Much will be made in 2014 about the Edmonton Rush’s record at home, which was a disappointing 2-6 last year. There will also be a focus on the team finishing in the top two in the Western Division standings so that the they can give their fans that elusive home playoff date that the franchise has yet to realize. The team believes that much of that will be solved by getting out of the gates stronger than the 2-4 starts that have dogged them last two seasons.
The players feel the pressure to perform at home and reward the loyal following of fans who come down for autographs and to say hi to them, win or lose, down on the turf of Crystal Glass Field at Rexall Place.
When asked about the dreaded home playoff date, Brett Mydske seemed to be half joking and half serious when he said, “It’s like a curse.”
Entering his fifth National Lacrosse League season, all with the Rush, the 2011 All Star continued with his thoughts on his team’s challenges at home last season. “Everybody kind of feels the pressure to win at home and that might be the problem too because on the road you’ve got no pressure and stuff like that so you kind of just got to kind of ignore and put it behind us and go out and have fun.”
Head Coach and GM Derek Keenan was asked about his team improving their home record during the weekly coaches conference call on Monday and this was take, “Our issues I think at home were more to playing sixty minutes of lacrosse where we’ve had really big leads or fallen behind early in games and had to play catch up. We’ve had good stretches at home, we just haven’t played, for some reason, sixty minutes. We need to focus on that for sure when we get back home.”
The team’s performance at home last year and the inability to host a playoff game comes down to whether or not this group of players has learned enough from past disappointments to do something about it. In their improbable run to the Championship Game two seasons ago, they lead the Rochester Knighthawks 5-1 at half time only to be outscored 6-0 in the third quarter on the way to a crushing 9-6 defeat. Recently named captain Chris Corbeil along with current assistants Zack Greer, Brett Mydske and Kyle Rubisch all have an idea what went wrong in the last thirty minutes of that game. Jarrett Davis, who will also wear an “A” for the Rush this year, was on the winning side that day and should have some sense of what the Knighthawks did to adjust and overcome the strong start his current team came out of the gates with. John Lafontaine, Aaron Bold, Brodie MacDonald, Ryan Dilks, John Lintz, Jeff Cornwall and Jarrett Toll were all part of the dominant run to the finals that ended so shockingly for them. At the very least that gives this group some excellent experience to carry forward with.
A similar result characterized their first round lost to the Washington Stealth last year. A 7-2 lead at half time evaporated and they were still in a position to tie the game after Jarrett Davis scored with just over five minutes left in the fourth to bring the Rush to with in one goal of the Stealth. Unfortunately, the Rush couldn’t put one past Tyler Richards to send things to overtime.
That learning experience was shared last year with rookies Mark Matthews and Curtis Knight in addition to newcomers Jeremy Thompson, Cory Conway and Alex Turner.
In the end, the story to watch for this year’s version of the Edmonton Rush will be whether or not all involved, especially the core group who have been with the team since 2012 that includes Corbeil, Greer, Mydske, Rubisch, Lintz, Lafontaine, Dilks, Cornwall, Bold, MacDonald and Toll, will nail down the consistency that their coach and general manager talked about leading up to the franchise’s ninth NLL season.
