Hammerheads’ future unclear as MLL is merged into PLL
The Connecticut Hammerheads brief stay as a premier professional lacrosse team may have ended Wednesday with the announcement that Major League Lacrosse has merged into the Premier Lacrosse League.
The announcement said that only one MLL team, the 2020 champion Boston Cannons, will join the PLL’s seven teams, though the PLL said it plans to play games in MLL markets in 2021 and “will retain the rights to all of the former MLL teams for future expansion considerations.”
It also said it intends “a long-term plan to develop youth lacrosse players in historical MLL communities.”
The Hammerheads joined MLL this year, planning to play out of Rafferty Stadium on the campus of Fairfield University. The pandemic pushed the league into a bubble this summer.
It wasn’t immediately clear what, if any, other involvement the Hammerheads and the other MLL teams might have in PLL. Emails to Hammerheads staff members seeking comment were not immediately returned Wednesday morning.
MLL began play in 2001 and held its first championship weekend at Kennedy Stadium in Bridgeport. The Bridgeport Barrage played the league’s first three seasons mostly at the Ballpark at Harbor Yard before moving to Philadelphia.
The Cannons will drop Boston from their name, fitting the PLL style, which doesn’t attach teams to cities. The league, which has a television contract with NBC, played as a tour of various cities in 2019, then played a playoff in a bubble this summer.