NLL Insider

Team Canada 2006

Did you hear it? Did you hear the collective chest pounding coming from the lacrosse fans north of the border on a late August afternoon when Shawn Williams scored the winning goal and the upstart Toronto Nationals took the Major League Lacrosse championship in Annapolis, Maryland? Okay, it wasn’t a major sports extravaganza. It wasn’t even a sellout, but the Nationals’ victory could mark a significant change in, “How Things Will Be Done” in the lacrosse world.

ESPN analyst Quint Kessenich characterized the championship as a contest of two styles of lacrosse. Dave Huntley, the Nationals coach said, “We can’t play like Americans.” Kessenich correctly described the Canadian style as “…an indoor/outdoor hybrid. It’s based on transition, two man pick-and-roll games, off-ball movement and cuts.”

The Nationals’ upset was the second significant victory for the Canadian style; the first was the 2006 World Championship. Canadian field lacrosse has been slow to develop over the past 30 years. We’ve sent our top shooters to snipe for the major college programs, such as Mike French, the Gaits and Zack Greer, but we haven’t had much cause to celebrate “our game”, that hybrid of box and field.

American lacrosse and the NCAA in particular have had a great influence in Canada. Just over 20 years ago we started minor field, high school field and university field programs. The battle of styles has gone on in Canada for quite some time. Some wanted nothing to do with the outdoor game. Some wanted to embrace everything that is American. Between the two polarities came the compromise of taking the best of both games and building on what we already know and do well. Successful programs recruited skilled box players and taught them field skills. Longpoles, one-hand cradles and changing hands are obstacles to Canadian kids that field lacrosse coaches have worked hard to overcome. Picks, screens and over-the-shoulder shots are second nature.

Two thirds of the Nationals’ lineup was Canadian. While all of these players have extensive box experience, some have played in NCAA programs; the rest got their field training in Canada. It wasn’t long ago that the only Canadians worth recruiting were goal-scorers, but the play of Brodie Merrill, Jon Sullivan and Stephen Hoar dispels that myth. Sullivan, Hoar, Colin Doyle and Williams all played in CUFLA, the Canadian University Field Lacrosse Association.

CUFLA is a 12-team organization in Ontario and Quebec. While some programs have experienced recent growth, others still play on the far end of campus. For over 20 years CUFLA has tried to tell anyone who’ll listen that we have a good product and a unique game incorporating both field and box skills. For years CUFLA has bragged about grads going to the pros and the NLL, but that was box lacrosse. A few teams have ventured to upstate New York to test themselves against the likes of DIII champs Nazareth and DI Canisius, but nothing validated CUFLA and Canada’s field lacrosse efforts more than Williams’ winning goal at the New Balance MLL championship.

As he has done many times in his career, Williams took the ball, coming out of a timeout with less than a minute to go. He passed the ball down the right side with Joey Walters, allowing the screen to develop on the left side of the cage. Williams circled the crease, brushed off the screen, took the perfect feed from Walters and buried the shot past goalie Jesse Schwartzman in the Denver goal.

The big goal was scored by a Canadian, trained in Canada, using a Canadian style play. For a nation that is never too sure of themselves, that’s very big. U.S. lacrosse will not sit still. There are already top coaches and analysts devising defensive schemes and drills to morph and counter the Canadian style. Perhaps we’ll be able to come to U.S. clinics and workshops to offer some of our lacrosse knowledge for a change. We’ll never match up with the huge DI programs or the spectacle of the NCAA Final Four, but for now, we can cheer and be proud because the Nationals’ win and Williams’ goal was lacrosse the way we play it.

Gord Watt is a former CUFLA Commissioner, OFSAA Lacrosse Chair and high school lacrosse coach

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