November 12, 2010
Pro notes: Blazers will display triple threat
by Chuck Jaffe/
Dan Dawson will be joined by Casey Powell and Josh Sanderson to form a triple threat for the Boston Blazers. (photo: Boston Blazers)
The time between professional lacrosse seasons – when the Boston Cannons have concluded their season and the Boston Blazers haven’t started theirs – is short on action, but not on buzz. Here’s the latest in news, noise and rumors from the Blazers, Cannons and their respective leagues:
EASY AS 1-2-3
Lost amid a flurry of big offseason trades that have changed the landscape of the league, is the fact that the Boston Blazers are the first team in the history of professional sports to have the three players who finished 1-2-3 in MVP voting from the prior season as teammates on opening day.
Casey Powell won the MVP last year playing with the now-defunct Orlando Titans, while Josh Sanderson finished second while winning the league scoring title for the Calgary Roughnecks.
Dan Dawson, the 2009 MVP, finished third in the ’10 voting.
If those three players simply achieve their career averages in 2010, they will combine to account for 15.3 points per game.
In the playoffs, they would combine to tally 17.1 points per game.
TEAT, NO TRICK
Before opening training camp, the Blazers signed veteran free agent forward Dan Teat, himself one of the top 15 scorers in league history.
Teat has tallied 630 points in 195 career games. When you add him to the “Big Three,” they have a career average of just under 700 career points, which would be good enough to make any individual player the 11th leading scorer in the 25-year history of the NLL.
NO WORRIES ON RUBISCH
Blazers fans may have been concerned when news came out that top draft pick Kyle Rubisch was put on the “inactive draft list,” particularly after last year’s top draft pick, Cornell star Max Seibald, held out and then forced a trade to the Philadelphia Wings.
Don’t read too much into the move; the list is for players who have been offered a contract, but haven’t signed it yet, and the team had to put Rubisch on it to protect its rights to him. Management expects him to sign and be on the roster on opening night.
“I’m planning on seeing him make the all-rookie team,” said Blazers GM Doug Reffue.
NO MORE DEN?
One of the fun stories of the Blazers’ first two seasons has been the “Blazer Den,” team-sponsored housing in Boston that as many as 10 players lived in.
Don’t expect the team to have a den this year, when local additions to the roster – plus new additions from out-of-town – have the team looking to balance a budget.
While Reffue said there’s “maybe a 50-50 chance we do a smaller version of the den this year,” players seem to figure that the current team has guys who know each other so well that they don’t need to share a house to build chemistry.
FILLING THE HOUSE
Expect a big media blitz for the Blazers after Thanksgiving. Billboards, television, radio and print ads. A big part of the hype will be the team’s new season-ticket plan, which makes seats closer to the floor less expensive than seats that are higher up.
The team has nearly sold out the first four rows from the floor, which should help to create a better, louder atmosphere for the players.
One other big seating change for the 2011 season: The Blazers will re-open the balcony at TD Garden, although those seats will only be used for large group purchases. The Blazers sold deeply discounted “Ring of Fire” tickets in the balcony during the inaugural season of 2009, but closed the upper deck last year.
DATES, NO TEAMS
The Boston Cannons know the dates for their home games in 2011 – and have been awarded the Major League Lacrosse All-Star Game for the second season in a row – but just who will be coming in as visiting teams is still up in the air.
Rumors of expansion for the 2011 season had not played out by press time, and most league-watchers felt that no new team would be created until 2012 at the earliest.
At the same time, the Chicago Machine franchise – which was owned and operated by the league last year and spent the season as a travel squad bringing the sport to new venues – appears to be headed to Rochesterfor 2011.
Rochesterhad a franchise, the Rattlers, that won the 2008 title before being moved.
If the league completes a relocation, it will be different than an expansion situation, as there will be no expansion draft or player dispersal. That said, there may be a slew of trades, particularly involving players who have ties to upstate New Yorkand want to play close to home.
DRAFT DATE CHANGE?
One of the biggest league-wide changes being discussed for Major League Lacrosse would involve moving the entry draft of college players from June to December. Sources in the league say there is more than a coin flip’s chance that the league will draft college seniors before Christmas.
Moving the draft is a radical idea, for a number of reasons. With the current draft structure, seniors must finish their season and wait until after the NCAA championships have concluded to see where they fall in the draft. If the players are chosen in December, they could join their pro team as soon as their team’s season ends, which could be in time for the start of the MLL season if the player comes from a team that does not make the NCAA tournament.
SUPPLEMENTS
Even if the MLL does not move the entry player draft, it will have a supplemental draft in November. After the season ended in August, all teams had to cut their rosters down to a 23-man protected list, with the remaining players going back into the player pool.
The supplemental draft allows teams to rebuild up to a 40-man roster. Typically, teams protect players who they fear will be snapped up by the competition, and try to leave players with strong local ties – who would not be expected to accept a move – or players who are considering retirement available for the supplemental draft.
For the Cannons, who have spent the last few years developing local talent and favoring regional players in roster decisions for the practice squad and end of the bench, the supplemental draft is likely to be filled with local names, players like Chris Ajemian, a Duxbury, Mass., and Fairfield University product who got into one game in 2010, or Johns Hopkins grad Steven Boyle from Derry, N.H., who scored two goals and an assist in two games with the Cannons last summer.
NLL ON TV ... IN 2012
The National Lacrosse League quietly signed a retainer with IMG to shop for a national television deal, but few around the league expect that deal to get done in time for the upcoming season and figure fans will see more of the league on broadcast television in 2012.
Currently, the National Lacrosse League Network broadcasts all games live and free online; some teams also have their own local television contract.
EASTON INKS PAIR
Easton Lacrosse has signed Boston Blazers players Casey Powell and Brett Queener to multi-year endorsement contracts. The players will develop new products for the company and create exclusive content for EastonLacrosse.com, as well as participate in camps, clinics and other events for Easton.
Easton – a division of Easton-Bell Sports – is well established in sports like baseball, softball, hockey and more, and is trying to make some inroads in lacrosse, having purchased the innovative Talon Lacrosse last year.
Don’t expect the pair of Blazer stars to be showcasing their new Eastongear when they play at TD Garden; NLL players are required by the league use only Reebok gear while playing in league games
BLAZERS NOTES
Boston opens its 2011 National Lacrosse League season at 7 p.m. Jan. 8 in Philadelphia.
The Blazers’ first home game of the new season is a week later, Jan. 15, against Edmonton. Start time is 7:30 p.m.
After a Jan. 21 contest at Toronto, Boston starts the first of three two-game homestands. The Blazers have Rochester on Jan. 22 and Philadelphia on Jan. 28.
Boston will play three exhausting sets of back-to-back games this season: Jan. 21 and 22, Jan. 28 and 29 and March 25 and 26.
CANNONS NOTES
The Cannons started their 2010 season strong, beating the Outlaws, 16-13, in their opener and the Machine, 17-15, in game No. 2. Bostonlost its next two outings, but then went on a three-game tear against the Outlaws, Machine and Lizards.
The Cannons did enough in the regular season to earn the No. 1 seedin the Major League Lacrosse playoffs. But like in past years, the Cannons went home without a title, falling to the Bayhawks.
