January 26, 2012
Cannons receive their championship rings
by Scott Souza/
BRIGHTON, Mass. – It can be difficult enough for Major League Lacrosse players spread throughout the East Coast to make the commitment each week in the summer to fly into Boston for a Friday night Cannons practice and a Saturday game.
A Tuesday night in January for a team dinner? That’s not fitting into anyone’s schedule.
But this wasn’t just any Tuesday night and it wasn’t just any team dinner. This was the night the Cannons were to receive their MLL championships rings and, for many, the first night that they’d seen each other since winning the title in Annapolis, Md., in August.
This was a night Paul Rabil wasn’t about to miss.
“You invest so much,” said the reigning MLL Most Valuable Player, who lives in Baltimore and plays indoors during the winter for the Washington Stealth of the National Lacrosse League. “I’ve been fortunate to have a position in my career where I dedicate my life, really, to lacrosse – spreading the game, working on my game, and trying to win championships. So this is something I’ve been planning on and building into my schedule for years. I’m glad it’s finally here. Hopefully, it’s the first of many.”
About two-thirds of Cannons players, and most of the team staff, made it to The Stockyard restaurant in Brighton on Jan. 24 for the night to celebrate last year’s accomplishment one more time before the attention turns to the 2012 season. The team will have another look back with its fans before the season opener against the Rochester Rattlers on April 28 but, by then, most of the focus will be on what the team must do to repeat instead of all they did to win the franchise’s first title in its 11-year history.
“This definitely puts the period on the sentence,” said Bill Daye, who spent nine years with the organization as a player and coach before retiring from the league about a month after the title game. “Obviously, sitting here with some of the guys – knowing I’m not going to be back next year – it’s emotional. But I’m excited for those guys to get back out there to get working, to reload and repeat.”
Daye admitted he was “a little choked up” as Cannons general manager Kevin Barney handed out the rings in the shadow of the Steinfeld Trophy as 2011 Cannons highlights played on surrounding televisions. When he and his wife drove to the restaurant – located about a mile from the team’s Harvard Stadium home – they took the route Daye always took on game days and practice nights, so that he could relive the experience of being head coach of the team one more time before turning over the reins to new coach Steve Duffy.
“I’ve been doing it for so long,” Daye said, “this night is definitely bittersweet.”
President and founding chairman Matt Dwyer had been waiting for this night for as long as anyone in the room. For a decade he watched as Boston teams celebrated championships and handed out jewelry to commemorate their accomplishments. On Jan. 24, it was his turn to see exactly what that felt like.
“Not just for myself but for all of us, absolutely, I was looking forward to it,” Dwyer said. “There is no question that, being a professional team in this market, it’s something you hope to enjoy.
“It really goes back to Red Auerbach. The Krafts get a lot of credit – and deserve a lot of credit – for the way they run a great (Patriots) organization. But in this town, in my mind, the person that started that phenomenon that we try to live up to with the Celtics is really a Red Auerbach model of what it takes to build a franchise.”
The Cannons have a long, long way to go to reach the Celtics’ total of 17 championships. But with one ring on their fingers, the quest for a second one begins very soon.
“I’ve been a part of several championships," Rabil said, "and there’s nothing more difficult than repeating. We had a huge hunger to start this season, a bitter taste from the last 10 seasons not being able to win – or really come close, quite frankly.
“It’s really tough when you accomplish something so great to build that hunger back up. We’re working on that right now.”
