NLL Insider

With an early exit from the WLA play-offs my fellow Victoria Shamrocks and I are off to the golf course to enjoy the last three weeks or so of the gorgeous west coast summer. The golf courses have been calling my name for months, so here’s hoping I can bring my handicap down a few strokes! With all this free time I have now I’ve been able to do a little reflecting on the season that was in the WLA.

First things first, hats off to the New Westminster Salmonbellies; not since the 2001 Shamrocks has a team been so dominant. Going through the season with only one loss is an amazing feat and they aren’t showing any signs of slowing up. They are one of the deepest teams I’ve ever seen and they have a hard, fast paced style of play that kept us on our heels every game. They continually ran at our defense with lots of movement and precision passing. Their defense, probably the biggest in the country, forced our offense to the outside and was able to kill a lot of our momentum with key transitions goals. However, the biggest key for the ‘Bellies all year long has been goaltending. Adding Matt Roik will be a huge contribution to the team. He’s won at every level and knows what it takes to play in the big game. But what can you say about the play of Tyler Richards? The kid was unconscious all year long! He continually made save after save against us that had all of our shooters wondering what we had to do to solve him. He was a well deserved co-rookie of the year and my vote for MVP!

Speaking of co-rookies of the year; when was the last time a rookie lead the league in scoring? People talked a lot of hype about Dane Dobbie and seeing him play this winter for Calgary I had some faith that all the talk would be worth it. Boy was I impressed. The kid is a natural! He can shoot, pass, play in the two man game, rag the ball and is very creative! Not sure how many times he did it to other teams but, I know on two occasions he carried the ball up the side and fired a ‘screen-shot back-hander’ short side on our goalies who had no idea or chance! When people say he’s going to be the next Josh Sanderson, I don’t doubt them any more.

But this was definitely a youth year in the WLA! You take out Jason Wulder and Cam Sedgwick out of the scoring charts, and you would have a top 10 full of guys that are 27 and under and who, in no way look like they’re slowing down! Throw in Rhys Duch, Richards, Joel Dalgarno, Jamie Lincoln, Mike Grimes and Garrett Billings – the WLA has a very bright future ahead.

So mainland fans, get ready for an exciting 2 weeks! With it looking like the Adanacs will do away with the Burnaby Lakers tonight you should be in for some great lacrosse. Maybe in my free time I’ll try to get over for a couple games; that is if somebody can tell the ferries to drop their prices!

Jenner is a two-time Mann Cup champion with six years of NLL experience. Email him at ted.jenner@nllinsider.com also follow the Coquitlam Jr. A Adanacs and the Intermediate A Adanacs live, as Teddy brings you color commentary with Brad Challoner for the Jr's and play by play with Brody Allen for the Intermediates -- http://www.junioradanacs.com/multimedia.php

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