The Ocean City Lacrosse Classic just keeps getting better. This year’s elite field was close to 40 teams and every roster was loaded with talent. Many of the teams looked like a college all-star squad peppered with pros here and there. The others were weathered club teams that usually do pretty well against the all-star squads.

This year a top spring club, Smartlink, added the likes of Ben Rubeor, Kyle Dixon and Maxx Davis, and was literally unstoppable. The final against a Jack Lingo team that topped a spectacular field to get there was a clinic at both ends. The defensive squad is like a barbed wire fence. Any point of entry is painful. And when they strip the ball, they get down the field lightning fast to attackmen Bugsy Combs and Spencer Ford, who have been playing together for ages, pushing each other to the highest levels of the game. These two are good on their own, but together they are a great show every time.

But this whole tournament was a who’s who of lacrosse. Two of my favorite teams were the Mermen, with Bob Shriver coaching some of my favorite college players, and the Hobbit, who were masters of the unsettled situation with a crafty attack and rockets on the midfield. I’m still not sure if Paul Rabil was on that team, but three guys were his size and shot like him. Team Disrespected featured one of my favorites, Tom Zummo.

In the other divisions, Lacrosse Homes edged Li’l Abner’s in the Masters (old guys), while the Grand Masters (even older guys) was won by Team Toyota, which beat Towson Alumni in the final. Glenn Norris (Toyota) and Steve Marohl (Li’l Abner’s) and Spencer Ford (Smartlink) were my MVPs for each division.

I met quite a few people at the tournament that came down to the beach that week just to check out the tournament. It’s always a great time, due to the hard work of Steve Pappas and Bob Musitano, and Robb Sartorio and Dave Cottle in previous years. The bayside park that hosts the tournament is beautiful and you can bike or skate around once inside from field to field. There’s a playground for the kids, lacrosse vendors and food, too.

There’s great food within walking distance for dinner each day. We happened into Babe’s, The Blue Ox, after the games one night and had a massive and perfect rib eye steak while literally watching half the people I know walk through the door over the course of my meal.

Most importantly, the lacrosse is great all week. Be there from about 10 ‘til 5 on Sunday and you will see some of the very best lacrosse games of the summer, one after the other on the main field, surrounded by scenic wetlands, walking bridges, piers, the bay and, of course, the sunset. It’s a one-of-a-kind experience and I highly recommend it. The tournament is held every year on the third weekend of August at Northside Park on the bay side at 125th and Coastal Highway. Check out this video of tournament highlights:

Much more video of the tournament is available at E-Lacrosse!

Posted by John Weaver at 5:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
        

Lacrosse is such a small world. E-Lacrosse has sponsored many teams over the years. In the Scott Boyle Summer Lacrosse League, previously the Maryland Summer League, we sponsored a team for many years of Hopkins guys and their All-American friends, but that team always lost in the final to Lax World, with Mark Hahn and Marc Hoffman and the over-40 (now 50) gang.

A few years ago, I met Matt Kurrle at a Gettysburg Game, I think. He told me he had a team in the league and was looking for sponsorship. We had two teams in the league that year. We couldn’t really afford two teams every year and in all the turnover of sponsors, teams and players we jumped at the opportunity to sponsor the Marc Hoffman-led team that had schooled us in the championships for so many years.

Fast forward to the 2008 Scott Boyle Summer Lacrosse League Championship, last Tuesday; E-Lacrosse vs. Portside. Portside was very good, but E-Lacrosse prevailed 10-8, I think with a mix of older and younger guys. It turns out that Portside is Matt Kurrle's team. It was the descendant of yet another E-Lacrosse team. Small world!

Portside landed Miller Lite as a corporate sponsor and plays as a post-collegiate spring team as well. In fact, they will be down at the Ocean City Classic this weekend where I will probably see them play deep into the playoffs. In the championship against E-Lacrosse, Portside was missing some pretty great defensive players who will be there in OC, like Virginia great and longstick middie Trey Whitty, Kyle Rubeling at defense, Trae Rodgers in the goalie and Matt Feild at short stick defense. The MVP for the game was Portside's Hayward Howard.

E-Lacrosse was led in the championship effort by Eddie Douglas (Duke Helmet in the video), a Gilman grad, Duke Captain and then coach and Jeremy Sieverts (Maryland Helmet), the former McDonogh star. Sieverts transferred to Maryland from the now-defunct Butler program and will be a big reason for Maryland’s rise to national contention next spring. Greg Froshman (white helmet) is an All-American for Paul Cantabene at Stevenson (formerly Villa Julie). In the cage for E-Lacrosse was Towson’s Matt Antol. Enjoy the video. It’s great lacrosse!

There's a sentimental twist to this year's championship and video as the late Scott Boyle's wife and brother present the trophy to Marc Hoffman as I filmed. I got choked up, to be honest.

Posted by John Weaver at 5:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

While the lacrosse season raged on we announced our annual E-Lacrosse Dye-Off right here on the Re: Lax blog, and like we promised, we are featuring the winners here, as well.

This was easily our best field ever with more entries, a higher level of difficulty and six worthy champions! We usually pick a first, second and third prize and we had planned to this year, as well. But we knew there would be trouble when we received more than 160 entries, 50 of which merited consideration for prizes.

We got the finalists down to ten and literally voted fifteen times in between arguing. Not once did 50 percent of our panel vote for any one entry as No. 1. There were six entries that could have won and kept splitting all the votes, so we decided to double the prizes, eliminate the other four and vote again with just the final six in the mix.

We got lucky and while each entry still got a No. 1 vote, we had enough criteria and differentiation in the 2nd through 6th place voting to fairly award two first-place prizes, two second-place prizes and two thirds. We were pleased because none of these six kids could be allowed to go home without a prize. You will see below why it was impossible for us to pick one winner.

The prizes in our annual cult classic, as always, were provided by Baltimore’s own STX Lacrosse. The three (six now) head and shaft combinations are some of the most popular in the college game and got a lot of attention at the NCAA final in Foxboro as STX sponsors both Hopkins and Syracuse. We are proud, as always, to award these great STX sticks to our 2008 E-Lacrosse Dye-Off winners:

Posted by John Weaver at 9:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

Every four years, I hear all this talk about lacrosse in the Olympics. Most of it is in the form of complaint, but some of it is misinformed anticipation, as if we are close. We are not.

In the official Olympic Charter, which was revised last in September of 2000, there are specific requirements for a new sport to be admitted to the Olympic Games.

Section 52 of the Charter, entitled "Admission of Sports, Disciplines, and Events" lists the set of requirements that must be met before any sport can even be considered

1. The Sport Must be Widely Practiced

"Only sports widely practiced by men in at least seventy-five countries and on four continents, and by women in at least forty countries and on three continents, may be included in the programme of the Games of the Olympiad."

For Winter sports, the criteria is 25 countries on 3 continents. (Olympic Charter Section 52, Paragraph 1.1.1)

Lacrosse misses on this mark and only on this one, really. But we fall far short with only 10 nations competing internationally for women (in 2005) and 21 teams for men (in 2006) with only six competing in the highest division. A few more nations are starting to play, so the number will grow slowly. More importantly, those nations are, for the most part, starting at the college level and are fueled by second-generation Americans who are allowed to play in international competition. During Ireland’s first year in the games, they were jokingly referred to as "Long Ireland" because the New York drawl drowned out the Irish brogue on the sidelines. This does not lay the groundwork needed for future inclusion within even 20 or 30 years. We are proud of the growing Under-19 World Tournament and the other youth efforts around the world, but this year’s event, held last month in Coquitlam, British Columbia, had only 12 nations in attendance.

Also, remember, in lacrosse we have an extra nation that does not count in the Olympic numbers. The Iroquois are recognized in lacrosse as their own nation because we respect their lacrosse heritage and honor their place as our game’s “host nation”, but they do not compete in the Olympics as the Iroquois Nation. They would play for Canada or the United States if there ever were lacrosse in the Olympics. One of America’s greatest Olympic legends, Jim Thorpe, was a Native American lacrosse player at the Carlisle School in Pennsylvania before going on to Olympic and football fame.

2. The Sport Must Have International Standing

"To be included in the programme of the Olympic Games, events must have a recognized international standing both numerically and geographically, and have been included at least twice in world or continental championships." (Olympic Charter Section 52, Paragraph 3.2)

Lacrosse meets this standard. The ILF and the WILF are the worldwide organizing bodies and there are World Games of Lacrosse for men and a World Cup of Lacrosse for women every four years.

3. There Must be Drug Testing

"Only sports that apply the Olympic Movement Anti-Doping Code and in particular perform out-of-competition testing in accordance with the rules of the World Anti-Doping Agency will be included in the programme of the Olympic Games." (Olympic Charter Section 52, Paragraph 1.1.3)

Lacrosse would meet this standard with the stroke of a pen. Both the ILF and WILF would institute drug testing policies without hesitation if there were any cause at all. The Olympic requirement would be the only cause, but it would be a minor expense after a unanimous vote to institute testing at the world lacrosse competitions.

4. There Must Not Be Mechanical Propulsion

"Sports, disciplines or events in which performance depends essentially on mechanical propulsion are not acceptable." (Olympic Charter Section 52, Paragraph 4.2)

Lacrosse meets this standard. NASCAR is never getting in.

So as you can see we are close, as people say, to Olympic inclusion in terms of having three of the four requirements met. But the first and most important requirement is only reachable if the efforts to grow the game over the last few decades are doubled and then perhaps again over the next few decades.

A large obstacle to any 30-year plan is that the International Olympic Committee changes the rules every so often and they have already voted out sports that meet the criteria above. Taekwondo survived an IOC vote for the 2012 Games in London, but will face another IOC vote next year when members cast ballots for the location of the 2016 Games and various other administrative issues like new sports. Karate, rugby and golf are among a number of non-Olympic sports vying for inclusion on that ballot. Softball and baseball were voted out of the 2012 Games in London and both failed to get reinstated in 2006. Softball will be played in Beijing. The IOC wants to reduce the number of core sports to 26.

To make matters worse, softball is said to have hurt its chances at inclusion because of the United States' domination of the sport. The two-country stranglehold on lacrosse trophies for the last 100 years by the U.S. and Canada will not help the game's chances with the IOC.

I'll make a prediction that I think is fair, correct and I hope I live to see: Lacrosse will get a vote to perhaps become an Olympic sport in the same decade that England or Australia wins the World Games of lacrosse and either Japan, Ireland, Czech Republic, Germany or China is in the final four. We are probably looking at 2050 or later.

We have much work cut out for us if the Olympics are the goal. But then again, we have our games every four years and they are fantastic. Lacrosse folks are the only people in attendance, which is low. I call it a “quaint atmosphere”. Besides, at our games, the sport is never outdone by figure skating, preempted by gymnastics or overshadowed by a great swimmer.

Posted by John Weaver at 9:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)