeing tons of Bandits fans when they play in Toronto. It was a little disappointing to see that about half of them had left before the tiebreaker game was even over. Where did they go? Were they afraid the buses were going to leave without them? Also nice to see the Knighthawks salute them before they left the floor.
Kevin Crowley is not just a great forward, he plays some pretty great defense too.
Just like last week, Rochester’s defense intercepted a whole bunch of passes, but they really only scored one transition goal all night.
A number of those intercepted passes came from Colin Doyle. I also noticed that Doyle took more shots through traffic than many others; he seemed to want to shoot even when it may not have been a good idea.
Patrick Merrill took a penalty shot in the mini-game because the Knighthawks took a too-many-men penalty with <2 minutes left. In that case, the Rock could have chosen anyone on the floor to take the shot, so I’m curious why they chose him.

Shawn Evans: MVP? Maybe not

Posted on May 22, 2015 by Graeme

Shawn Evans has had an excellent 2015 NLL season. That’s unquestionable. But is he the league’s MVP? Some would argue yes, others may disagree. The Roughnecks are certainly campaigning in that direction. But you can’t just look at the points and assists records, there are other things to take into consideration. Let’s examine the pros and cons:

Pro: Outstanding offensive numbers:

Set a new record for points in a season with 130
Tied record (set the day before) for assists in a season with 83
6th in league in goals (48), 1st in shorthanded goals (5)

Con: Some numbers not so great:

Only 4 power play goals, second-lowest among Calgary forwards
Only one forward (Cody Jamieson) spent more time in the penalty box
0 face-off wins
0 saves

Pro: Team player: led his team from 0-6 start into the playoffs

Con: Is he really a team player? He played ZERO games as backup goalie. Corbyn Tao has him beat there.

Pro: Three cute daughters, including twins born last year

Con: That was last year. Nothing this season. Plus, his wife arguably did most of the work

Pro: Already has his name on the trophy so getting the engraving spelled correctly won’t be an issue

Con: Already has his name on the trophy. NLL doesn’t like to give the MVP award to the same player more than once

Pro: First in every category among Shawns in the league.

Con: Middle of the pack among current or former NLL players named “S. Evans”, when listed alphabetically

Pro: If the other team has quick transition, can play pretty good defense

Con: Steals valuable playing minutes from Roughneck defenders

Pro: Proved that you don’t need to be big to be a great offensive player

Con: Josh Sanderson proved that years before

Pro: Good lookin’ dude.

Con: No cool braid like the Thompson boys.

Hmmmm… looks like the jury’s still out.

(Photo credit: 120 Sports)

Getting in sync

Posted on May 18, 2015 by Graeme

On Saturday night, we saw a goal scored by the Toronto Rock that shouldn’t have counted. Brett Hickey’s buzzer-beater at the end of the second quarter seemed to have gone in a split-second after the buzzer, but the referees who reviewed it couldn’t find definitive proof that the call was wrong, so they had to allow the goal. I don’t fault the refs for this call since they didn’t have sufficient information to call off the goal. But I have a proposed solution to that problem. Quite honestly, this seems like a fairly obvious solution, so there may be a perfectly good explanation for this that I am not aware of, or some huge drawback that I’m missing.

During the last 30 seconds of each quarter of an NLL game, any reset of the shot clock causes it to be disabled. Usually it’s set to 30 but does not run. I have heard countless broadcast announcers mention this: “With fifteen seconds left in the quarter, the shot clock is off.” But this has two significant drawbacks:

Players cannot see the game clock as easily as the shot clock. In some arenas, they may be able to look up at the ribbon board or another display board above the net that’s showing the game clock, but it’s not as close to their field of vision as the shot clock. The “rule” for determining how much time you have left before you must shoot is given by: “Look at the shot clock unless there is less than 30 seconds left in the quarter and the shot clock has been turned off, in which case look at the game clock.” This inconsistency is confusing and unnecessary.
In the case of a goal that’s scored near the end of the quarter and challenged, the referees are much more likely to have the shot clock available in the replay video than the game clock. We saw this with Hickey’s goal on Saturday. This goal was called a goal on the floor and even though it seemed that the ball went in after time ran out, there was no conclusive evidence and so the call on the floor stood. The shot clock was clearly visible in the video but it said 30 and was not moving, so it was of no value.

I propose that when a shot clock reset is signaled by the refs within the last 30 seconds of a quarter, the shot clock should become synchronized with the game clock. For example, if the referee signals that the shot clock should be reset when there are 17.3 seconds left in the quarter, the shot clock would start counting down from 17.3, exactly in time with the game clock. This eliminates both of the problems I described above:

Players could then simply watch the shot clock like they always do and know how much time is left before they must shoot, regardless of how much time is left in the quarter. There’s no “watch this clock unless it’s off in which case watch this other clock that’s harder to see”, it’s always just “watch the shot clock”.
The shot clock is much more likely to be in the frame when the officials are examining the replay to see if the ball went in on time.

This would require no extra work on the parts of the referees or the shot-clock operator. The software could be programmed so that when a shot-clock reset is indicated and less than 30 seconds remain in the quarter, the shot clock would be set to the current remaining time on the game clock.

Alternatively, a light could be installed behind the net, next to the goal lights, that is set to come on as soon as the game clock reaches 0. If in the replay, that light is on before the ball goes in the net, the goal does not count. Oddly, there does appear to be a green light behind the net in Rochester that came on once the time reached 0. This light was either ignored or not seen by the officials, as it clearly came on before the ball entered the net. Note the picture below (tweeted shortly after the game by Brad MacArthur, though I added the red circles) showing the light on and the ball not yet in the net.

For the record, I am a fan of the Toronto Rock. This is not an angry Knighthawk fan saying Toronto’s goal shouldn’t have counted. (This is actually a Toronto fan saying that Toronto’s goal shouldn’t have counted.) I am making this proposal not as a Rock fan but as a lacrosse fan, in the hopes that we can make it easier to get the calls right as often as possible.

As I said, there may be a perfectly good reason why this is not possible. But as far as I can see, this is a fairly simple solution that solves two problems, makes things easier for players; officials; and fans, and has no drawbacks that I am aware of.

2015 Predictions revisited

Posted on May 13, 2015 by Graeme

As many sports bloggers do, I made predictions at the beginning of the season. But as many sports bloggers don’t do, I’m going to go back and see what they were and how I did. I covered some of these on last week’s Addicted to Lacrosse show. I recently had to submit my votes for the IL Indoor annual awards, so for each of the awards below, I’ve listed my pre-season prediction as well as my post-season votes.

Standings:

East

Rochester
Buffalo
Toronto
Minnesota
New England

West

Calgary
Edmonton
Colorado
Vancouver

Three correct out of nine. I wasn’t nearly as optimistic with the Rock as I should have been. I was also far too optimistic with the Roughnecks, but so was everybody else.

Annual Awards

MVP

Prediction: Dan Dawson, Cody Jamieson, Ryan Benesch
Vote: Shawn Evans, Mark Matthews, Ryan Benesch

Jamieson and Dawson had very good years, but not MVP-worthy. Benesch was great, especially down the stretch. But Evans was outstanding.

Goaltender of the Year

Prediction: Aaron Bold, Matt Vinc, Mike Poulin
Vote: Matt Vinc, Aaron Bold, Frankie Scigliano

No surprises from the first two, and I really struggled to decide who got the top vote. And I got the wrong Calgary goalie.

Defensive Player of the Year

Prediction: Kyle Rubisch, Chris Corbeil, Brock Sorensen
Vote: Kyle Rubisch, Chris Corbeil, Sid Smith

I did vote Sorensen fourth.

Transition Player of the Year

Prediction: Jeremy Thompson, Geoff Snider, Karsen Leung, Jordan Hall
Vote: Joey Cupido, Karsen Leung, Jay Thorimbert

Hall didn’t play transition this year, and Thompson had another very good season but Cupido stole the show.

Rookie of the Year

Prediction: Miles Thompson, Ben McIntosh, Chris Attwood
Vote: Ben McIntosh, Jeremy Noble, Miles Thompson

Attwood didn’t even make the Knighthawks, so that was totally wrong. Miles Thompson had a good rookie season but McIntosh was better. Didn’t have Noble on the list at the beginning since it seemed unlikely he’d play at all.

Les Bartley Award

Prediction: Curt Malawsky, Mike Hasen, Troy Cordingley, John Lovell
Vote: Derek Keenan, Mike Hasen, Curt Malawsky, John Lovell, Troy Cordingley

No idea how I missed Keenan at the beginning of the year.

GM of the Year

Prediction: Terry Sanderson, Curt Styres, Steve Govett, Chris Seinko
Vote: Terry Sanderson, Curt Styres, Steve Govett, Derek Keenan.

Nailed the top three on this one. I even voted Seinko fifth since I thought he did pretty well at the trade deadline. Getting Billings, one of the top two players in the league over the last few seasons, for Crowley was a good deal and grabbing Suitor from the Swarm was good too. It was just too late in the season to turn things around, and the fact that Suitor got hurt again didn’t help.

Team predictions – East

For each team, I made a “Look out for” prediction – a player who I thought would have a great season. Some of them I nailed, others I didn’t quite get right, and in one case, I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Buffalo: Dhane Smith. Nailed this one. Smith went from 59 points in 18 games last year to 107 this year.

Minnesota: Miles Thompson. Not a bad choice, though Shayne Jackson might have been a better one.

New England: Kevin Buchanan. Again, not a bad season. Pat Saunders would have been the breakout player for the Black Wolves.

Rochester: Chris Attwood. Didn’t even make the team. We’ll call that a “miss”. I don’t know who I’d pick from the Knighthawks as having had a breakout season since everyone on the team played at or near what I expected. Maybe Craig Point, since he hadn’t played 15 games in a season since 2011.

Toronto: Brock Sorensen. I thought Sorensen had a very solid year with the Rock and even put him on my list for Defender of the Year. But you might be able to make an argument for Brett Hickey here.

Team predictions – West

Calgary: Karsen Leung. I thought Leung had another solid season and I voted for him as Transition player of the year. But for a breakout season, I’d have to go with Frankie Scigliano, who grabbed the starting goalie job from the struggling Mike Poulin a few weeks into the season and never gave it back.

Colorado: Dillon Ward. Ward didn’t have a great season, but good enough to grab second in the west. Breakout player on the Mammoth would be Jeremy Noble, Eli McLaughlin, or Alex Buque.

Edmonton: Corey Small. Mostly right, except for the team. Small only lasted 2 games with the Rush before being traded to the Stealth, where he had his best season ever. For the Rush, a better choice would have been Zack Greer, who beat his career best points/game average by almost a full point.

Vancouver: Joel McCready. Nailed it. I even said the Powless experiment wouldn’t be the huge success the Stealth were hoping for. We’ll call that a 2-for-1, which offsets the Rochester failure.

Six degrees of Kevin Buchanan

Posted on May 2, 2015 by Graeme

A recent conversation about how small the lacrosse world is got me thinking, and I came up with a fun game which I call “Six degrees of Kevin Buchanan”.

The idea is to pick two players A and B, and make a chain of players starting from A and ending with B. Every player in the chain must have played on the same team at the same time as the player before and after him. Unlike the Kevin Bacon game, you don’t actually have to include Kevin Buchanan – if that was the case, I might have picked Mat Giles (12 NLL teams) or Chris Panos (10) rather than Buchanan (5). But their names don’t sound nearly as much like “Kevin Bacon”.

I’ve stretched the rules a touch: if two players played for the same team in the same season, I’m calling that a link. This is only because I don’t have sufficiently accurate data so in some cases (anything before 2005) I don’t know if they actually both played on the same team at the same time – for all I know, one might have been traded for the other in a mid-season deal.

As an example, let’s pick the player with the coolest name in NLL history: Mikko Red Arrow, who played with the New York Saints from 1993 to 1996. We’ll try and match him up with one of the youngest players in the league, Rob Hellyer.

Mikko Red Arrow –> Rob Hellyer

Mikko Red Arrow played with Pat O’Toole on the New York Saints in 1995.
O’Toole played with Josh Sanderson on the Knighthawks in 1999.
Sanderson has played with Rob Hellyer on the Rock from 2012-2015.

So Hellyer is three links away from Red Arrow.

Let’s go back even further, to 1992 and another player with a cool name, Butch Marino. I had never heard of him before this exercise, and picked him at random. He played from 1992-1994 and again in 1996. The target this time is another young player picked at random, Miles Thompson of the Swarm.

Butch Marino –> Miles Thompson

Butch Marino played with Chris Gill on the Baltimore Thunder in 1996.
Gill played with Colin Doyle on the Toronto Rock from 1999-2001.
Doyle played with Ethan O’Connor on the Rock in 2014.
O’Connor plays with Miles Thompson on the Swarm in 2015.

Thompson is four links away from Marino. Note that this is the shortest list I found while just looking over team lists and going by memory. There may be shorter ones.

Here’s one more, starting from Brian Lemon, the current NLL VP of Lacrosse Operations. Let’s try and link him to Edmonton goalie Aaron Bold.

Brian Lemon –> Aaron Bold

Brian Lemon played with Kevin Finneran on the 1992 Detroit Turbos.
Finneran played with Dave Stilley on the 2002 Philadelphia Wings.
Stilley played with Gavin Prout on the 2006 Mammoth.
Prout played with Corey Small on the 2010 Rush.
Small played with Aaron Bold on the 2013 Rush.

So Bold is five links away from Lemon. But there’s a faster way:

Brian Lemon played with Randy Mearns on the 1995 Knighthawks.
Mearns played with John Tavares on the 1993 Bandits.
Tavares played with Jeremy Thompson on the 2012 Bandits.
Thompson has played with Aaron Bold on the Rush since 2013.

Of course, anyone who’s ever played for the Bandits is at most 2 links away from anyone else who’s ever played for the Bandits, since they both played with John Tavares. In addition to JT, there are players like Shawn Williams, Colin Doyle, and Josh Sanderson who have had very long careers with multiple teams and allow you to jump 10-15 years in one step. Thanks to guys like them, I’d be surprised if anyone who’s ever played in the NLL is more than five links away from anyone else. In fact, I think you’d be hard pressed to find a player who has never played with a former Bandit and given Mr. Tavares’s longevity, I imagine that finding two players with a count no lower than five is almost impossible.

Any other pairs of players you want linked? Do you know of shorter chains than the ones I have above? Leave a comment or hit me up on Twitter!

Game report: New England 12 @ Toronto 15

Posted on April 18, 2015 by Graeme

Overall, this was a pretty entertaining game and not just because my team won. There were a bunch of interesting moments in this game, as well as a few frustrating ones, one scary one, and for me, one that was terrifying.

The Black Wolves have shown a number of times this season that they can play with the big boys. In their first two games they were not only good but dominant – beating the Bandits and crushing the Knighthawks. Then they lost 8 of their next 9 but other than a couple when they got smoked, they looked pretty good even in most of the losses. They certainly put up a good fight in this one as well, and if making the Rock fans nervous in the last few minutes of the 4th quarter was their goal, then mission accomplished.

But that’s not to say that they kept up with the Rock’s level of play throughout the game. Far from it. The Black Wolves actually outplayed the Rock for most of the first half, despite holding a lead for less than six minutes. Their defense was stifling, and Toronto had trouble getting shots off. Many Rock possessions ended with the ball being harmlessly tossed into the corner or just put on the ground since there was no chance of even a desperation shot. The Rock did get a few goals, but all of them from special teams. The Rock’s first seven goals of the game consisted of 4 power-play goals and 3 shorthanded ones. Their first 5-on-5 goal happened five minutes into the third quarter, and in the end only five of their fifteen goals were 5-on-5. When both teams were at even strength, the Rock were simply outmatched. If New England’s power play wasn’t so terrible on Friday, things might have been different. I was almost waiting for the Rock to start chopping at people to get penalized since they were playing better with only 4 players than with 5.

My terrifying moment came during the second quarter when the Black Wolves tied it at 4 and I realized that not only were the 12-4 Rock getting outplayed by a 4-9 team, but that the Rock were 3-3 in their last 6 games and other than against Vancouver, haven’t looked as dominant as they did in the first part of the season. I remembered Melissa asking on a recent Addicted to Lacrosse show whether the Rock had peaked early and would head into the playoffs on a downside slide – the terrifying moment was when I thought that she might have been right.

And then we got to the second half.

The Rock’s offense was better in the second half than in the first, but still wasn’t clicking as well as earlier in the year. I wondered if they were really missing Rob Hellyer, but it could also have been the strong play of the New England defense. (I also wondered if the distraction of learning they might get Colin Doyle back and then finding out just before game time that they wouldn’t might have been a factor, but I don’t think that was it.) I didn’t think the Rock D played great in the second half (I remember two plays when Jeff Gilbert got beat 1-on-1), but Brandon Miller stepped his game up a few notches. He was not fantastic in the first half, but good enough to keep his team in it. In the second half though, he was lights-out and was much of the difference in the game. This seems backwards since the Black Wolves scored 4 in the first half and 8 in the second half, but they also took seventy shots on the night. Seventy.

Brett Hickey had a great game. His 3G 5A brought him to a league-leading 46 goals (tied with Curtis Dickson) and he’s now in 12th with 76 points. Stephan Leblanc’s 1+7 bumped him into a tie for 4th with 86 points, but I have to give kudos to Leblanc for his work ethic. At least twice I watched him fighting in the corner for a loose ball near the end of a Rock possession, while 2 or 3 defenders were pounding on him and most of his teammates were already heading towards the bench. One of these times led directly to a New England penalty, and the Rock scored on the ensuing power play. Nice job Steph.

Anyway, let’s move onto the interesting moments:

Early in the 4th, Jesse Gamble fought with Mike Manley. While Manley was walking to the penalty box, Gamble was holding his hand up and went to talk to the refs. He then went to the dressing room and did not return. I’m 95% sure I saw him say “he bit me” to the Rock bench on his way off the floor.
Garrett Billings’s return to Toronto was rather uneventful. He had a goal and 4 assists, almost exactly what he’s had in each of his previous 3 games with the Black Wolves. When he scored his goal in the 4th quarter, the ACC PA guy played The Who’s “Who Are You?”
Sandy Chapman scored a nice transition goal in the 4th and the Black Wolves challenged it since it looked like he might have stepped on the crease line just before shooting. A replay showed that he tiptoed near the line but never touched it. He expertly danced around the crease like he does it 40 times a year. It was actually the 32nd goal of his 14-year career.
Also in the 4th (the 4th was definitely the most interesting quarter!), the Rock challenged a goal that had been waved off. I’m pretty sure the ref never went to the replay booth at all but the call on the floor was overturned and the goal counted. I don’t think I’ve seen a call changed without the actual replay. Maybe the other ref saw it clearly and was positive about it while the original ref had some doubts about his own call, or the original ref immediately realized he’d called it wrong and didn’t bother going to the replay to correct it. It makes you wonder if the call would have been reversed if the Rock hadn’t challenged it.

The frustrating moment:

The Rock took three Too Many Men penalties. Once in the third, they sent five men out when they were killing a penalty. It looked like they just forgot that they were on the PK. In the fourth, they took a “normal” too many men penalty, and while killing that one, they took another one – they just forgot again and sent out five players. That’s when Billings scored, otherwise the Rock would have been down 5-on-3.

The scary moment:

Andrew Suitor was covering Kevin Crowley in the New England end, when Crowley gave Suitor a fairly innocent-looking push and Suitor dropped and did not get back up. A few minutes later, he was carried off the floor and did not return. I remember watching the Minnesota game in 2013 when he blew out his knee and was carried off the floor then, and so this seemed eerily familiar. He missed the rest of that season (11 games), so hopefully this injury isn’t as bad as it looked.

Other game notes:

We’ve all seen the kiss cam, the dance cam, and recently I’ve seen the “show us your muscles” cam in some arenas. Ah, the joys of watching the Jumbotron feed over the internet. Anyway, the Rock started a new thing during this game: the beer belly cam. Yes, they showed men with, um, significant girth around the middle section, showing off what they had. I really hope that idea dies a quick and painful death.
After the game, my son spotted a wallet sitting in a cup holder a couple of rows ahead of us. He asked the guy sitting next to it if it was his, and he said “Oh, yeah, that’s mine.” On our way out, we heard a different guy frantically talking to the usher about losing his wallet. He said he was sitting “right there”, pointing to where Nicky had found the wallet. We told the usher we’d found it and she went to talk to the other guy who claimed it. She came back with the wallet but when they went to check what was in it (i.e. hopefully some picture ID so we could tell whose it was), it was empty. No cash, no ID, nothing. The guy who said it was his was nowhere to be found by then. Douche.

Shawn Evans: Best player, MVP, or both?

Posted on April 8, 2015 by Graeme

Shawn Evans is having an amazing year. He’s currently 4th in the league in goals, 2nd in assists, and first in points. He’s averaging 7.5 points per game, and is on pace for 135 points, blowing the current record of 116 out of the water. The next closest player in points is 16 back (in one more game) and the next closest in points per game is almost a full point behind. He’s leading the league with 5 shorthanded goals, the same number or more than three teams. He is leading the Roughnecks in points by 31. So he’s a strong candidate for MVP, right?

Well yes, except for the fact that the Roughnecks are in last place in the league and are currently in last in the West, which could mean no playoffs for the Roughnecks for the first time since their debut season in 2002. Can you give the MVP award to a player on a team that doesn’t make the playoffs?

It has happened once in the NLL. In 2001 John Tavares won his 3rd MVP award for (guess who?) the Buffalo Bandits. That year, he set the points record of 115 which stood for over 10 years and outscored the Gait brothers (who tied for #2) by 25 points. But the Bandits were 5th in the league with an 8-6 record, a game out of 4th. Only 4 of the 9 teams made the playoffs at that time, and the Bandits just missed. There were four teams below them in the standings. Six of the 9 teams make the playoffs now, and there ain’t nobody below the Roughnecks.

It’s hard to answer the question of whether Evans is deserving of the MVP award until you decide what MVP really means, and this comes up near the end of every season as well as every baseball season, hockey season, any sport that features an MVP award. The CFL wisely calls theirs the “Most Outstanding Player” award, so they don’t need to define “valuable”. But we do. Should the MVP award simply go to the best player? Or it it truly based on how “valuable” the player is to their team?

Maybe the award just go to the top scorer; that’s certainly been the trend of late. The last three MVPs (Jamieson, Evans, Grant) were also the top scorer of the year.

Actually, it’s not just a recent thing; it’s been the trend all along. There have been 21 MVP awards given out by the NLL. The winner has been either #1 or #2 in the scoring race 16 of those times (and #3 once). In fact, a purely defensive player has only won twice – Steve Dietrich in 2006 and Jim Veltman in 2004. Chicks dig the long ball.

By that standard, Evans is the MVP, almost without question. But is he actually the most “valuable” player? Does he mean more to his team than anyone else? That’s harder to argue. A player being “valuable” to his team implies that his team had some significant level of success, or their value wouldn’t be much. The Roughnecks could have missed the playoffs and ended up last with or without Evans. Would the Rush be where they are without Mark Matthews or Aaron Bold? What about the Rock without Josh Sanderson? Or the Knighthawks without Matt Vinc?

But if history is any indication, “Most Valuable Player” is simply the name of the award. If it was truly named after who receives it, it should actually be called the National Lacrosse League Best Offensive Player Unless No Offensive Player Has A Really Standout Season And A Defensive Player Does award. The season isn’t over yet and so we can’t say for sure but for my money, Evans is at the top of the short list, regardless of how the Roughnecks finish.

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