NLL Insider

After a brief offseason detour to the Boston Blazers roster, Philadelphia fan favourite Jake Bergey is back with the Wings and lighting up the scoreboard with 13 points in just two games. Heading into the third match-up of what looks like it could be his biggest season in recent memory, Bergey talks new coaches, old championships, and how for him it was Philly or nothing.

To start this season off you’ve had a pair of monster games. In two games you’ve scored over 1/3 of the goals you scored all last season. Do you feel like everything is just clicking for you so far this year?
Yeah I do. I think we have some young guys on the team that defenses are really happy to key in on and I think that gives me a little more opportunity to score some goals myself.

What, if anything, are you doing differently this season?
I don’t know if I’m doing anything different, to be honest with you. I just think it’s an all-around confidence for our team. The coach has put me back on powerplay this year which really shows that he’s got trust in me and my scoring abilities and so far it’s worked out.

A few months ago with the expansion draft it looked like you were going to be suiting up for Boston. What was it like to think that you weren’t going to be playing in Philly this season?
To be honest, I knew that I was either going to be playing in Philadelphia or I wasn’t going to be playing. With my family in Philadelphia and my job and everything it would’ve just been too much to go to Boston. I talked to [Boston Blazers coach] Tom Ryan and I talked to Lindsay Sanderson, our GM, and Dave Huntley, our coach, and they pretty much assured me that if I was going to decide to play they would do what they could to trade back for me. So I wasn’t really worried about it.

What went into the decision to come back and play this year?
I actually decided that I was going to retire and I talked to Coach Huntley about maybe helping out coaching and I guess it kind of caught him off-guard. He called me back and really talked me out of it and I’m very thankful that he did because I feel like I have a new energy and a new desire for this game.

You’ve talked a bit about your new coach. What does Dave Huntley bring to the table?
I think he brings a nice calming attitude towards the team. I don’t think he overcoaches or overthinks too much. He had us well prepared on scouting reports and things like that but I think he realizes that at this level you don’t really need to overcoach the players, they’re good enough to where they’re going to be able to succeed you just kind of have to put them in the right place and let them do their thing. He’s been a great addition to the Wings.

These past few seasons probably haven’t gone how you guys would have liked, and all of a sudden this season you guys are on fire. What do you think has made the biggest difference in the team?
I think it’s a lot of little things. Maybe we needed a change in coaching scenery. Lindsay did a great job with us but Dave came in with some new ideas. All our rookies are a year older from last year and our new guys have stepped in and played great. It’s another year of maturity for our young guys and some of the new players that’s really pushed us over the edge.

One of the great things about Philadelphia sports fans is that they’re not afraid to tell you how they really feel. One of the complaints we heard from Wings fans last year is that it didn’t look like you guys were trying hard enough. Is that something that you’ve talked about as a team?
I’m sure fans will see what they want to see. When you’re losing games it’s easy to say that but I can guarantee that we gave it our all every single game. Obviously those close games didn’t come out the way we wanted but it seemed like if we just got a couple breaks here and there we weren’t far away from being a team that was well into the playoffs. I don’t know what to say about that but we certainly never gave up.

Having been there in 2001, you know what a championship Wings team looks like. Are you starting to see it again with this group of guys?
I really am, and the thing that I see the most is not so much when we’re playing — we obviously have a pretty good team — but just the cohesiveness and the gelling of the team off the field and how everyone gets along. It’s just one big family, for real, and that’s how it was back in the late 90’s and early 2000’s.

Having won the Champion’s Cup with this organization, how important do you think it is to some of these younger guys to have you on the team and in the locker room?
To have me? It’s tough to say. I’d like to think that it would be super important! But if I can help these younger guys out anyway that I can it would mean a lot to me. A lot of these young guys, especially the Canadians, they’ve played indoor lacrosse their whole lives and really know what’s going on. Some of the American guys, you know maybe they can look at me and hopefully follow my career path and win a couple championships as well.

When you talk about this league, all you hear these days is the word parity. What do you think it will be that separates the championship team from everyone else?
I think it is that gelling, that cohesiveness that I was talking about before. You hit it right on the head that there’s so much parity in this league but I think it’s the team that does the little things — the team that’s going to get the groundballs, have each other’s backs throughout the whole season — that’s a team that’s going to probably take it all the way.

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