Boston Wins MLL Championship, PLL Weekend Makes a Splash
Good afternoon lax fans! I hope you’re doing well and are as excited as I am for the weekend that was. Let’s get to it!
Boston Cannons Win 2020 MLL Championship
The Boston Cannons won the 2020 MLL Championship, but not without some drama. First, the actual game: The Cannons led the entire game en route to a 13-10 victory over the Outlaws. Utahn Garrett Michaeli, who I interviewed last week on the podcast, had a GB in the game. John Uppgren led the Cannons with 5 goals and 1 assist.
Bryce Wasserman, Cannons attackman, had 14 goals and 5 assists on the ‘season’ and was named the MLL MVP. He had this to say:
Now, the drama. Just hours before the semifinals, the Chesapeake Bayhawks had three players test positive for COVID-19 and their opponent, the Connecticut Hammerheads opted not to play due to health concerns. I think that Inside Lacrosse contributor Dan Arestia wrote what happened best:
Moving on…
PLL Opening Weekend Highlights
Before the main event began last weekend, there were a couple of articles about the Utah assistant coaches and the PLL.
Will Manny was also on the Utes Insider podcast.
Utah Head Coach Brian Holman was on ESPN 700.
Now to the action!
The opening game was a rematch of the 2019 championship game between the Whipsnakes (2019 Champions) and Redwoods (2019 Runner-up). The Whipsnakes proved to be superior once again with a 13-9 win. This goal from Zed Williams made the #SCTop10.
The next game featured Chrome beating Chaos, 13-9. The storyline in this game was when Matt Gaudet was recorded trash talking during an in-game interview. Inside Lacrosse covered it in depth.
Where do you stand with Gaudet’s comments?
On Sunday, Atlas beat the Waterdogs, 11-10 in a great game with Chris Cloutier notching this goal as the game-winner.
There’s honestly no excuse right now to not be following the PLL as a whole since they are literally everywhere.
Tonight, the Redwoods take on Chaos as 5:00 p.m. and the Archers take on Atlas at 7:30 p.m. Both games are on NBCSN.
Other News/Notes
The NCAA banned the moto-grip, knee-down stance from face-offs. More here:
There is also controversy at the international level as the Iroquois National Team has been excluded from the 2022 World Games even though they qualified by being a top 8 team from the last World Lacrosse Championship. So it appears that either the World Lacrosse or the World Games are prohibiting the Iroquois from participating. I found this twitter thread very interesting:
One person brought up the point that the World Games is looking towards the Olympics which would mean, at this point in time, the Iroquois wouldn’t be able to participate. Could things change before the 2028 Olympics in LA? Yes. Should they? Absolutely. Will they? Who knows. The Iroquois Nation would need to be recognized as a sovereign nation by a majority of UN member states. I think the easiest way to think about it is in terms of soccer. In the Olympics, there is a Great Britain team but it’s made up of players from England, Wales, etc. The UK/Great Britain is the member state of the UN, not England, Wales, etc.
That’s all for this week. Shoot me any notes or tips: tim@timhaslam.com
— Tim Haslam