Canadian lacrosse leagues need updated rules, schedules
Overlapping schedules mean Lakers started season without NLL players
Now that it appears the Canadian national level players have come to an agreement with the Canadian Lacrosse Association and will be representing Canada at the World Field Championships this summer, Canada’s best players should now take on the National Lacrosse League.
The professional NLL recently ended its season with Saskatchewan winning the championship over Rochester. The problem is the majority of the players on the two finalists also play in Ontario’s Major Series Lacrosse league or the British Columbia Western Lacrosse Association, which have begun their schedules.
The Peterborough Lakers were forced to play their first five games with a number of their key players still involved in NLL playoffs. That is almost one-third of their season shorthanded because the two main indoor lacrosse leagues cannot get together.
Without the Canadian box lacrosse leagues, the NLL would not exist. The majority of American field players do not bring the finesse and skill-set to draw crowds into NLL arenas to allow the teams to be viable.
The bulk of the NLL talent is Canadian, all of whom hone their skills each summer in local minor, junior and senior/major programs.
On the other hand, many Canadian teams would not exist without the lure of the NLL for their players. Every junior player in Canada plays for an opportunity to try out for a pro team and most Canadian NLL players play each summer in the MSL and WLA to stay sharp for an NLL contract.
The NLL started its season earlier this past season, playing some games in December. With this earlier start there is no reason they cannot play their regular season and playoffs in six months, ending everything by the end of May to allow the MSL three full months to play their season and playoffs before the September Mann Cup series.
It will take the top Canadian players in the NLL to force the NLL management to sit down with the MSL and WLA to reach an agreement to align their schedules so there is no overlap.
This season the MSL adopted one of the NLL’s better rules. Now the 30-second clock runs for the short-handed team-killing penalties. No more will we see nine skilled players standing looking at each other as a twominute penalty runs down.
This is a positive move towards aligning their respective rules much like all levels of hockey do.
A much more difficult problem with lacrosse is the junior A leagues.
Today many Ontario junior A lacrosse players play field lacrosse in United States universities, colleges and prep schools. The calibre of the OLA game is conducive to producing skilled players that are highly sought after by American field programs.
These student-athletes are receiving full or partial athletic scholarships to many of the top NCAA programs.
This requires an attendance commitment from September to the end of May.
The CLA, which controls the Canadian junior final, obstinately schedules the Minto Cup final in August. This makes it impossible for OLA teams to draw up a 20-game schedule without starting games in early May. Most OLA junior teams play a major part of their schedule shorthanded because many of their players are still away at school.
The Peterborough Merit Precision Junior A Lakers, which seem to produce an inordinate number of student-athletes, started their season with seven key players in the USA. They lost their first eight games this season.
There is zero chance to negotiate a better arrangement with the unbending NCAA so it requires the CLA to better serve its young players.
By running the Minto Cup in September, like the Mann Cup, only the student-athletes on the finalists would need to seek permission to miss the start of classes; a small price to pay to have all the teams on equal footing all season.