Cutting-edge NLL and boxla coverage
I read with interest Paul Tutka’s blog on NLL ‘s Even-Strength Chart Toppers because and it was closely related to something I was looking at recently. Paul showed some stats about teams that got most of their goals while even strength, as well as some individual player stats on the same topic. READ MORE »
In a piece from yesterday’s Edmonton Journal, columnist Dan Barnes makes a case for Calgary swiping the title of City of Champions from their neighbours to the North, Edmonton. To help prove his point, he draws on evidence from the National Lacrosse League:
For instance, each city has a National Lacrosse League team, and Calgary’s Roughnecks have taken it to the Edmonton Rush. The Roughnecks are 25-23 since 2006, the Rush a truly terrible 11-37.
That’s all fine and good, as are the rest of his team-by-team comparisons, but aside from Sunday’s Grey Cup (which Edmonton themselves won in ‘05), where are the championships? Why wouldn’t you cite the Roughnecks winning the Champion’s Cup in ‘04 instead of their records? The City of Slightly-Betters. Don’t worry Calgary, maybe you can get everyone to call you T-Bone.
In other news:
Everywhere you look, box lacrosse is referred to as a uniquely Canadian game — an offshoot of a sport developed to keep ice-less hockey rinks occupied in the summer, and maybe make the arena a little money in the process. What could be more Scottish Canadian than that? Common opinion is that it was Paddy Brennan who invented the indoor game and was the driving force behind the first Professional Box Lacrosse League, which officially launched in 1931.
However, in the process of doing a bit of research on Mr. Al Frick last night, I stumbled upon an old St. Catharines Standard article from 1955 that credited Australia with introducing the game to Canada in 1929. READ MORE »
NLL Insider has learned that current Rochester Knighthawks GM Regy Thorpe has signed a contract today that will not only have him serving as the franchise’s active GM, but also as a player during the 2009 NLL season.
It appeared that Thorpe had ended his 14 year playing career this past off-season when the Knighthawks named the hard-nosed defender their new GM after the departure of Ed Comeau, who left Rochester to pursue a new GM and coaching position with the New York Titans.
The dual role Thorpe will apparently be serving in is the first of its kind in the NLL, while occurrences of a player-GM are extremely rare in any professional sport in North American or abroad.
There is speculation that the Knighthawks have had trouble rebuilding a defense that is currently without an unsigned Marshall Abrams, who was moved to the team’s protected player list earlier today, Jack Reid, Stephen Hoar, and previously to today, Thorpe. READ MORE »
The National Lacrosse League on Tuesday afternoon unveiled its plan to use instant replay for the 2009 season.
Wait. Check that. (slight pause)
After further review, the first sentence of this entry stands. The NLL will use instant replay for the 2009 season. So yeah, maybe the intro to this story is a bit corny, but you get the point. Like the NFL, NBA, NHL and yes, even baseball, the NLL suits got together on Tuesday afternoon to discuss what they say will assist the league’s referees to call a correct and accurate game. Instant replay will be used to review goals and crease violations only, and each team gets one challenge per half. In the final two minutes of the fourth quarter and throughout any overtime periods, only game officials can initiate a review. “Sometimes, the action moves faster than the human eye can see,” NLL commissioner Jim Jennings says.
In the NLL you’re pretty much expected to score when you’re on the power-play.
Two men-up, you better be scoring at least once. It’s the biggest gimmie in the game.
With the amount of penalties handed out these days, unfortunately, the power play has taken on a life of its own in today’s NLL, deciding games that should have been taken care of five-on-five. Shoot-arounds are meant for the pre-game not during 60 minutes of actual ball.
One current NLL head coach told us last week that the power-play was the boringest, least compelling, snoozer part of any game these days. He just hates it from an entertainment standpoint, and man does he ever have one helluva point. READ MORE »
There are some questions facing the Philadelphia Wings as they prepare for the 2009 National Lacrosse League, and the biggest one has some encouraging answers.
Top gun Athan Iannucci appears to be recovering well from knee surgery in July and expects a complete return this season. That’s what he told NLLInsider.com earlier this month, and Wings general manager Lindsay Sanderson is just as optimistic. “Everything seems to be on pace with Athan,” he says. The next set of questions have to do with what the club can do to replicate its early-season momentum of 2008 and then go a step further: Maintain it. The 6-0 start sparkled real pretty-like, but a 3-5 stumble down the stretch and a first-round exit from the playoffs was downright ugly.
“There’s no reason we shouldn’t continue what we did last year,” Sanderson says. “At least the beginning part. We do feel we’ve gotten better, though, and we like what we have from our goaltender on out.”
He mighta been inched out by Craig Point in last year’s rookie of the year vote, but there’s no denying over the past year that New York Titan’s two-way stud Jordan Hall has had a major impact on the game, hardware or not.
As former Titans coach Adam Mueller told NLL Insider’s own Steve Kojima during his rookie coverage last winter, Hall rarely has as a bad shift, no matter what end of the court he’s working in.
Paul Stewart, assistant coach on Mueller’s award winning staff last winter, told NLL Insider prior to last year’s ROY announcement, “I just can’t see how it couldn’t be Jordan. He’s got better overall numbers than any rookie this year, plus he’s all over the floor, not just O or D. No other rookie came close to what Jordan did for us this year.” READ MORE »
We over at NLL Insider put together a short list of players we thought should be included on a ballot for guys that might be on the radar for consideration.
After the jump, check out the cast we’d give a look for entry into the Hall. READ MORE »
Borrelli, the only member of the media enshrined in the NLL’s Hall of Fame (inducted in 2007), was 51 years old.
From the first report of his fall, tributes and well wishes flew in for the well-respected journalist, both from his colleagues at the Buffalo News and from various readers and friends via a Blog set up by the News for people to comment on and send their regards.
After Borrelli’s passing on Thursday, we began to get some emails expressing the profound loss to the lacrosse world that had just occurred, so we sent out some word to the Buffalo community to share their thoughts on the man they called ‘Ox’ and what he meant to the game. READ MORE »
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