National Lacrosse League Nixes Plan For Spring Season
While the NBA and NHL are trying to work through their truncated 2020-2021 schedules the #3 indoor sport has decided to throw in the towel for this year and focus on the future.
The National Lacrosse League (NLL) is North America’s top professional league and dates back to 1986. It ranks third worldwide in average attendance for indoor sports behind the NBA and NHL. They had plans to play a truncated spring season but have reversed course, choosing instead to cancel these plans. Instead, they’ll focus on beginning a full campaign starting in fall 2021 when hopefully the COVID-19 situation will have improved to at least some degree.
The NLL is comprised of 14 franchises across the United States and Canada: Buffalo Bandits, Calgary Roughnecks, Colorado Mammoth, Georgia Swarm, Halifax Thunderbirds, New England BlackWolves, New York Riptide, Panther City Lacrosse Club (that’s Fort Worth, TX which is something I had to look up), Philadelphia Wings, Rochester Knighthawks, San Diego Seals, Saskatchewan Rush, Toronto Rock, and Vancouver Warriors. For those of you more familiar with the outdoor version of the game here is a quick rundown of the rules of box lacrosse from the NLL website:
Box lacrosse is played inside the confines of an ice hockey rink, with glass and rink boards intact. The playing surface consists of a green dieter turf carpet that is laid down over the hockey ice. Combined, teams score an average of approximately 25 goals per game.
Each game consists of four quarters, each fifteen minutes in length. A game that is tied at the end of regulation is decided in a sudden-death overtime. There are no tie games in professional indoor lacrosse. Each team has five runners (forwards, transition players and defensemen) and a goaltender on the floor during the game. Each team dresses 19 players (17 runners and two goaltenders) per game, and the players rotate on and off the floor in shifts, similar to ice hockey.
Here’s what NLL Commissioner Nick Sakiewicz said about the decision to forgo the spring season:
“We have gone through many scenarios, including playing a bubble season in Canada in April, but the logistical challenges, including the recently announced tighter travel and quarantine restrictions across the Canadian border have required us to pivot. We have decided to focus on playing a full season in our markets, starting in the fall of this year. While many of the factors we can control were moving along well, those outside of our control, especially pertaining to obtaining government approval as far in advance as we would have needed, are no longer feasible. All the efforts and innovations we were planning will now go towards a full season starting this fall and into next year. We thank our players, teams and Board of Governors, whose thoughts in this process were invaluable, and we now set our sights on getting lined up for a full NLL season starting in the fall. We also thank our fans for sticking with us – we will be back, and it will be even more exciting than ever before.”
The NLL’s style of lacrosse is really entertaining and overall it’s a pretty cool sport. Here’s hoping that everything works out for them to have a full season starting this fall.