I love hearing about trades and free agent signings prior to the season. It’s fun to think about how these changes will affect the teams, which changes might work just as expected (or better), and which ones might not work so well. It’s also fun to think about how a team that might have been a lock to miss the playoffs a couple of years ago seems unlikely to miss them now, or the other way around.

Dispseral draft

After the dispersal draft results were announced, I mentioned on Twitter that “unsurprisingly, every team improved”. This was not intended to be brilliant insight but it was only later I realized that it wasn’t just “not brilliant” but meaningless. Of course every team improved because no team lost any players. If you had to release someone from your roster whenever you picked a player, then we could make a judgement on which teams improved and by how much. Once the final rosters are released before the season starts, then we will see who the real winners were.

Anyway, the FireWolves picked up Teat, Kearnan, John, and Brownell, adding arguably the best player in the world as well as three other better-than-solid players to their lineup. Then they traded Kearnan and Jaxon Fridge to the Rush for standout defender Holden Garlent. Oshawa somehow ran into offense trouble for parts of last season; as perplexing as that was then, it seems hard to fathom something similar happening after adding Jeff Teat. Update: Then they signed Rob Hellyer.

The Desert Dogs’ offense improved a lot last season (most goals of any team in the league!), but their defense and goaltending was still a little suspect. Through the dispersal draft, they’ve added goalie Nick Damude, defenders Mitch Armstrong, Ryan Wagner, and Chris Corbeil, and forwards Sam LeClair and Liam Aston. Corbeil is a UFA so he may not sign with the Dogs but even if he doesn’t, the Dogs have improved their back-end and look poised to grab their first-ever playoff spot.

The Bandits acquired two more picks in a trade with Vancouver (see below), and ended up with Zach Higgins, Dalton Young, Larson Sundown (pictured on right), Scott Dominey, Travis Longboat, and Justin Sykes. Higgins answers the question of who will succeed Matt Vinc between the Bandit pipes, Sundown and Longboat add more secondary scoring up front, and Young and Dominey strengthen an already-strong Bandits transition.

As I said, everyone improved (for now), but these three teams stood out to me as the big winners (for now).

Entry draft

The entry draft was broadcast on the NLL’s YouTube channel and didn’t take place in any one physical location. Broadcasters Teddy Jenner and Pat Gregoire as well as commissioner Brett Frood were each at home, which was fine during the COVID pandemic when a lot of things were done from home that wouldn’t normally be, but that’s no longer the case. Teddy and Pat were both in hi-def and sounded great but Frood was using a low-quality camera and sounded terrible. Either he needs a better-quality setup or he should have been in a studio somewhere. Frood also lost sound for the second overall pick and didn’t do the third at all, so Teddy announced those. The commish must have rebooted his laptop or something and returned for the fourth and subsequent picks. His sound was working but wasn’t any better quality-wise. There were some sound problems during interviews as well, though they could have been caused by the players’ devices.

Considering the professional-quality draft broadcasts we have seen from the NLL in previous years (before and after the pandemic), this seemed like a regression. Maybe the top-quality broadcasts cost a ton of money and the league decided there isn’t enough of an upside to warrant it. It’s pretty easy for me to spend someone else’s money but in my opinion, if you want to be the Next Major League, you need to look professional and this didn’t.

On the upside, there were a number of shots from draft watch parties where we saw players and their friends and families celebrating, and watching those celebrations – as a lacrosse player’s long-time dream comes true – is always the best part of the draft.

As for the actual picks, i.e. the real meat of the event, I don’t follow the summer leagues or US college lacrosse in any detail so I can’t really comment on that. Other than this: kudos to the Bandits for drafting Niky Lowe with the final pick of the draft. Nicky was a member of the Jr. Bandits and passed away a few weeks before the draft.

Trades

• Buffalo sends prospect Luca Antongiovanni and a first round pick in the 2026 entry draft to Vancouver for Payton Cormier and the 11th and 23rd overall picks in the dispersal draft. Antongiovanni is from Coquitlam BC and was a first-round pick in the 2024 draft but has never played in the NLL. Cormier is from Oakville, ON, so this move helps both play closer to home.
• Oshawa sends Connor Kearnan, Jaxon Fridge, and the 20th overall pick in the entry draft to the Rush for Holden Garlent. That’s a pretty steep price to pay for one guy, but Garlent is a veteran defender who spent years learning from guys like Corbeil, Rubisch, Dilks, Messenger, Hossack, and Cornwall (both of ’em). And he’s only 30 so he could have a bunch of years ahead of him.
• Saskatchewan traded Clark Walter to San Diego for a third round pick in the 2029 (!!) entry draft. That’s three years away.

Retirements

Ryan Benesch has been one of my favourite lacrosse players for his entire NLL career. He had some big shoes to fill before he’d ever played an NLL game, being traded essentially for Colin Doyle. He had an excellent rookie season with the Rock and won the 2007 Rookie of the Year, but was inexplicably benched for the last two games of the 2008 season before being traded to Edmonton. That began his journey of 11 teams over 19 seasons. He never won a Championship (though he lost one with the Bandits in 2016), but was one of the most well-respected players in the league during his career.

Jay Thorimbert was also a well-respected journeyman, having played with eight teams over 17 seasons. He also never won a Championship and oddly, he also lost with the Bandits in 2016. Thorimbert was known as a face-off guy and finished seven seasons over 55%, two of which were over 60%. He was also a solid but smart defender who played tough but kept the penalty minutes to a minimum, and he even scored at least one goal in every season but his last. Fun fact: Despite his initials, he was never known as “JT” while in Buffalo.

Free agent signings

I thought Oshawa was going to be the top team in this section, after they signed Rob Hellyer, Laine Hruska, and Jonathan Gagliardi. But Las Vegas has picked up where they left off last offseason, making a ton of moves. They signed defenders Robbie Turpin, Dylan Hutchison, and Ethan Ticehurst as well as forwards Austin Shanks and Jake Govett. They’re going to have a busy training camp and Coach Willy and new GM Cody Moll will have a lot of decisions to make.

The only other signings (that I made note of – I might have missed a few) were Reilly O’Connor heading to Saskatchewan and Steph Charbonneau going to the Mammoth.

Are you happy with the direction the league is headed?

My answer: There’s lots of nuance here so to give a strict Yes or No misses a lot of it. But if I’m forced to pick one, I’d have to say no. There are certainly good things going on but look at this list of franchise changes:

• lost Philadelphia
• lost Ottawa
• Albany moved to Oshawa
• New York moved to Ottawa
• lost Panther City
• created Las Vegas
• New England moved to Albany
• created Panther City
• (old) Rochester moved to Halifax
• created (new) Rochester
• created New York

That’s just since the pandemic began.

Now, it’s not all doom and gloom. Halifax was an unqualified success, Las Vegas is looking good as well, and Oshawa isn’t getting huge numbers but they’re filling the building every night.

The NLL’s commissioner since August of 2022, what grade would you give Brett Frood for what he’s accomplished over the past four years?

My answer: B. Yes the team contractions listed above happened on his watch but weren’t his fault – at least the Philly and Ottawa ones weren’t. I don’t know all the details but from what I have heard, the fault for both of those lies almost entirely at the feet of their indifferent owners (see below).

Instead of grabbing a big city at random and throwing a team there, as has seemingly been done in the past, he’s had games in neutral site locations such as Laval and Edmonton. He appears to be judging interest in those cities before making the leap to giving them a team.

Dhane Smith, the best player in the league

Who is most to blame for the departure of the Philadelphia Wings?

My answer: Comcast Spectacor. They brought back the team on the assumption that it would make them money. It didn’t, so they just tossed the keys on the table and said “We’re out”. Most details haven’t been made public but it doesn’t sound like they made much of an effort to sell the team, leaving that up to the league.

Who is most to blame for the departure of the Ottawa Black Bears?

My answer: GF Sports & Entertainment. Similarly, it sounds like GF was hoping that the move from New York to Ottawa would revitalize the team and franchise but when it didn’t, they made no serious attempt to (a) fix that or (b) sell the team to someone who would at least try. I don’t know how much “due diligence” was done before choosing Ottawa as the destination but either (1) the due diligence was badly done and the team was doomed in that market, or (b) the market was OK and they could have succeeded but they didn’t do enough to market the team.

Are you concerned that the league is moving into smaller markets and arenas, or is this the right route for the NLL today?

My answer: Not concerned. Would we love to have a team filling arenas in New York City and Chicago and Montreal and Los Angeles? Of course, but most of the bigger cities just have not worked in the past. Even Toronto couldn’t sustain the Rock and they had to move out of town. Denver, Vancouver, and Buffalo seem like outliers while the smaller cities like Halifax, Calgary, Hamilton, and Rochester seem to be doing reasonably well. If the owners can make a profit in a smaller city because they’re not paying a million dollars to rent the arena for a single game, they don’t need to bring in 12,000 people per game.

That said, if someone who’d never heard of the NLL finds out about franchises in Oshawa, Halifax, Hamilton, and Saskatoon and none in New York, Boston, Philly, Atlanta, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Dallas, or Seattle (or worse – that they’ve been in over half of those and failed), will they take the league seriously as a top-tier sports league? Perhaps not.

Over the next five years, do you think the league will lose any more franchises?

My answer: based on history, it’s hard not to answer Yes here. I don’t know which ones but if I had to guess, here are three possibilities:

• Saskatchewan’s attendance has declined each and every year since 2017, dropping from an average of 14,921 per game in 2017, their second year in Saskatchewan, to only 6,475 last year. Some of that was due to the pandemic but at least the last three were not.
• Georgia has had three straight years of declining attendance.
• San Diego is moving out of downtown this season. That sort of move worked for Las Vegas, but if it doesn’t make a significant difference to the team’s attendance and revenue, the first step out of town might be the first step out of existence for the Seals.

Based on overall popularity and presumed profits (and excluding the big four: NFL, MLB, NBA and NHL), how many of these leagues do you feel are ahead of the NLL?

My answer: Major League Soccer, Canadian Football League, Professional Women’s Hockey League, Women’s National Basketball Association, American Hockey League.

The Premier Lacrosse League is a bit weird – they get far lower attendance at their games but seem to be making money hand over fist, have a TV deal with ABC / ESPN, and seem to get a lot more press in general than the NLL.

To avoid overlap with popular indoor leagues during the fall and winter months, should the NLL move to a summer schedule?

My answer: No. This is mostly for personal reasons – I’m more busy in the summer than the winter so I’d have less time to watch games, write articles, and update stats. My wife is a teacher so many of our bigger vacations take place in July and August. I’d prefer keeping the NLL as a winter thing.

How much has the NLL’s free-streaming site NLL+ helped grow the league’s audience?
My answer: A little. It’s great for us fans who already know about it, but I’m not sure how many new fans it’s brought in.

Launched in November of 2023, how impactful has the NLL’s UnBOXed initiative been?

My answer: Medium. Maybe I’m overly optimistic (or naïve), considering more than 90% of NLL players rated it “Low” or “Zero”.

I don’t know a lot of details or have stats, but I believe the NLL UnBoxed initiative has been successful in getting lacrosse sticks in the hands of thousands of kids who may never have otherwise had the opportunity, and lacrosse programs in many elementary schools who wouldn’t otherwise have had them. Is it making big news across North America? No, but I think idea is that in five to ten years, there will be a ton of teenage lacrosse players looking for places to play, and five years after that the NLL draft will have a lot more players from outside of southern Ontario, southern BC, and New York State.

Again, maybe this is just me liking the idea of this program and not how it’s actually working. But I don’t think we were expected to see big results quite yet.

Grade the overall presentation and production of this year’s NLL Entry Draft.

My answer: D. It was nice to see video from watch parties and see players and their families and friends go crazy when a player’s name is called. But the pandemic is over. The players being drafted deserve the experience of walking up to the stage, shaking the commissioner’s hand, and posing for pictures with their new hat or jersey along with the GM and coach of their new team.

Whether you were there in person or saw highlights from the event online, grade the overall presentation of this year’s NLL Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony?

My answer: B. This one was an actual in-person event, so that’s definitely a plus. Live-streaming the event would have been nice but wasn’t necessary. It should definitely be an annual event, or at the very least, every other year.

Who are the most marketable players in the NLL today?

My top three: Jeff Teat, Dhane Smith, CJ Kirst. Honorary mentions: Keegan Bal, Lyle Thompson.

Should the league market that players work another job or focus solely on them being pro athletes?

My answer: Focus on pro-athlete angle. Pointing out that the players have other full-time jobs may be interesting and makes the players look like “regular people” but people don’t want their sports stars to be regular people. You want them to be larger than life.

Heading into the 2026–27 regular season, who is the best player in the NLL?

My answer: Dhane Smith. Teat is a close second – Smith has better numbers but played on the powerhouse Bandits. Teat’s numbers were only slightly behind but he played on non-playoff teams. But if Dhane decided to switch to playing full-time defense, he could be a top 5 defender on just about any team in the league, so I’m giving it to him.

Will Jeff Teat and the Oshawa FireWolves make the playoffs this year?

My answer: Yes.

In order for a player to be considered for the NLL’s regular season MVP Award, do you feel they need to make that season’s playoffs?

My answer: Yes. As baseball manager Whitey Herzog once argued, the Chicago Cubs finished in last place with Andre Dawson on the team, and they could have finished in last place without him, so he shouldn’t be considered “Most Valuable”. Then again, Dawson did win MVP that year, so I guess the MLB voters didn’t buy that argument.

Similar to the NHL’s Ted Lindsay Award, should the NLLPA award an NLL MVP based on a player vote?

My answer: Yes. It would be interesting to see who the executives and media members vote as the MVP compared to who the players pick.

Reinstated and declared eligible for free agency in June, if you were an NLL GM, would you sign Austin Staats?

My answer: No. He’s had several chances in the past and squandered them all. Maybe he’s pulled his life together and I really hope he has, but it’s too late.

What trophy means more to our sport?

My answer: NLL Cup. There’s no question that I’m biased here since I watch every NLL game I can, while I don’t really pay attention to the summer leagues. It’s especially true now that it’s very evident that a Mann Cup can be bought while the NLL Cup cannot, or at least it’s more difficult.

Two months out, who are your preseason Top 3 teams in the NLL?

My answer: Toronto, Vancouver, Colorado. Same as the players’ top three. But I’d put Halifax higher than the 7th place the players had them, and while probably not in the top five, I’d move Las Vegas up the list.

The NLL announced on Thursday that they had agreed to a partnership with a company called FloSports for exclusive streaming rights to all NLL games, both regular season and playoffs. That’s right, NLL+, the league’s own broadcast and streaming service, is no more. Considering how much time and work (and presumably money) the league put into NLL+, this was surprising to me.

The reaction from many fans to the news of this partnership was… less than enthusiastic. There were complaints about the broadcast quality but mostly there were complaints about the fact that watching NLL games this season would no longer be free.

I reached out to the league’s Executive VP of Broadcast and Media Joel Feld and the Senior VP of Technology and Broadcast Operations Ed Derse to ask about the reasoning behind this decision. After I talked to Joel and Ed, they (virtually) introduced me to Brian Reinert, VP of Corporate Communications at FloSports, and I had a conversation with him as well. This is a summary of those conversations.

The deal

I had never heard of FloSports (well, actually I had, but more on that later), so I was a bit skeptical as well. FloSports has been interested in the NLL for a number of years, and were actually in conversation with the league the last time the streaming rights were being negotiated (when the league went with ESPN+). FloSports already broadcasts some college lacrosse, the MSL, the Arena Lacrosse League (ALL), and the Mann Cup as well, so they decided the NLL was the next logical step. They’ve worked with commissioner Brett Frood in the past, and came to the NLL with an offer of a partnership. Joel actually referred to the deal as a “no-brainer” for the NLL, so they were pretty excited about it. The deal included the fact that FloSports would have exclusive streaming rights for all NLL games, so that took NLL+ and ESPN+ out of the equation. As proud as Joel and Ed are of NLL+, they realized that this deal would be better for the NLL going forward.

A huge plus for the NLL is that FloSports is creating a new channel, FloLacrosse, which will include much of their existing lacrosse content, and they’re adding a lot more. FloLacrosse will be available outside of the FloSports paywall; specifically, it will be available to everyone with an Amazon Prime subscription (in the US) as well as on YouTube. If you have an LG smart TV, there’s a FloSports channel there as well. There will be a game of the week (called the Saturday Showcase) broadcast on FloLacrosse, which means that everyone with Amazon Prime will be able to see an NLL game every Saturday night for no extra cost.

For context, at least there are at least 180 million people in the US with Amazon Prime memberships. Put another way, over 80% of US households have access to Amazon Prime Video. The Saturday Showcase will only be shown on Amazon Prime in the US, not in Canada, where the TSN deal (featuring games on linear TV) will continue. But the FloSports YouTube channel (which will show the Saturday Showcase) is free to everyone on the internet, which is most of the world.

In addition, full-game replays of every game will be available on the league’s YouTube channel 24 hours after the end of the game.

Quality

Something to consider is that the NLL will still be responsible for producing the broadcasts, so the quality will be the same as we’ve seen for the past five years. Nothing about the game broadcast – the video quality, the broadcasters, the on-screen graphics, etc. – will be changing because of this deal. For the games, FloSports is merely the streaming provider.

Also note that FloSports is the streaming provider for a ton of other leagues and sports, but they don’t do most of the video production. If FloSports has a low-quality video feed provided to them, that’s what they have to stream.

FloSports does have the “MultiView” capability that NLL+ had, so you will be able to watch multiple games at the same time, but it will be limited to two games at once – initially, anyway. That may change later.

Additional Content

However, FloSports will also be producing its own NLL content. Brian was very excited about this part – they are hiring people familiar with the sport and the league to produce highlight shows, news, editorials, rankings, interviews, and other NLL content. All of this will be on their FloLacrosse channel, meaning it’s in front of their paywall, not behind it.

And that’s just the NLL content. As I said, there are other lacrosse leagues available as well as hockey, basketball, football, cycling, track and field, soccer, rugby, auto racing, and a bunch more.

FloSports also recognizes that there is a lot of crossover with hockey, particularly in Canada. They will be leveraging their coverage of both sports to make sure that, in Brian’s words, “hockey fans know that you can also watch FloLacrosse with a FloHockey subscription and vice versa. We want to make sure that people know that and get the most out of their Flo subscription”. It’s in FloSports’s own best interest to promote the hell out of the NLL.

Cost

Obviously the big disadvantage is that watching all NLL games now requires a paid subscription. The regular price is US$155 (CAD$215) per year but as mentioned above, there is a limited-time deal of US$119 (CAD$170), and season ticket holders will pay half of that in the first year. You can also pay monthly for US$40 (CAD$50) / month, but an annual subscription is about the cost of four months. Since the NLL season is about six months long, a monthly subscription makes little sense.

Yes, NLL+ was free. But let’s be realistic: we all knew that producing that number of high-quality game broadcasts and distributing them for free was unsustainable. It was likely that NLL+ would not have been free indefinitely.

The annual subscription of US$155 comes out to $12.92 a month. And yes, for six of those months there are no NLL games, so if that’s all you use FloSports for, you could think of it as $25.84 a month during NLL season. That’s $6.46 a week, or as Ed Derse put it, not much more than the cost of a large latte at Tim Horton’s. And that’s the full price with no discounts. Season ticket holders will be paying something like US$60 or CAD$85 for the first season. That’s US$5 or CAD$7 a month.

Make no mistake: Joel, Ed, and Brian all agreed that paying for a service you used to get for free is not going to make people happy. Joel said that he hopes a lot of the league’s fans will follow them to this new service, but he recognizes that some won’t. But in the end, they decided that the pros outweighed the cons and this was a strong deal for the league.

Summary

Here’s a summary of the pros and cons of this partnership:

Pros

• Same broadcast quality as the last few years
• One game per week plus the Finals will be available on Amazon Prime Video (only in the US), YouTube, and LG channels
• Full-game replays will be available on the NLL YouTube channel
• There will still be games on linear TV on TSN in Canada. Last season, games that were broadcast on TSN were not available for replay on NLL+. This season, they will be available for replay on both YouTube and FloSports.
• FloSports is providing a one-time discount for everyone if they sign up in November, and there will also be a one-time half-price deal for NLL season ticket holders
• Once you have the FloSports subscription, you can see everything they provide. There are lots of other sports including a bunch of college sports available.
• FloSports will be providing additional NLL content that they are paying for and will not be behind the paywall. FloSports seems to be spending a fair bit of money on this deal and on adding the additional content.
• This might be the biggest pro: the league finally has a company paying them to broadcast games. The league is no longer eating the cost of such broadcasting (as they’ve done for the last two years).

Cons

• Watching games other than the Saturday Showcase requires a paid subscription. I do understand that for many people, this one con outweighs all of the pros above.
• In general, there will be no other games on linear TV in the US. However the FAQ the league provided does say “NLL clubs may also carry approved games on local TV”. The FAQ on the FloSports site also says “The partnership also preserves opportunities for U.S. national linear television broadcasts” though the league has said that there won’t be such an option this season.
• “MultiView” feature only supports two games

Conclusion

Before you call me a shill, I am getting nothing from the league for posting this information. I was surprised about this announcement and wanted to talk to Joel and Ed to get the lowdown on why this was done. Does it suck that we now have to pay to watch NLL games? Yes. Will it lose viewers? Yes. But could it end up being a good deal for the league? The more I heard about it, the more I thought the answer to that is also yes.

It’s been said that the NFL could play an entire season of games to empty stadiums (i.e. ticket revenue of $0) and still make a profit thanks to their TV deals. The NLL isn’t there but if game broadcasts change from the expense side of the income statement to the revenue side, that extra money could do a lot to [note: pure speculation on my part] help stabilize struggling franchises or even bump player salaries.

P. S.

It turns out that I had indeed heard of FloSports before this announcement. First off, they broadcast the Mann Cup this year. I remember noticing at the time that they didn’t have a single-game option – either you paid $50 for a month or $215 for a year just to watch between four and seven games. (I didn’t pay it, and thus the name FloSports disappeared from my memory until Thursday.) I didn’t hear too many great things about the broadcast quality either, but as we covered above, FloSports doesn’t handle the broadcast itself, just the streaming, and we know the Iroquois Lacrosse Arena isn’t known for their top-notch internet access.

The other way I’d known about them is that they have a Canadian office in Waterloo, Ontario, which happens to be in the same building where I work. While taking the stairs past the second floor to the SAP offices on the third floor, I must have seen the FloSports logo a bunch of times, but I guess it never registered with me so I didn’t recognize it as the company that did the Mann Cup just a month ago, and I didn’t recognize it as the company in yesterday’s NLL announcement either.

Trades

The only trade came in mid-August, as Halifax sent Nonkon Thompson and Drew Hutchison to Rochester for Tyler Biles and Riley Hutchcraft. Each team sent a tough, gritty defender and a backup goalie named Hutch and received a tough, gritty defender and a backup goalie named Hutch. Sounds pretty even.

Retirements

Only three players announced their retirement in the off-season, though it’s likely that other players also retired but didn’t announce it.

Stephen Keogh hung ’em up after 13 seasons in Rochester, Colorado, Rochester again, Halifax, Toronto, New York, and then back in Halifax. He was part of Rochester’s three straight Championships from 2012–2014, and lost the Championship with Halifax last year. Keogh could score with the best of them but was also great at creating space in front of the net for his teammates. When you talk about guys that “get to the dirty areas”, Keogh was the poster boy.

Ian Llord started his career with the old Wings in 2007 before playing with the Bandits, the old Knighthawks, six games with the Mammoth in 2019, then finishing with the new Wings and the new Knighthawks. Llord is the only player who played for the old Wings, the new Wings, the old Knighthawks, and the new Knighthawks. And now that the new Wings are gone, he will forever be the only member of that group. Llord also won three Championships, first with the 2008 Bandits then with both the 2013 and 2014 Knighthawks.

I have a ton of respect for both Keogh and Llord but let’s be real, Matt Vinc is the biggest name to retire from the NLL in 2026. We’ve all heard the incredible numbers: eight Goaltender of the Year awards* and six Championships (back-to-back-to-back twice). He also is the league’s overall leader among goalies in games played, minutes played, shots faced, saves, and wins – and he leads all of those categories in both the regular season and the playoffs. In the playoffs, his numbers in each of those categories except games played are more than double those of second place, and he’s only three short of doubling Nick Rose, Mike Poulin, and Frank Scigliano in games played.

The GOAT of goalies, Matt Vinc

Vinc is so far ahead in regular season minutes played that the second-place goalie, Nick Rose, would have to play 60 minutes per game, in every game his team plays, for the next 5½ seasons to catch him.

* – Only two other goalies have won this award more than once: Steve Dietrich and Bob Watson each won it twice.

Fun fact: Keogh, Llord, and Vinc played together for the old Knighthawks from 2013–2017 and won Championships in 2013 and 2014.

Team changes

In July, Rochester announced that they are returning to the traditional teal and purple colour scheme that the previous incarnation of the Knighthawks used for many years. I was just getting used to the new khaki colours and starting to like them, but truth be told, I do prefer the teal.

In August, the Seals announced that they are moving from Pechanga Arena in San Diego to Frontwave Arena in Oceanside, California. The new arena is about 60km north of Pechanga. Being located outside of the “downtown core” has worked very well for Las Vegas over the last two seasons, but didn’t work for Ottawa, Chicago, Washington (Stealth), and various New York teams. We’ll see how this affects the Seals, who have been one of the best regular season teams since they came into the league but have struggled with low attendance anyway.

Execs

After Randy Mearns filled in as interim head coach for part of last season, Dan Carey decided not to give him the full-time job. It’s also possible that he did but Mearns said no, I have no idea. Former Calgary, Toronto, Buffalo, and Vancouver coach (and two-time Les Bartley award winner) Troy Cordingley was hired as the new head coach in Rochester, and Phil Sanderson was later hired as D coach. The other assistant coaches currently listed on the Knighthawks web site are Kyle Kallay and Matthew DiLella, who were both there under Mearns last season.

Hall of Fame

There was a five-year break between the class of 2016 and the class of 2021, when ten new inductees were added to the NLL Hall of Fame. After another five year break, eight more people were added this past summer:

• Players: Sandy Chapman, Shawn Evans, Dan Dawson, Mark Steenhuis
  • Also nominated: Jordan Hall, Jeff Shattler, Geoff Snider, Billy Dee Smith
• Veterans: Mike Accursi, Jake Bergey, Gavin Prout
  • Also nominated: Glenn Clark, Duane Jacobs, Brian Voelker, Cam Woods
• Builder: John Gurtler
  • Also nominated: Leif Elsmo, Craig Rybczynski

I’m particularly happy for Chapman, who was a standout defender (they called him “Charlie Hustle” for good reason) for many years but because, like many defenders, he wasn’t flashy, he might have flown a bit under the radar. Obviously the people who did the HoF voting were very familiar with his game. Similarly, Gavin Prout never had the huge offensive numbers of guys like Shawn Evans or Dan Dawson (Prout never broke 100 points in any season), but he was a leader in the dressing room and a real presence on the floor.

And not only is John Gurtler an NLL broadcasting legend, but he’s been a big supporter of my nllstats.com web site. He’s mentioned it on numerous Bandits broadcasts and has interviewed me on the radio twice, so I’m very happy to see him get the Hall of Fame nod as well.

Contraction

Of course, the biggest and most disappointing news of the off-season is the contraction of the Philadelphia Wings and the Ottawa Black Bears. We knew last season that the Wings were having trouble and that they would not be run by Comcast in 2027. But it’s very disappointing that new ownership couldn’t be found anywhere, not just in Philly. It appears that nobody from Edmonton, Minnesota, Nashville, Montreal, or any of the other cities that have been mentioned as possible NLL destinations were able to put together a compelling bid for either the Wings or the Black Bears.

As for Ottawa, despite an exciting young up-and-coming team including guys like Jeff Teat, Rob Hellyer, Callum Jones, and Zach Higgins, they still struggled at the gate. Ottawa’s troubles weren’t quite as well known as Philly’s but given their last-place finish in attendance in 2026, I don’t think the news really surprised anybody either.

I’ve written what seems like dozens of articles over the years about teams folding or moving, so I’m not going into all of that again. Suffice it to say that I’m sure the league did what they could to find new ownership for both teams, and it sucks for fans of both teams as well as all of the now-unemployed players, coaches, trainers, and other staff that they were unsuccessful.

Awesome

Regular season standings come down to the wire

The last two playoff spots were decided on the last weekend of the season, as Halifax and Ottawa played each other for one spot and Las Vegas and San Diego played each other for the other. There was even a scenario going into that weekend that the very last game of the season, between two teams not involved in the battle for those spots, could decide one of them. That didn’t happen but other than that, could you have written a better ending to the season?

Unexpected playoff results

I have heard some talk that the NLL should scrap the “one-and-done” playoff format in the first round and go with at least best-of-three series in every round. The reasoning includes this season, where the #1, #2, and #3 teams were all eliminated in the first round, and so they believe that this means we don’t have the best teams getting to the finals. Well technically they’re right – we have the teams that beat the best teams getting to the finals. This is kind of why we have the playoffs in the first place. If we don’t accept that this kind of thing can happen, why bother having playoffs at all? Give the Championship to the #1 team at the end of the regular season and there you go – the best team won.

The first place team, but not the Champions

I think the 2026 season is solid reasoning for keeping the one-and-done format, at least in the first round. We always say that anything can happen in the playoffs, and that makes everything more exciting.

Attendance

Buffalo led the way as always, averaging 18,290 fans per home game. That is insane. 19 out of 32 NHL teams averaged less than that in 2025–2026 – including the Buffalo Sabres in a season where they returned to the playoffs for the first time in a thousand years.

In addition to the Bandits, Calgary and Halifax each averaged over 10,000 fans per game. The Warriors and Mammoth were over 9,000, and Oshawa and Las Vegas both had lower absolute numbers but in terms of percentage of the arena capacity, Las Vegas is third at 91.2% and Oshawa is fourth at 90.0%. (First is Halifax at 97.6% and second is Buffalo at 95.9%.)

The Tom Borrelli Award

I can’t list the awesome things that happened this year without mentioning the Tom Borrelli award. I was nominated two years ago and ended up as a finalist, which was amazing. I considered that a sort of “thank you” from the announcers, broadcasters, players, coaches, etc. who used my stats site, and didn’t expect to be nominated again. But this year I was, and then was a finalist, and then I actually won the damn thing. This was unquestionably awesome, and I’m very thankful to those who nominated me, voted for me, and congratulated me when the award was announced. I am beyond honoured to join the ranks of the amazing media people who have won this award in the past.

However.

Ashley Docking does an excellent job providing analysis and she’s as knowledgeable about the game and the league as any male announcer. In addition, she is also great at interviewing players, asking meaningful questions. One thing that makes interviews fun to listen to is the rapport between the people involved. The best interviews aren’t just questions and answers, they sound more like a conversation. It’s even better when it sounds like a conversation between friends, and Ashley is great at turning any interview into just that.

Maki Jenner has had two groundbreaking years in a row, becoming the first woman to do colour commentary on an NLL broadcast in 2025 and then the first woman to do play-by-play on an NLL broadcast in 2026. And when she’s not up in the booth, she’s between the benches as the on-floor reporter. She’s really good at all three of those jobs and just like Ashley, she knows the game as well as anybody.

I feel like it’s time that a woman won this award and 2026 would have been an ideal time for that to happen. Honestly, there’s a part of me that feels bad because I got in the way of that.

Replays

This was the first year with the new review system in place. The league constantly referred to it as a “cloud-based” system, which just means “it uses the internet”. I’m not sure why that piece of information is necessary but anyway, I was happy with the system overall, and I think that replays in general were more accurate than in previous years. In addition, there were probably fewer reviews requested by coaches because they could watch the play from multiple angles on the bench before deciding whether to throw the flag.

Hall of Fame

The NLL announced on Tuesday that the NLL Hall of Fame is still a thing! They announced that eighteen people have been nominated for induction into the Hall of Fame, and eight of them will be chosen this summer. This is the first time they’ve done something like this; in previous years, they’ve skipped the voting piece (or at least not made it public) and just announced the people who will be inducted. I won’t go over the nominees or who I think should be inducted, but I’m sure it will come up sometime later.

Not Awesome

TD Coliseum

After a year in Mississauga during renovations on First Ontario Place, the Rock returned to the Hamilton to play in the newly renamed TD Coliseum. I wrote about it here but in a nutshell, I wasn’t too happy with the renovations. After a season of getting used to it, I think I’ve softened a bit in the sense that I don’t hate the place. But the seats are still narrower, the concourse is still dark, the sound is still messed up, and the food that sits under heat lamps for who knows how long is still very expensive. We no longer buy dinner at the arena when we go to games.

Replays

I mentioned the awesome part of the new replay system above, but there was still a problem. In a nutshell, many of them still took longer than we’d like. Some of them were completed very quickly, but we still had some that took 4–5 minutes. As I’ve said before (multiple times), I understand that the officials want to get every call right but there has to be a limit. If you can’t tell within two minutes whether a goal should count or not, you just have to call it inconclusive and go with the call on the floor. It’s possible that we might end up with the wrong call now and again but if it takes that long to decide, it’s not wrong by much and we won’t be (a) killing the flow of the game, (b) boring the pants off of the TV viewers, and (c) adding stress to the broadcasters who have to talk about the same play for five minutes while waiting for the call.

Hartley hit on Charbonneau

Rylan Hartley’s hit on Steph Charbonneau was certainly a Not Awesome incident during the 2026 season. I wrote about it here but once again, we had a goalie come out of his net to lay a huge hit on an unsuspecting player who couldn’t possibly have seen it coming. Considering the concussion problems that Hartley has had in the past, it’s a bit surprising that he wouldn’t have thought about that as he was about to hit someone with his back to him.

The hit didn’t end Charbonneau’s season, but it did seem to have a significant effect on Hartley. In the seven games before the hit, Hartley had a 10.13 GAA and an 80.2% save percentage over an average of about 51 minutes per game. In the eight games afterwards, he was 14.01 and 73.2% over about 39 minutes.

Season-ending injuries

Thomas Hoggarth has never been the top scorer on his team, at least not in the NLL. But any coach or teammate will tell you how important he is to the offense. The Thunderbirds lost Hoggarth in game 1 and while they clearly had a good season anyway, making it to the Finals, there’s no question they are looking forward to having him back next season.

I wrote about Colorado’s Ryan Lee’s struggles with injuries earlier this season as well. In 2026, he only played 4 games before being sidelined. In the four seasons from 2023–2026, Lee played 28 games and missed 47. On the upside, think about Colorado’s offense next season with both Lee and Eli McLaughlin returning to play with Jack Hannah, Andrew Kew, and Will Malcom.

Ryan Lee

Chase Fraser only played 6 games with his new team before injuries took the rest of his season away. As I said in Part I of this series, Fraser scores some amazing goals but his contribution to his team goes far beyond that.

Of course there were other players who were injured partway through the season and were lost for the rest of it, but these were likely the biggest names. Also the loss of Michael Grace in the playoffs certainly had an impact on the Swarm’s last couple of games but he may miss much or even all of next season, so that’s where the bigger impact will be.

Attendance

The Ottawa Black Bears have arguably the best lacrosse player in the world on their team. But it’s not enough to bring people in to see games. Sure, the team hasn’t had a lot of on-floor success, but they were in the playoff hunt until the last weekend of the season. The New York Riptide had even less success than the Black Bears, and Ottawa’s attendance in 2026 was lower than any of New York’s four seasons.

I’ve talked about the Saskatchewan Rush’s attendance a few times this season, how they were the darlings of the league when they came in, filling SaskTel Centre and leading the league in attendance in 2018 and 2019. But it turns out that that popularity was based on their success on the floor and once their Championship dynasty ended, the fans left and didn’t come back. Even last season when they started 10–1 and finished third overall, attendance didn’t change.

That description mirrors almost exactly the early years of the Toronto Rock. Championships all over the place, filling the arena every game, leading the league in attendance, then the success ends, the fans leave, and don’t return. Getting only 7,800 people for the first game of the Finals – THE FINALS – was really disappointing, especially when Halifax sold out game 2 in about three days.

The Wings

I’m running out of ways to talk about NLL teams folding or moving. Recently we’ve had Albany → Oshawa, New York → Ottawa, Panther City → nowhere, New England → Albany, and Rochester → Halifax, and that’s just since COVID. Now Philadelphia is either moving or folding, and there are rumours about other teams as well. Of course I don’t have a solution, but I’m starting to agree with those that say the real answer is to stick to the smaller cities and arenas. If your team is only bringing in 6,000 fans but they are actually making money because the arena doesn’t cost a million dollars a night, that’s a lot more sustainable than bringing in 10,000 fans and having to move or fold because the owners are losing money every year. Every new city wants to be the next Buffalo or Calgary and fill the building every night, but I’m not sure how many Panther Citys the league can afford to take a chance on before they hit the next Halifax.

Ottawa Bears of Black

Awesome

• Jeff Teat was excellent as usual. Rob Hellyer was as good as they expected, if not better. Callum Jones was amazing and won Defender of the Year.

Not Awesome

• Similar to Oshawa, in that they had their offense working in some games and their defense working in others, but rarely both in the same game. Zach Higgins was pretty good but when he had a rough game, the offense couldn’t bail him out.
• They won eight games but only three were against playoff teams.
• Even with those issues, the Black Bears were a playoff contender into March but didn’t score double digits in any of their last five games and lost them all. All they had to do was beat the Thunderbirds in their last game of the season and they’d have made the playoffs, but there was definitely some defecation in their sleeping apparatus. The fact that they lost that game wasn’t the problem, it just looked like a lack of effort. They tied for their lowest offensive output of the season.

The Wings of Philadelphia

Awesome

• They only had five wins on the season, but four were against playoff teams – Buffalo, Colorado, Georgia, and Toronto, and they also beat Las Vegas who just barely missed the playoffs.
• Michael Sowers looked great until he got hurt, and Kyle Jackson looked great in his return to Philly.
• Nick Damude didn’t have an incredible season overall but had a few really great outings. He held his opponents to only seven goals once and five goals twice. And one of the five goal games was against Las Vegas, the highest scoring team in the league.

Kyle Jackson

Not Awesome

• Scored seven or fewer goals in seven games. They also had one eight and two nines, which means they scored under ten goals in more than half their games.
• Looks like the Wings are done in Philly… again. We don’t know if it will be the team relocating or the league having yet another dispersal draft, but it sounds like the possibility of new ownership taking over the team and leaving them in Philly is pretty much zero.

Rochester Hawks of the Knight

Awesome

• Connor Fields followed up his MVP season with 41 goals and 119 points. Ryan Lanchbury surpassed 100 points for the second straight year.
• They started strong – 4–1 including wins over eventual playoff teams San Diego and Buffalo.

Not Awesome

• After that strong start, they dropped off a cliff. They went 1–5 over their next six games, which cost both Mike Hasen and Pat O’Toole their coaching jobs. Then once Randy Mearns came in, they went 1–6.
• Both goaltenders had rough years. Hartley had a GAA over 12 and save percentage of 76.6%. Hutchcraft’s GAA was almost 14 and his save percentage was 71.6%. They gave up 12 or more goals in twelve of their eighteen games and held their opponents under ten goals only twice.
• Ryan Smith certainly wasn’t terrible but dropped 8 points from last season, which was down 15 from the previous one.

The Seals of San Diego

Awesome

• They made the playoffs, beat the #2 seed Mammoth in the quarter-finals, and then took the eventual Champion Rock to three games in the semi-finals.
• Zach Currier set a career best with 57 points, though he played a lot more offense than his usual transition.
• Wes Berg’s 74 points was his lowest in a full season since his rookie year of 2016. But he still led the team, and in more than just scoring.
• Not so much awesome or not awesome, just interesting: Over the first half of the season, they either won by several or lost by several – only two games were decided by two goals, and there were no one-goal games. But all of their last nine games were decided by one or two goals.

Not Awesome

• Chris Origlieri getting hurt in the semi-finals certainly didn’t help though Dunkerley played very well.
• Only two teams scored fewer goals than the Seals. Tre Leclaire was the only player over 30 goals.

The Rush of Saskatchewan

Awesome

• Ryan Keenan had a career year with 95 points. Zach Manns was also excellent, basically replicating his 2024 season almost exactly (one fewer goal and three more assists).
• Frank Scigliano had a GAA of 9.43, good for fourth in the league, and only slightly higher than his 9.40 of last year when he was named Goaltender of the Year.

Not Awesome

• They started the season 10–1, but then cooled off significantly. Not as bad as Rochester, but they were 2–5 in their last seven. They still ended up with a home playoff game, but they had lost any momentum they might have had earlier in the year.
• Only saw Clark Walter in five games. He was a healthy scratch a bunch of times in favour of Levi Anderson, a complete 180° reversal from last season. In 2025 and 2026, Anderson played in 19 regular season games with the Rush, while Walter played in 20. They have played together in only four games.

The Rock of Toronto

Awesome

• I’d say winning the Championship was pretty awesome.
• Their rookies were incredible. Obviously the Big Three (Kirst, Hiltz, English) were outstanding but Kelleher was also excellent and both Moran-Weekes and Hucal made significant contributions as well.
• Rose was very good, then got injured and Holowchuk was very good, then Rose returned and was even better than before. Hopefully we’re done with the “Rose can’t step up in the playoffs” crap from the haters.
• They didn’t lose back-to-back games at any point this season.
• “The Rock of Toronto” was the tagline for a Toronto radio station in the 80’s. I think it was either 1050 CHUM or 104.5 CHUM-FM.

Not Awesome

• The veterans all seemed to struggle. Other than 2025 when he was injured, Mark Matthews had his lowest points-per-game average since 2014 (though he still tied CJ Kirst for the team lead in points). Josh Dawick dropped by 20 goals and 18 points. Chris Boushy dropped by 12 goals and 26 points, though he was strong in the playoffs. Dan Craig’s points-per-game average has dropped for the third straight season, this time to a career low.

The Warriors of Vancouver

Awesome

• Finished with a 13–5 record, the franchise’s best record since 2002 when they were 14–2 as the Albany Attack. They’ve played as four different teams since then.
• They were the #1 seed in the playoffs, the first time they’ve been #1 in the league since 2010 when they were the Washington Stealth, tied with Orlando at 11–5. It was the first time they were #1 in the league by themselves since, again, the 2002 Attack.
• Christian Del Bianco was just what they expected, with a GAA under ten and a save percentage of 81.3%.
• With Jesse King and Curtis Dickson joining the team, there was some question of whether one scoring leader would emerge and who that would be. Keegan Bal grabbed that title with both hands and ran with it, all the way to an MVP ballot and an Offensive Player of the Year award.
• Dickson and King were great additions as well, and Marcus Klarich continues to improve.
• The defense was outstanding, with ten games of holding their opponents to under ten goals. Much of that was Del Bianco but a lot of it was the defenders in front of him dictating where shots were taken from, or if they were taken at all.
• Like the Rock, the Warriors didn’t lose back-to-back games all year.

Not Awesome

• Secondary scoring wasn’t really a thing for the Warriors. The top five scorers (Bal, King, Dickson, Charalambides, and Klarich) were as good as the top five on any team but after them, the numbers dropped significantly. Christian Del Bianco was sixth on the team with 17 points. Then again, only four teams scored more goals than the Warriors so it’s possible they didn’t care.
• I’m guessing they’re not a fan of the “one and done” playoff format. They were the #1 seed overall but had one bad game in the playoffs, and that was it. They had a 7–1 lead at halftime but didn’t score at all in the second half, and allowed Halifax to come back to win by three.

But wait, there’s more! There were a bunch of awesome things and not awesome things about the league in general, so that will be in Part III. So we invite you, wherever you are, whether you’re at home or whatever, to kick your shoes off and put your feet up, and lean back and get yourself a cup of coffee or something, and just relax and join us in this 2026 NLL season in review.*

* – Props to you if you know where the majority of that sentence comes from. And if you don’t, well then you need to listen to more obscure Porcupine Tree songs.

The Bandits of Buffalo

Awesome

• The season didn’t start out great at all for the Bandits. After a 3–1 start, they lost four straight and were 4–6 after ten games. It’s one thing to admit that your dynasty might be over, but there were people on social media talking like they’d lost every game by 15 goals. They said the team was done, that Matt Vinc was washed up and they should have dumped him before the season, and I even heard talk like “What can we get for Dhane Smith?”. The Awesome here is that the team found their stride and went 7–1 to finish the season.

  If I had a nickel for every social media posting around mid-season saying “The Bandits are BACK”, lemme tell ya, I would have several nickels. Several.

Not Awesome

• Didn’t win the Championship, and didn’t make the Finals for the first time since the 1970’s or something.
• Not a strong start, as mentioned above, as though they couldn’t figure out how to score without Chase Fraser and Chris Cloutier. They did eventually figure it out.

Calgary Necks that are Rough

Awesome

• Not a great season for the Roughnecks, but fans have lots to look forward to. We saw the emergence of Tyler Pace and Tanner Cook as offensive stars, and Brayden Mayea had a great season as well. Colby Bowman is still very early in his career but has looked excellent.
• They had a strong end to the season, going 4–3 in their last seven but the three losses were very close – they lost to the Mammoth by two and to the Desert Dogs and FireWolves by one. They also beat the #2 overall Mammoth in their last game of the year.
• An average of 11,650 in attendance per home game, second-best in the league. This for a 6–12 team that was out of the playoffs pretty early.

Tanner Cook

Not Awesome

• Obviously starting 2–9 wasn’t awesome. We had glimpses here and there of how good Aden Walsh could be but mostly in the second half of the season. They only won back-to-back games twice.

The Mammoth of Colorado

Awesome

• Before the season, I predicted that the loss of Tyson Gibson, Connor Kelly, Connor Robinson, and Zed Williams would outweigh the addition of Andrew Kew, and the Mammoth would miss the playoffs. How wrong I was. I didn’t anticipate the addition of Jack Hannah, and obviously didn’t anticipate seven points per game from Kew. Even without Ryan Lee for most of the season and Eli McLaughlin for all of it, only one team scored more goals than Colorado.
• The defense stepped up and Dillon Ward had an excellent year as well. Nathan Whittom was even better, posting an 8.13 GAA and 83.8% save percentage over almost 120 minutes.
• The Rock and Swarm got all the accolades for their rookies in 2026, but don’t overlook Colorado’s rookie crop of Braedon Saris, Matthew Paolatto, Ari Stevens, Connor Nock, and Dylan Hess.

Not Awesome

• They lost Ryan Lee for the season after only four games. They were hoping to get Eli McLaughlin back from firefighter probation at some point, but never did.

The Swarm of Georgia

Awesome

• Brett Dobson had the best goaltending season in the history of the league. He had the lowest GAA ever. He had the highest save percentage ever. He gave up fewer than ten goals in fifteen out of eighteen games, including eleven straight. In one of those eleven games he only played 45 minutes, but had only given up four goals at that point. His save percentage was under 80% in only three games, and under 75% once.
• Thanks to Dobson and the Swarm defense, they gave up the fewest goals of any team. Only one other team was within 20 goals of them. They also had the lowest goals against per game average in league history, and the fewest goals allowed of any team that played 18 games in a season.
• Rookies Michael Grace and Nolan Byrne were two of the three Rookie of the Year finalists. Other rookies like Ben Trumble, Kean Moon, and Liam McGrath also had great seasons. Defender Jacob Hickey had an excellent sophomore season, and Jordan MacIntosh played like Jordan MacIntosh from ten years ago.

Not Awesome

• They had twelve wins but with Dobson’s numbers, they should have won at least a few more. He had four losses with a GAA of 9.00 or less and a save percentage of 83% or more. He had two games where he gave up only six goals and lost.
• Lyle Thompson had only 77 points, the lowest total of his career since his rookie season. Yet only one player on the team had more points.

Halifax Birds of Thunder

Awesome

• Making the Finals was pretty awesome, especially for the #8 seed.
• Warren Hill was outstanding down the stretch and throughout the playoffs
• In a game in March, the Thunderbirds were down 14–4 to the best defensive team in the league. But then they scored ten goals in the fourth quarter to tie it, the biggest comeback in league history, only to have Jordan MacIntosh score with 18 seconds left in regulation to give Georgia the win. A very exciting and impressive comeback, even if they did lose the game.
• In the playoffs they did it again, with smaller numbers but better results. In the quarter-finals, down 7–1 against the #1 seed Warriors at halftime, the T-Birds scored nine in the second half and kept the Warriors scoreless to punch their ticket to the semi-finals.
• Jason Knox was very good in the regular season and outstanding in the playoffs. It will be interesting to see the impact of the increased confidence – both his team’s confidence in him and Knox’s confidence in himself – in his game next season.

Not Awesome

• Their first half of the season wasn’t so great. They started off 3–7 and it looked like making the playoffs was going to be a long shot, let alone getting to the Championship series.

Las Vegas Dogs of the Desert

Awesome

• Offense! Las Vegas scored thirteen more goals than any other team – that’s an extra game’s worth of offense. Donville and Jones were each over 100 points, Cloutier was over 80, and Poitras hit 59, while Killen, Webster, and Kirst were solid secondary scoring. Chase Fraser was on pace to break 60 as well and Kevin Crowley was a great pickup halfway through the season. Think of what their offensive numbers would have been had Fraser and Crowley been there all season.
• Picking up Tyson Bell was a great move, bringing in another veteran defender to go along with LaFontaine, Belgrave, Goodwin, and Malcom.
• The Dogs were this close to their first playoff appearance. 2026 was easily the team’s best season since entering the league.

From left: Mitch Jones, Tyrell Hamer-Jackson, Connor Kirst (#34), Nick Preston (#52)

Not Awesome

• Losing Fraser really hurt. They were still great offensively, but he’s such a spark plug and can get his team fired up not only with his impressive goal scoring but just the effort he gives on every shift.
• Goaltending was hot and cold. Both Buque and Kells had some games where they were really excellent, and others where they were really not. You don’t need an elite goalie like a Del Bianco or Dobson in net, but a bit more consistency would have gotten them into the playoffs.

Oshawa Wolves of Fire

Awesome

• Simmons and Kurtz had great offensive seasons, with Simmons breaking the 100-point barrier for the first time.
• The FireWolves ended the season strong. They were 4–2 in their last six though three of the wins (and both losses) were against non-playoff teams. But they finished the season with a win over the Bandits – and the Bandits were playing for home floor advantage in the first round of the playoffs. They didn’t get it, and playing the quarter-finals on the road contributed to the end of their dynasty, so that was a huge win for the Wolves.

Not Awesome

• The rest of the offense wasn’t great overall. Only one team scored fewer runs.
• They scored a total of 21 goals in their first four games, though the defense wasn’t bad. Then they started scoring in double digits but gave up 12–16 goals in six straight games. They just couldn’t get the offense and defense both working in the same game.

I can’t honestly say the experience is unmatched anywhere else in the NLL because I haven’t been to most arenas. In particular, I think I’d have to see games in at least Calgary, Colorado, and Vancouver before saying that. But I have been to a game in Las Vegas (at Michelob, not Lee’s), two or three in Rochester, Banditland several times, and of course the vast majority of Rock home games (in Toronto, Mississauga, and Hamilton) since 2001. Bandits fans in particular are known for being loud, knowledgeable, and loving their team. Thunderbirds fans are also loud, knowledgeable, and love their team. But even if the place is sold out, there are half as many of them at a game as there are at a Bandits game, and they’re at least equally loud. And even ignoring the outcome, I had as much fun at that game as any I’ve been to in any arena.

In Hamilton, each Rock player has his own goal song that gets played when they score. In Halifax, the same goal song is played when any Thunderbird player scores, and most of the crowd sings along. Bandits fans have their special cheers, like “B-O-X” for opposing team penalties. Hamilton fans yell “Rooooosey!” when Nick Rose makes a save. After a Warren Hill save in Halifax the PA guy shouts “King of the…” and the fans all yell “HILL!”

But there’s a problem with this “data”. I have never been to Buffalo for a Finals game, so comparing a finals game in Halifax with a regular season game in Buffalo doesn’t seem fair. I saw the Knighthawks win the 2014 Championship in Rochester, and fans there were pretty darn loud. And I’ve seen Rock Championships in Toronto in 2005 and 2011, and fans there were really loud as well. The 2005 Championship game in Toronto had the highest attendance of any game in NLL history at 19,432. But it’s been 21 years since that game and 12 years since the Knighthawks Championship I went to, so it’s very possible it’s the recency bias talking when I say that Halifax was as loud as any of them. But it was pretty damn loud.

Some parts of the experience were the same as anywhere else – fans chanting “ref you suck” after penalty calls they disagreed with was something I recognized from Hamilton and elsewhere. There were fans with signs saying it was their first game or their birthday or just saying “Go Thunderbirds”. One that I particularly enjoyed said “The only rock we like is at Peggy’s Cove”.

There were only a couple of drawbacks, and they were pretty minor. The rows of seats are quite close together, so we didn’t have a lot of legroom. We got lucky because the seat next to me was empty, so I could turn to my right a little and give my wife a bit more space. There is a very loud cannon that fires after every Thunderbirds goal, so that startled me a bit on the first few goals though I quickly got used to it. And the crowd was loud enough that I couldn’t hear some of the goal or penalty calls. In particular, the Rock goal calls were very quiet and we had no chance of hearing those.

While walking around Halifax before the game, we saw lots of Thunderbirds jerseys and shirts (as well as a few Rock ones), and when cab drivers or wait staff at restaurants asked what we were doing in Halifax, most of them knew what we were talking about when we said we were there for the lacrosse game. Not everyone knew it was the Championship series or that Toronto was the opposing team, but some did. But just about all of them had at least heard of the team and knew it was a thing. Let me tell you that as someone from Hamilton, I was really not used to that. One waitress at an Irish pub near the arena said she loved going to Thunderbirds games and that it was way better than hockey. She also said that she didn’t like working on game nights because it meant she couldn’t go to the game but also because it got insanely busy after the game.

As for Halifax itself, it’s among my favourite cities in the world, right up there with Venice, Edinburgh, and Vancouver. I got a comment on X from someone who said that there was absolutely nothing to do there, which just means he has either never been there or didn’t look too hard to find things to do. On this trip we did a tour of the Alexander Keith’s brewery, my wife did a pewter jewellery class, we went to Peggy’s Cove, walked around both the Public Gardens and Point Pleasant Park, walked the length of the boardwalk a few times, and ate at at least three different places along the boardwalk. And we were only there about 2½ days. If we’d had more time, we’d have toured the Citadel, the Museum of Immigration, the Marine Museum, and gone to both Lunenburg and Dartmouth as well, all of which I’ve done in the past.

And I’m sure I can’t say this about every weekend throughout the year, but we couldn’t have asked for better weather. It was low-mid 20’s (low-mid 70’s Farenheit) and sunny all weekend.

If you get the chance to go to Halifax, I recommend it. And if you can do it at a time of year where a Thunderbirds game is a possibility, even if it’s not in the Finals, I’d recommend that too.

Game one of the Finals featured strong goaltending and excellent defense, and game two was even better in that respect. Warren Hill and Nick Rose battled but for both teams, the defenders in front of them made things a bit easier for them. The best defenders know where the goalie wants to see shots coming from, and manage to prevent shots from coming from anywhere else. This happened a lot on Sunday, particularly in front of Nick Rose, to the point where Toronto PxP announcer Matt Caruk tweeted that Rock defensive coach Bruce Codd should be a candidate for Championship MVP.

The Rock offense was well-balanced, with Chris Boushy and Owen Hiltz scoring three each and singles coming from six other players. CJ Kirst only scored once but he does so much in the offensive zone that even an off day for him is still great for the team. Every Rock rookie in the game scored at least once, including Lucas Hucal who scored his first NLL goal. Chris Boushy continued his strong post-season, finishing second in playoff team scoring behind Mark Matthews who did some more amazing Mark Matthews things.

Rock rookies from left to right: Owen Hiltz, Lucas Hucal, Hugh Kelleher, CJ Kirst, Sam English

On the Thunderbird side, Clarke Petterson was the only multiple goal scorer and was a potent force in the offensive zone. Randy Staats scored one early, just a couple of minutes after a Petterson goal, and I thought that if the both of them got hot at the same time, game two could have a very different outcome than game one. But Staats was snakebitten the rest of the evening and Jason Knox didn’t score at all, so the Rock defense has to be happy with that.

After the game, we spoke briefly to a Halifax fan who was concerned that this would be it for Cody Jamieson, who will be 39 when the 2027 season begins. Jammer is no longer putting up the MVP numbers he used to but of course, that’s not his job anymore. But that powerful overhead shot can still make it by goalies, and he showed in both Finals games that he can still get it done. In the fourth quarter of game 1, Jamieson scored two to give Halifax a brief (14 second) lead. In game two, Jamieson again gave his team the lead, though this time it was in the second quarter. But even Jamieson can’t do everything. The Rock defense was too suffocating and Halifax just couldn’t get the looks they needed.

I don’t want to take anything away from the Halifax defense though. Warren Hill made more than his share of excellent saves and the defense in front of him could be pretty frustrating for Rock forwards as well. Jake Withers, in particular, made some great defensive plays and fought for a number of loose balls. Yes, his LB totals get inflated because he takes (and wins) so many faceoffs, but many of those LBs came on plays unrelated to faceoffs. Graeme Hossack was either an unstoppable force or an immovable object, depending on what the play required, and both Curtis Romanchych and Max Wilson made a few standout plays as well.

Other game notes:

• With just a few minutes left in the fourth quarter, Rock defender Billy Hostrawser blocked a shot off his leg. He could barely stand but couldn’t get off the floor, and somehow played some defense while standing on one leg and putting as little weight as possible on the other one. But just a few seconds later he grabbed a loose ball and ran up the floor when he had the chance, looking like his pain was gone, and passing to someone else once he crossed centre. But as soon as the ball was out of his stick, he limped off the floor, showing that the pain hadn’t just magically disappeared. Respect.
• Huge thanks again to Thunderbirds fan Todd Bechard who got tickets for me, my wife, and our friends before they went on sale to the general public. Without Todd’s help, we’d have been sitting waaaay back, if we were able to get tickets at all. You the man, Todd.
• I’m really happy for the first-time Championship winners, particularly the guys who have been around a long time like Nick Rose, Billy Hostrawser, and Brad Kri. I’m really happy for the rookies who get to experience the Championship feeling, which many players never get, in their first season. I’m really happy for Jamie Dawick who has owned the Rock since 2009 and has done an outstanding job with the team. And of course as a long-time Rock fan myself, I’m just really happy.

The Halifax experience

My wife and I along with a couple of friends travelled to Halifax for this game. It was my fourth time watching the Rock win a Championship, and second away from Toronto, but it was my first time experiencing a game at the Nest. I have no intention of allowing it to be my last. I wrote about that experience separately.

Game one started off just as everyone expected, with strong defence and goaltending, for a few minutes anyway. The Rock got a couple about four minutes in but Bo Bowhunter opened the scoring for the Thunderbirds shortly afterwards. But once Halifax got on the board, their offense took over as they scored the next four. The Halifax defence was stifling and the Rock just couldn’t get any momentum. By halftime, the Thunderbirds were leading 9–5, and five of their nine goals were scored within 32 seconds of the previous goal. None of those quick goals were scored or even assisted on by Jake Withers, but you know he and his faceoff skills were involved. That said, Withers was held to only 62.1% at the dot, a pretty low number for him.

Nick Rose was hot and cold – making some of the amazing saves that we’ve come to expect over the last few years, but there were a few shots from distance that managed to get by him. But in the second half, it was much more hot than cold. After Jason Knox’s goal late in the second quarter, the Thunderbirds went over 24 minutes without scoring, and ended up only scoring twice the rest of the game, both by Cody Jamieson midway through the fourth.

Nick Rose

Warren Hill was similarly hot and cold, allowing two goals in the first five minutes, and then only two more over the next 22 minutes. But just as Rose was much stronger in the second half, Hill struggled a bit more. The Rock scored the only four goals of the third quarter to tie the game, leading to an exciting fourth quarter. The Rock took the lead early in the quarter and held it for five minutes before Jamieson gave the Thunderbirds the lead back with two goals in a minute. That lead only lasted 14 seconds as Owen Hiltz scored off a faceoff win by Nick Rowlett, and less than a minute after that, Sam English scored to give the Rock the final lead of the game. English scored an empty-netter with 15 seconds left to seal the win.

Just like the regular season, the rookies were the story for the Rock. Kirst (4+2), English (2+3), and Hiltz (2+2) led the scoring, and no non-rookie had more than one goal. With all the (well-deserved) hype around Kirst, English, and Hiltz and the amazing seasons they had, the other Rock rookies kind of get lost. Hugh Kelleher quietly had a great rookie season as well, and has fit in on the defence and transition very well. He makes a lot of good plays and has a strong lacrosse IQ. Isiah Moran-Weekes only got into seven games, none in the playoffs, but scored some nice goals and hustles his butt off on every play. And Lucas Hucal also got into only seven regular season games but has played every game in the playoffs, and I thought he had a strong game on Friday.

Game two is in Halifax on Sunday, and I will be in attendance (I’m writing this on the flight to Halifax). I’ve been looking forward to getting to a game in the Nest for a while, so I’m very excited, and not just because I’m a Rock fan.

Other game notes

• Nick Rowlett also had a strong game, and not just with faceoffs. I think he’s another face-off guy who has evolved into a solid defender, a la Trevor Baptiste or TD Ierlan, and made some good defensive plays on Friday.
• Man, I love watching Mark Matthews running the offense. Obviously he can score some nice goals but his passing is just chef’s kiss. With barely a movement, he can pass in any direction to anyone who’s open, and sometimes to someone who didn’t even look open. It looks so effortless, which of course means that he’s put a ton of effort into it.
• The Rock do a “game ball delivery” thing before every game. They have a RC car with a lacrosse head attached to it, and they drive it up to centre floor, where the refs grabs the ball from it. Then someone physically picks up the car and turns it around before they drive it off the floor. This was not a temporary glitch – this has happened at every home game for a few years. Not a great look for the RC car company if their car is unable to turn around 180° using the remote.
• There were a lot of Thunderbirds fans in attendance. They didn’t outnumber Bandits fans when they visit the Rock, but they were pretty loud. The attendance was 7,812, which is in the top 3 of games this season, but seems a bit disappointing considering
  1. the last time they were in the finals in 2015 (in Toronto), they had over 9,000 at each of their playoff home games
  2. game two in Halifax was sold out (10,000+) within about four days of tickets going on sale, and
  3. IT’S THE FREAKING FINALS