If you follow American indoor lacrosse, there is earth-shattering news almost every single day. Not all of it positive and not all of it is made public. There are so many things going on behind the scenes that no one ever finds out.
One of those things might be why there is no Team USA in the Bowhunter Cup this year.
It was reported earlier today that there is no Team USA in the Bowhunter Cup that takes place this Saturday. Inside Lacrosse had a report, along with Lax All Stars and the Iroquois Nationals website, the other team that plays in that game.
First off, I heard this news yesterday from someone at the arena. I didn’t report it because I was waiting to hear from another source. The report came out today by other websites. So when the news came out today, I wasn’t shocked. I was disappointed, however, and was hoping my first source had been wrong.
When I saw the initial report from Inside Lacrosse this morning I emailed Steve Stenerson from US Lacrosse, and he gave me the following statement.
“US Lacrosse did not commit to participate in the Bowhunter Cup, so it’s hard for us to drop out. The IL story headline is misleading. A team comprised of players from the United States has traditionally participated in that event, but that team was coordinated independently of US Lacrosse and our national team program. As the IL story indicates, US Lacrosse recently incorporated the US Men’s Indoor Team into our national team program, and we just announced the 2015 US Men’s Indoor Team staff that will lead that team. So, for the first time, the US Men’s Indoor Team will be run by US Lacrosse. The timing of this transition made participating in the Bowhunter Cup unrealistic.”
“US Lacrosse had no communication with and made no commitment to the organizer of the Bowhunter’s Cup to participate. We were aware of the event, but the timing of the transition made the possibility of our participation unrealistic.”
Let’s analyze this piece by piece to try to figure out what happened.
For those who don’t know, this is the first time that US Lacrosse is running the national team, so of course there will be some bumps along the way as they figure out how to run things. Understood. Things even looked good when they hired good coaches who know the box game.
The Bowhunter Cup is always between the United States and Iroquois indoor teams. It has typically been run on the US side by Graham D’Alvia and USIL, who ran the indoor team as a whole. Since US Lacrosse has that responsibility now, it’s their job with the Bowhunter, right?
According to Stenerson, not the case.
Stenerson says US Lacrosse did not commit to participating. I won’t say that it’s not true. However, a press release issued by the Rochester Knighthawks says that the USA team is involved. If that’s not the case, why didn’t US Lacrosse deny the report?
Second of all, if people with the arena are going to say “USA dropped out”, and then the reports on the Internet have the same context, how come? That language just came out of no where?
And the most important thing is they decided to use Inside Lacrosse as a scapegoat.
Inside Lacrosse doesn’t have a time stamp for when their report came out, other than that it was today, October 1st. However, the front page of IroquoisNationals.com is updated on September 30th, yesterday, with the announcement that USA has withdrawn. IL even credits the Iroquois website. So why is US Lacrosse upset with IL about this report? They cited someone else as good practice is. And where are the Iroquois getting that information?
Lax All Stars uses the headline “Team USA Backs Out of Bowhunter Cup” Until today it had been assumed that there would be a US team. Until today everyone I spoke with at the event mentioned a US team. Now today, suddenly there isn’t one? If that was the case, why didn’t the Iroquois announce it would be two Iroquois teams ahead of time instead of four days before the event?
It’s hard to say what happened in the breakdown of communication, but it was once again a bad day in American indoor lacrosse.
