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Once In A Blue Moon…

 I was on my way to work the other morning and as per usually I was listening to ‘The Herd’ with Collin Cowherd (yes that’s his real name) on ESPN radio. He mentioned that on that specific night, there were no professional sporting events being played; God that got me depressed. What the hell is a sports fanatic supposed to do with himself when there are no sports to watch. Literally when I got home from work, all three major sports channels in my area, TSN, Sportsnet and The Score were all showing a poker event! AWESOME…  READ MORE »

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The Great Hibernation

Like the giant Grizzlies of western British Columbia, the bears of the lacrosse family partake in an annual hibernation ritual of their own. Back into their dens they lumber, ready to relax, to re-energize, to heal nagging battle wounds, to look back at the past year, evaluate their efforts and begin grooming the young members of the family for the upcoming season

The next two months are like a god send for the boys of the National Larosse League. For most of them, lacrosse is not a 5 month season from January to May. Though they may not get to recoup as much as they would like in between, it’s more like a 10 month season from mid November through early September. Of course that includes NLL training camp in mid November, followed by the NLL season that runs to early May, which nicely slides right into the Canadian summer season and the MLL circuit in the US; culminating with the Mann Cup winding up in the second week of September.

Tired yet? READ MORE »

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Eric Martin fields your questions in IL’s FanZone

San Jose Stealth and San Francisco Dragon’s defender Eric Martin is gonna be appearing in Inside Lacrosse’s FanZone, which allows the fans to toss any Q’s they have at the Salisbury grad, with his answers appearing in an upcoming issue of Inside Lacrosse as well as online at www.insidelacrosse.com.

Martin came off by far his best season to date in the NLL this past winter, finding a spot in the NLL All-Star Game and also getting a ton of hype for being named the league’s defender of the year.

Check out this link to find out how you can submit your questions to the field turned box stud and make sure to check out other box ballers like Dan Dawson, Jay Card, Jeff Zywicki and Brett Bucktooth in past FanZone sessions right after Martin’s spot.

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We All Have the Right To Play

Everyone knows how big the world is but in actuality, it’s relatively small. With the advancement in travel you can get to the other side of the world in less than a day and send emails in seconds to family and friends in Australia or China or Russia. The world of sport is even smaller and more so than ever thanks to Right To Play. READ MORE »

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FORE!!!

A lot of people say that lacrosse players are some of the best athletes in sports. What, with all the non-stop running, the wearing of all that padding, and the constant beatings we take, it’s easy to see why. So it’s safe to say that no matter what sport you put us in, we SHOULD be able to adapt and pick it up right away. Soccer, hockey, basketball, ping pong are just some of the sports that lacrosse players excel at…but what about golf?

The 2008 edition of the Victoria Shamrocks (err Victoria Rockets AAA Baseball) team Golf Tournament took place this past weekend and I’m not even sure you could call it golf. First off let me paint you a picture. (Those with squeamish stomachs may want to skip this part.) READ MORE »

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B.C. Junior A: coming back from a blown out knee

The saying “blowing out your knee” is thrown around pretty loosely by people within the sports world. In fact until I tore my ACL at the end of last season I really had no idea what knee injuries were all about. Now that I’ve been through it I have started to see how common and drastic the injury can be.

It seems like the more you look around the more guys are either wearing a brace or are in the process of recovering from a pretty severe knee injury. Craig Conn and Andrew Biers come to mind, as both of them play in the west and both are pretty big name players.

I thought a little insight into the recovery process of a knee injury wouldn’t be a bad idea for a first attempt at writing a blog. So here goes….. READ MORE »

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B.C. Junior A: Shamrocks’ Cayle Ratcliff breaks down the West

Cayle Ratcliff

This year, there is more parity in the league than ever before and on any given night any team can beat another. When you look at a team like New West, who lost to Poco twice and then beat Burnaby, Victoria and Coquitlam it’s crazy. Poco beat Victoria, New West and then turned around and beat South Frasier 6-5. Just goes to show it’s anyone’s year!

This season a lot of people counted Burnaby out early, which was an obvious mistake. Burnaby is a team that has what other teams don’t: knowing how to win, with a winner’s mentality. If you’ve been in the Minto Cup for the last 100 years straight, then you know how to win. Most teams lack that winning mentality, which can only come from dominating the league for so many seasons. For us it’s gut check time!

We have the core of our schedule coming up with Burnaby twice, Poco, Coquitlam and New West all within the next three weeks. We will definitely see if we’re going to be contenders or pretenders.

Things are starting to shape up for a good season of lacrosse. Teams are finally showing their full rosters and there should be some great games to watch around B.C. in the coming weeks.

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Thanks for my FIX, NLL style

While I have been known to lurk on the message boards and smirk when fans issue their scathing remarks directed at me, I rarely expect to find such comical bitterness from a fellow colleague at NLLInsider.com.

Had I not been alerted by our local radio personality that a boy by the name of Kevin Fixler had called me the black hole of lacrosse, I would never have had the pleasure of reading his masterful commentary. While I do a fair bit of reading, I tend to abstain from cluttering my mind with such pedestrian writing.

However, since THE FIX has chosen to take this road, he will not walk it alone. I appreciate that you are holding me accountable for my play; in return I will do likewise. For your writing, that is. Unless you do play … you did say that you have been behind closed doors, correct? Well, I believe we have an accord.

For all of the rest of the DUDS out there scrapping for their respective NLL teams, fear not. I am on the case.

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An American’s Guide to the Canadian Language

For anyone new to the NLL, there is a lot to get used to.  Gameplay, new cities, all that good stuff. But for Americans new to this league there is a whole new thing they must become accustomed to. That is the lingo of our friends to the north. It can take a while for an American field player to start to understand some of the dialoge that our Canadian teammates use.

For me, I got used to it a while ago. Spending my summers playing Junior ball in St. Catharines helped me get used to the terms these guys use.  My first introduction to this would probably be when I was told i had a nice “twig.” That’s a stick for all you Americans out there. Another one is saying that someone was a “suitcase” because he played for a bunch of teams. It took me a while to finally get all the terms down.

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Air Canada: Worst. Airline. Ever.

Being a fly-in player from Victoria to Calgary is about as easy of a commute as possible. Just a simple one hour flight and I’m there. I even gain an hour on the way home so it’s really the same time as when I left.

So I get the best of both worlds living in the nicest place on earth and playing in a great sports city on the weekends.

But when the schedule came out I knew that last weekend was going to be a long haul. I was looking forward to playing in Roch for the first time in my six-year career, but there isn’t really a direct Victoria to Rochester flight. The trip there went pretty much as smooth as possible. We got there, had a good practice, checked into our ghetto hotel and then ate and slept.

It was the trip home that was a gong show.

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Fishing Follies

On a car ride home from a weekend in San Francisco, the topic of what we’re going to do the rest of the day came up. It was a Sunday after all, we should do something fun and constructive. So i came up with the idea to go fishing. Seems simple enough right? How hard could it be for us to nab a few fish by the end of the day?

Apparently, very hard.

It was myself, Luke Wiles, Tom Johnson, Kyle Sorensen and Jeff Zywicki (or Jerry as he liked to be called that day). We decided to get some poles, and went with the cheapest ones. Grabbed some bobbers, sinkers and hooks too. Then we talked Wiles into getting a cooler for the cheap low price of 40 bucks. Gotta keep the beers cold somehow right? So far, so good on the trip.

Then it came to getting the worms and here’s where the problems started.

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Time for a Name Change?

Moss

The National “Greasy Hair Havers” League!

Guys, come on? What’s up with all of the bad salad? It used to be that we only had to contend with Tommy Ryan and his unbelievable choice in hairstyle. I’ve been reading the NLL.com and NLLINSIDER.com articles and the pictures that accompany them leave me with burning desire to trade in my stick for a pair of shears!

Let’s take a look a round the league … Hey let’s even just start with the article that lands a few below this one. Andy Secore – Hey kid, great player, good kid, from a great town, how about mowing down that ‘fro a little and looking respectable for your family when you make the front page?

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Canadians are Weird!

Canadians are weird.

When I was a rookie in the NLL (the first time in 1998) I played for the New York Saints. I guess to say “played” is overstating my service; I belonged to the New York Saints. I spent a year on the practice squad and another on the roster, driving from Long Island to Brooklyn every weekend at 8 a.m. to hopefully one day get a crack at the lineup.

I cracked three times; I scored a goal, got beat up by Andy Ogilvie in front of mom and dad, and obviously, as any Saints fan in the late 90s knows, lost three games.

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Dream Team/Giant Chemistry

I dreamt a dream last night. I was at some sort of party with my wife, and all of the other attendees were people from my high school. Normally, I would have been pleased to be at a reunion with the old gang, but this wasn’t the old gang, so to speak – it was a bunch of role players in my life.

“Hey there is Joey Somethingorother, Billy Tits, and Susie Cat-breath.”

Needless to say, the party blew. Each conversation I had lasted thirty seconds, tops – there was no CHEMISTRY! What is chemistry? I have a working knowledge of the periodic table, and I remember my high school science teacher smelled like pee, but I am sometimes confused when the word is bandied about in the context of sports.

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East Coast Road Trip

Traveling cross-country is no fun. Five hours on a plane is something that ranks at the bottom of my list of things I enjoy, somewhere between getting a root canal and having Britney Spears babysit my nieces.

But this trip would be different. A chance to play in MSG, a chance to get back in the lineup and a chance to play in front of my family and friends. From the time I found out I was getting the nod for the game, I was jacked up. My dad was flying in for the game, I had a group of guys from Buffalo driving to the game, and a strong contingent of my fellow Great Danes from Albany making the trip down to the Big Apple.

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Build up to my 1st Game

I didn’t think I’d be nervous. I played in big games before. All week, I told myself it was like anything else. But it wasn’t.

This was my first NLL game.

It was something I had been waiting a long time for and the moment was almost here. It was time to take the floor.  Waking up that day it seemed like any other day. We went to shoot-around and film before the game and I felt good. My shot was on, my stick was throwing great and I felt calm and collected. I even got a chance to talk to the Insider’s own Brian Shannhan before the game and talked a little about this and that.

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In training: Brodie Merrill

Brodie

Wondering how Brodie Merrill finds the endurance to scoop up 21 loose balls in a single game?

How about the strength to throw those quick stick checks?

Men’s Fitness magazine asks the Portland LumberJax star just how he does it, and Merrill obliges. The current issue of the magazine, on newstands now, has a 2-page spread on Merrill and his workout routine.

The physiology of (lacrosse) requires you to have the endurance of a soccer player, the explosiveness of a hockey player, and the agility of a basketball player,” says Dennis Lindsay, Merrill’s trainer. “Brodie’s got that perfect combination.”

So if you see a copy of the magazine on the shelf, the one with Sidney Crosby on the cover, pick up a copy and see what Merrill has to say.

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Inside Lacrosse

Life. What is it?  Some pretty heavy subject matter, and on a lacrosse blog no less.  I’m not going to sit here and pretend to know, or contrive theories and use this site as a public forum to tell the world what I think is what.  But, I’m dealing with this sort of subject matter in my work at the moment, and it got me thinking.

It takes me back to a conversation I had with a good friend of mine, fellow existentialist and lacrosse aficionado, Martin O’Neill.  I posed the statement: “lacrosse is the microcosm of our lives.”  He returned, with an emphatic, “Absolutely it is.”  Okay, so what am I talking about?

Let’s break this down into 3 stages and see if I can make some sense out of this nightmare of semantics: Macro, Micro, and Process.

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Bye Week Boredom

Sitting around all week waiting to play on the weekends can be boring enough as it is. But now imagine no game on Saturday. Just sitting around doing nothing. It makes the week go by even slower.

That’s what we were faced with this past week out here in San Jose.

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Just ask Randy Savage

When I have conversations with individuals who are associated with and inside of the NLL, one word comes up time and time again that is a constant question in the mind of potential investors … stability. 

Maybe I am biased, maybe I’m wearing rose-colored glasses, maybe I’m overly optimistic, but after seeing the battles this weekend I’m confident that lacrosse is going to be just fine.  Obviously, teams need the right market to survive and ultimately be profitable.  One thing is for certain, league execs, ownership, players, fans, staff, coaches, and management all share one common quality … passion.  This defining quality makes our sport unique, drives us, and unites us as a family. 

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