Considered one of the worst kept secrets in the entire National Lacrosse League, the New York expansion team has finally been officially announced. This is probably a good thing considering the expansion draft happens today.
On hand to help NLL Commissioner Jim Jennings with the announcement was New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Maybe the reason we all had to wait so long before the announcement was due to the Mayor’s schedule — after all, he is a Mayor and probably pretty busy.
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With the expansion draft quickly approaching — see the sidebar ticker — the Roughnecks have solidified their protected list. There are some interesting things to note and I question where General Manager Kurt Silcott is going with some of his decisions.
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Even though last year was an amazing year as far as parity in the league, the schedules definitely needed to be better thought out. On more than one occasion the only teams outside the Eastern Division that the Toronto Rock would play were Calgary or Edmonton. Whether this gave them an unfair advantage and helped with their stellar comeback I can’t say for sure but it is something to think about.
Along with the announcement that the two expansion teams will play in the Eastern Division, the National Lacrosse League stated that “each team will play each of their divisional opponents at least twice in 2007”. Implying that there will be at least a home and home set for each match up.
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Tuesday the National Lacrosse League released the 2007 division line ups. Much like last year there will only be two divisions, East and West, followed by the playoff system for the 2006 season.
As anticipated—at least by most fans—both expansion teams this year will be placed in the Eastern Division. This puts a total of seven teams in the east and the remaining six teams in the Western Division.
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There has been a bit of bad blood between fans of lacrosse and the National Lacrosse League in regards to the television coverage of the game. Bad blood may be a bit strong but I know there were many fans — including myself — that put that in our top five things to change for next year when one of the owners asked what should be improved.
For the last three years the TV contract has been handled by The Score. When they wanted out of the deal Rogers Sportsnet stepped up for all lacrosse TV coverage in Canada. Lacrosse always seemed to get treated like Sportsnets red-headed step child — getting the short end of the stick would be putting it nicely.
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After putting it off for far, far too long, I’ve finally had the chance make GoNecksGo.com searchable. To be totally honest I could have done this very quickly right from the beginning but I wanted to add a little pizzaz to it. There’s no point in doing things half-assed around here.
To view the full search goodness make sure you have Javascript enabled/turned on — it’s on by default but occasionally people turn it off. The search form is in the sidebar and the nifty thing about it is what happens when you actually do a search. So go ahead, give it a spin. Let me know what you think.
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Now that the playoffs are over and the champion has been crowned it might be time to revisit the playoff format. Last year and the year before (aka, the 2004 and 2005 seasons) there where only a total of three playoff games — one division title game for each division, East and West, and the Champions Cup game.
This year, the 2006 season, since there were more teams the playoff format differed. There were two division playoff games for each division and the Champions Cup game. The format was similar to a hockey style playoff where the top ranked team played the fourth place team and the second and third placed teams played each other. Winners from those games would meet for the division title game. The division champions would then be off to the Champions Cup.
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Yesterday the official Calgary Roughnecks website broke the news that Assistant Coach Jeff Dowling has left the Roughnecks organization. Dowling had been with the Calgary Roughnecks for the last three seasons serving as the Assistant Coach specializing in defense.
During his time with the Roughnecks, Dowling leaves with a record of 23 wins and 17 losses — with 3 playoff wins and 2 playoff losses.
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For anyone that thought all of the rough play and dirty tricks in lacrosse stayed on the playing field this may come as a bit of a shock. The Toronto Rock President, Brad Watters, is being investigated may be under investigation for tampering.
The tampering charge was would have been filed by the Philadelphia Wings claiming that Watters and the Rock organization approached Glen Clark about taking the head coach position in Toronto before his contract was finished with the Wings. This potentially damaging charge comes hot off the heels of the same day announcements of Glen Clark retiring — from the Wings — and Toronto announcing him as head coach.
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Recently, a little piece of information came across the desk here at GoNecksGo.com about Andy Ogilvie and his future with the Roughnecks. It seems that the defender is calling it quits now that the 2006 lacrosse season is over.
This past season has been rough on the 40 year old Ogilvie, more specifically it has been very rough on his knees. After missing most of last season because of his knee injury and, if I recall correctly, undergoing surgery to repair his knees, Ogilvie returned in a limited capacity to play for the Calgary Roughnecks in the 2006 season.
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