NLL Insider

WLA

Western Lacrosse Association (WLA) up-date

In Western Lacrosse Association (WLA) action, Victoria looks to be back to its old form after an off year in 2007. The Victoria Shamrocks (4-0) and the New Westminster Salmonbellies (3-0) have both been perfect out of the gate.

Lewis Ratcliff (10g, 12a) is tearing it up. He now has 10 goals and 22 points in four games played and leads the league in scoring. Shamrock teammates Ryder Bateman (6g, 9a) and Kelly Hall (4g, 10a) also sit Top 4 in league scoring, while Tyler Heavenor (5g, 3a) sits fourth in team scoring.

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NLL Girls

NLL Girl of the Week, semifinals: It’s Ashley vs. Elizabeth

Who says we’re out of game? Just because the lacrosse players themselves have crowned a champion doesn’t mean we’re finished with the National Lacrosse League season.

That’s because Crystal of the New York Titans is our first official finalist in our National Lacrosse League Girl of the Week contest. She dusted Megan fairly easily in voting this past week for a 311-234 score. And don’t worry, there’ll be no 311 tribute videos at the end of this announcement to honor the winning vote total. Last time I did that, Teddy Jenner didn’t understand it so we’ll keep it simple this time around. As it is, we’re on to the second semfinal, pitting Chicago’s Ashley up against Elizabeth of the Philadelphia Wings.

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So do your homework, turn the page and cast your vote so we find out who’s gonna go up against Crystal for the overall title.

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The Beat

NLL approves new ownership for Rochester Knighthawks

The word out of the National Lacrosse League office this afternoon is that the league has approved the sale of the Rochester Knighthawks to new majority owner Curt Styres.

According to the NLL, the sale price to Styres was $5.75 million dollars, the highest price for a franchise in league history. In 1999, the club was purchased for $250,000. There’s some ironing to do, though. The approval of the sale is conditional on the club securing a lease with the cit of Rochester at Blue Cross Arena, which is in downtown Rochester. That’s where the team has played since its inception in 1995, but the recent talks of a lease between the club and the city have hit rough patches over the last few months. Still, it’s nothing that appears to be insurmountable and there is plenty of reason to remain optimistic.

“The history of our sport is very rich in the culture and traditions of the Native North American people, and it gives us great pride to have the first Native North American owner of a major pro sports franchise here in the NLL. Curt is a great man and a very successful businessman, and we are excited to have him as an owner in our league,” NLL commissioner Jim Jennings said in a statement.

Q&A, RMLL

Q&A with Simon Giourmetakis of the Edmonton Eclipse

When the subject of Jr. A lacrosse comes up, all too often it begins and ends with Ontario and BC. But over in Alberta, there’s a young league playing a steadily-improving brand of ball and if you’re looking for a good reason to pay attention to the Rocky Mountain Lacrosse League, look no further than Simon Giourmetakis. The Captain of the Edmonton Eclipse has spent the last two years leading his league in scoring and gearing up for what could be the most important season in the history of his team. The sharp-shooting lefty talks league set-up, where he’s headed, and how the boys in Alberta don’t get a whole lot of respect.

Looking at your schedule, you guys play both the Jr. A and Sr. B teams. Could you explain how that works?
This year one of the Sr. B teams dropped out because they couldn’t get enough people out, so it’s a little different than it was last year. The last two years that I’ve played in Jr. we played only the North Sr. teams, the teams from Edmonton. This year we play both of the North Sr. teams once, and then we play both of the South Sr. teams as well. We play all of the Jr. A teams four times this year. READ MORE »

NLL

Buffalo set to praise its Bandits

Buffalo has the Bandits, the Bandits have the Cup and the Cup has had its share of touches. But the celebration is not complete.

Until Thursday. That’s when the Bandits and Buffalo will officially celebrate their National Lacrosse League championship. The party is set for Thursday and kicks off at 6 p.m. at Lafayette Square, Buffalo’s weekly free concert series. The bonus is the bands that are set to help celebrate the title. If you dig the techno sound, then The New Deal is right up your alley. I remember seeing this band in Philly a couple of years back and I really dig the sound. When The New Deal is done, there’s gonna be a 15-minute presentation of the Champion’s Cup trophy, followed by a set from the headliner band, Galactic. No doubt, downtown Buffalo will be rockin’ all over again.

The Bandits will be selling some more championship swag at Thursday’s party so if you want more information, check out the Bandits Web site. As a bonus, check out the rest of the lineup for the concert series in Buffalo. That’s a sick lineup of bands!

• Bandits’ Thompson still hasn’t come down: Standard Freeholder
• Toth nearly quit … the game of golf: Calgary Sun
• New Swarm owner is pretty excited: Rocky Mountain News

B.C. Junior A, Ontario Junior A

New West downs Delta and Whitby tops K-W in Jr

In the New Westminster Salmonbellies and Delta Islanders match last night, both teams got off to a slow scoring start. Unfortunately for the Islanders, only one of the the teams stayed that way and New West prevailed in a 16-3 blowout.

After taking 25 shots in the first period and only finding the back of the net twice, the Salmonbellies cranked the floodgate open in the second and third, scoring seven in each period. Despite a 13-minute break from action in the second, Delta goaltender Steve Bourget made a total of 41 saves on 53 shots.

Leading New West in scoring was Kevin Crowley with three goals and three assists. Adam Foss also added three goals while Alex Turner, Alex Tuura and Jarrett Toll scored two apiece. Tanner Lemire, Dane Stevens and Kyle McCartney scored for the Islanders. Sean Tessarolo turned away 26 of Delta’s shots.

It was a lot closer in Ontario last night, with the Whitby Warriors squeaking by the Kitchener-Waterloo Braves 5-4 in overtime. Brett Bridges scored his second goal of the night at 8:23 in the extra time to take the win. Mitch McMichael also had a pair for the Warriors.

The Braves got the early jump, going up 4-0 in the first period on the strength of two goals from Adam Payerl and three helpers from Shawn Udema. Warriors goaltender Jesse Gill shut-out the remainder of the game — two full periods plus overtime — and added one assist while his team orchestrated their slow and steady comeback. With the win the Warriors have evened out their record to 5-5. K-W also sits at .500 with 4-4.

Ontario Junior A

Lakers shut down Beaches, Chiefs top Excelsiors

The Toronto Beaches hit a wall in their game against the Peterborough Lakers Monday night, although he probably prefers to be called Kalvin Thomas. On the strength of Thomas’s 41 saves, the Lakers polluted the Beaches 6-1 to improve their record to 4-2, good enough for third place in Ontario Junior A lacrosse.

Nick Diachenko had two goals for Peterborough while Kyle Clancy had one goal and two assists and Jesse Guerin had three helpers. Aaron Brown scored the lone Beaches goal. Brett Kikot posted a shutout third period for Toronto.

The second period was the story for the Burlington Chiefs last night, outscoring the Brampton Excelsiors 4-1 over the course of those 20 minutes to lock up a 7-5 win.

Kevin Brownell had three for the Chiefs, Kiel Matisz two goals and two helpers, Ryan Learn had one and four, and Gary Muzzin made 55 stops. For the Excelsiors, Garrett Ince had a pair of goals in the third period and Tyler Carlson put up 36 saves.

Major Series Lacrosse

Jamie Batley says Shawn Evans has been coddled for years

It’s been several weeks now that the rumours surfaced that Peterborough Lakers’ product, Shawn Evans, was interested in being dealt to the Six Nations Chiefs of the MSL, in what would be his first full year playing Sr. A lacrosse, after years of dominating the junior game.

And as NLL Insider reported last week, the deal some were calling as good as done in mid-May, is still not all that close to being finalized. Actually, “finalized” would imply a trade between Peterborough and Six Nations is on the horizon, but as the Peterborough Examiner reported earlier today, this thing’s so far from being on the horizon that the paper work for the trade is buried well behind a landscape of snow capped mountains.

Plus, it’s getting kinda ugly.

Peterborough Lakers’ GM and Head Coach, Jamie Batley, told the Examiner, “Our organization feels that (an Evans trade to Six Nations) would be a major mistake to trade someone of his calibre.” READ MORE »

National Ranking

National Junior A Ranking: Week One

Every Monday, NLL Insider will be looking at every Junior A team in the country and dropping our National Junior A Ranking, the best ten teams in Canada, period.

We’ll be looking at the BCJALL, OLA and yeah, even the RMLL. Not only do the boys in Alberta deserve to be looked at for our ranking, they deserve some serious respect from the rest of the country too. Are they churning out Minto Cup caliber ball clubs? Maybe not yet, but some of what’s shakin’ out in the province over the years has been extremely impressive, including the Edmonton Eclipse’s start to 2008.

Anyways, we’ll be looking at team’s records but also the quality of their opponents while we construct our weekly top ten. We’ll be looking at the quality of team’s wins and even losses, cuz as we all know, a gutsy nail bitter against the best team in the province is sometimes bigger than a beat-down of an 0-10 team that has no hope in hell. We’ll do our best to match up teams in different provinces. A tough task, but we’ll try our best, so save the emails that start, “Just do a provincial ranking, it’s impossible to rank across the country when they don’t play one another.” Yawn. READ MORE »

Major Series Lacrosse, NLL

Rest? Who has time for that?

Know what I love about lacrosse? I love the love for the game.

We’re barely a week removed from the Buffalo Bandits winning the National Lacrosse League’s Champion’s Cup and who’s already got 5 goals and 6 assists in two games for his St. Regis Indians? Yeah, John Tavares. It’s no surprise, really, ’cause his skill is no secret. And yeah, I know he’s not the only NLL guy gettin’ his summer groove on, but ya can’t help but think of other pro athletes and how quick they’d be to finish a season with one league and jump right into a new season with the next league. And sure, money’s a factor but when you consider a vast majority of these guys still work full-time jobs while trying to adjust schedules to accomodate their NLL schedules in the winter and their MSL schedules in the summer, you gotta believe these guys are out there runnin’ and bangin’ just because they love it.

So the MSL is off and runnin’ with Brampton and St. Regis notching wins on Saturday. St. Regis played again on Sunday, though, and ended up splitting its weekend series after losing to the Peterborough Lakers, 11-9, Sunday afternoon. Seven different Lakers scored, led by Josh Gilliam’s three goals and two assists, while Andrew Lazore had two goals and three assists for St. Regis, followed by Pat Maddelena with 2-2 and Tavares with 1-3.

• Blazers to share home with Celtics, Bruins: Boston Globe
• Marecheck to join US Lacrosse Hall of Fame: SUAthletics.com