The National Lacrosse League season will begin this Saturday night and the league can be comfortable knowing that they have a collective bargaining agreement locked up, some new rule changes and a secure future.
The season will open this week when Philadelphia travels to Buffalo and Minnesota to Rochester. Both the Wings and Bandits have seen much change; the Wings hired Blaine Harrison as their coach while the Bandits brought in Troy Cordingley.
Fans and players have different opinions on league happenings with different perspectives, but so do the team management positions; this preview takes a look at the upcoming season with the perspectives of the coaches, the owners, the genera managers, and the league front office themselves.The biggest news of the off season was not the CBA that will last through 2020, but it was the Stealth moving to Vancouver to become the fourth Canadian team in the NLL. “I’m very excited about bringing the National Lacrosse League back to British Columbia….to be part of that is pretty special. ” said Stealth general manager Doug Locker. “On the team side I’m excited for our local players to be able to play in front of family and friends in their hometown.”
Commissioner George Daniel told the media on the weekly NLL conference call that the main goal with expansion right now is for the major Canadian markets, though he did not clarify what those were.
Also in the news was the new playoff system which has gotten mixed reviews. But the commissioner seems excited for a more exciting system. “We looked at a lot of different options for the playoffs, and we thought reducing the number of teams was the way to go,” Daniel said. “We looked at shootouts as a tiebreaker, but we thought there would be more integrity with a short game. Ten minutes seemed like the right time – five minutes was too short, and a full period was too long after just playing an entire game. It’s a step in growing the playoffs.”
Of course, that playoff growing could include expansion teams, but Daniel said that he expects it to be another three or four years. Other than the obvious Canadian options, some of the teams that have been rumored are Boston, New York and Pittsburgh.
The season is starting earlier than ever and more games will be played, moving it from 16 to 18 regular season games and six of the nine teams making the playoffs.
“From the perspective of the game itself, I am looking forward to seeing if the game and the strategies change with two fewer runners on the floor.” Roughnecks general manager Mike Board told us. “It will be interesting to see how teams handle that change. I am also looking forward to seeing how the new playoff format works. I think it will be exciting for fans and for the players.”
The smaller roster sizes have created a much more competitive roster with some very good lacrosse players not making teams. Luckily for a few, the practice roster has expanded to four spots. On another interesting note, the NLL will return to YouTube for 2014 and also expand with eight games on TSN, TSN2 and ESPN3, but the deal with CBS Sports Network was nixed.
“We feel like the NLL has turned a corner,” Colorado Mammoth president Steve Govett said in a TSN interview. “Our focus (in CBA talks) had to be on creating positive momentum for all of our teams and to show the viability of our league to potential new partners for expansion, for television and for sponsorships. We had to reduce costs without damaging the product.”
The NLL season kicks off on Saturday at 7:30pm with three games on the opening slate. This season should be full of action and could be the most competitive season ever in the league’s 28th season.
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