NLL Insider

Seventh overall entry draft selection Matt Danowski took part in the Colorado Mammoth’s first training camp sessions last weekend in Denver and impressed to the point that Mammoth GM Steve Govett told NLL Insider this past week that the Duke legend “showed extremely well”.

Last weekend was really only the second time Danowski had played legit indoor ball, after impressing at this year’s combine game held during entry draft weekend.

The Mammoth dealt two of their mid second round selections to the Calgary Roughnecks in order to grab the seventh overall spot in September’s draft, allowing them to select Danowski in the first round.

“Matt has committed fully to indoor lacrosse,” added Govett, ”and it appears, has made a seamless transition.”

Danowski is the first American the franchise had drafted in the first round since selecting keeper Brian Dougherty in the 1996 draft, when the team was actually located in Baltimore. Danowski is also only the third ever Duke grad taken in the NLL’s first round, the other two being Taylor Wray (2003) and Dave Donovan (1992).

“I really enjoyed the indoor game and it was much more physically demanding than I first believed,” said Danowski of his first weekend at Colorado’s camp. “You have to be in great shape in this league.”

“He was tremendous in his first outing and will only grow into a better player,” said Govett of Danowski, the team’s highest profile draft pick since taking Dan Carey out of Canisius College three years ago. “His vision and athleticism are unmatched from any rookie I have ever seen.

He posses great size and stickwork.  We were very pleasantly surprised at how fast he meshed with our offense and with the great ease that he fit in with all the players on the team.”

The addition of Danowski, along with other off-season pickups like Gary Rosyski and even St. Catharines Athletics junior stud scorer Andrew Potter, picked up in the Gary Gait trade, will look to improve an offense that posted just 184 goals last year, the franchise’s worst total since they did the same in 2000 as the Pittsburgh Crossfire. In 2000 however, teams played four fewer games than the 16 they play today.

If Danowski can transition even just a fraction of the 353 points he amassed during his college career, a record at the NCAA DI level, than the Mammoth should be in for a point spike in 2009.

“From what I saw last weekend, it doesn’t look like their is a much better place to play than in Colorado,” added Danowski of the NLL’s highest attended team in 2008, averaging 17,464 fans a game. It was the third straight season that the Mammoth sat at the top of the NLL as the most attended team in the league.

Danowski, who recently signed with Nike as an endorsed athlete, also said, “The Mammoth have a lot of great players and they were all willing to help me out with what they saw I was doing well and what I wasn’t doing well, and I think I picked it up pretty quickly as the weekend went along.”

Fans will hopefully get to see Danowski in game action prior to the start of the regular season, when the Mammoth host the San Jose Stealth in an exhibition game on December 20th at the Pepsi Center in Denver, and then host the second half of a home-and-home the next night in Denver.

The team opens their regular season on the road against the Portland Lumberjax on January 9th at the Rose Garden.

Also, check out Danowski’s goal against Maryland last year, which was voted the “Highlight Reel Goal of the Year” in Inside Lacrosse’s inaugural Laxie Awards announced earlier this month.

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