Canada is undefeated at the World Lacrosse Championships, heading into the semifinals with a perfect 5-0 record after a 17-6 win over England on Tuesday.
The Canadians got two goals apiece from John Grant, Dan Dawson, Zack Greer, Kevin Huntley, Corey Small and Shawn Williams in the win, while Garrett Billings, Kevin Crowley, Rhys Duch and Jordan Hall scored singles. The win wrapped up the round robin portion of the tournament for Canada.
Canada was dominating England before a third-quarter rain storm slowed the action.
If everything goes according to plan, or at least predictions, in the semifinals, then Canada will face the United States in the final on Saturday. The way it appears now, coach Dave Huntley’s squad could play Japan in the semifinals Thursday, but the Canadians won’t know for sure until after the play-in games Wednesday.
Against England, it was 5-2 after one quarter and 11-3 at halftime before the rain came. Each team scored twice in the third and, after the rain stopped, Canada increased its lead in the fourth quarter. Lewis Ratcliff and Mark Reynolds scored two goals each for England and Adrian Bennett and Evan Roberts got one each.
Despite efforts made by the U.S. government, Britain refused to allow a Native American lacrosse team, the Iroquois Nationals, to enter the country with passports that were issued by their tribal federation.
The team came upon problems when they were trying to exit the country using passports that were issued by their tribal federation. They were en-route to the sports betting online favorite, World Lacrosse Championship.
When the team initially faced problems with their passports, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stepped in to help. She agreed to waive U.S. passport regulations in order to allow the team to travel using their Iroquois Confederacy passports. Later, when the team faced problems with the British government, the U.S. promised to expedite their passports as quickly as possible; however, Britain did not budge. The team was not allowed into the country and had to forfeit yesterday’s opening tournament match.
Sadly, not only were the players not able to attend the first match, it is not looking too hopeful for future matches either as they do not want to be forced to use an American passport because they say it does not speak of their true identity.
Due to the issues with travel plans, many of the players have been stranded in New York. They have reported to have incurred thousands of dollars of expenses due to the fiasco. When director James Cameron heard of the ordeal, he donated $50,000 in order to make up for the expenses.
Ironically, the game of Lacrosse originated with the North American Indian tribes and was later adopted by European colonial cultures.
With the 2010 Major League Lacrosse season more than halfway over, the race to qualify for the Steinfeld Cup playoffs is still very tight. No team has been eliminated from playoff contention, as only three games separate first place from last place in the standings. The league leaders are the Boston Cannons, currently 5-2 and undefeated so far at home this season. Right behind them in a tie for second place are the Chesapeake Bayhawks, Chicago Machine and Denver Outlaws. Still in the hunt for one of the four playoff spots are the Long Island Lizards and the Toronto Nationals.
Leading the way in individual achievement is Boston midfielder Matt Poskay, who has scored an astonishing 30 goals, beating out his nearest competitors by ten goals each. Despite the huge goal advantage, he sits only three points ahead of Peet Poillon, the Chesapeake midfielder who has 11 assists to go with his 20 goals. The current assist leader is Boston attacker Ryan Boyle. His 21 assists – many to Poskay – combine with the six goals he has scored himself to tie him for fourth place in the points standings.
There are five games remaining for each team until the start of the playoffs on August 21. On July 8th, the MLL All Stars will take on the US Men’s National Team at the MLL All-Star Game in Boston.
The Division 1 2010 NCAA Lacrosse Championship has been exciting up to this point. The field contained 16 teams in round one which began on May 15th.
In round one, things went mostly as expected in the top half of the bracket. Virginia, the top seeded team, demolished Mr. St. Mary’s 18-4, while all of the other top seeded teams also advanced. In the bottom half of the bracket we saw a different story unfold.
There were a couple of upsets and a lot of close matches in this bottom half of the bracket in round one. Army and Syracuse played an amazing double overtime match on Sunday May 16th. This match will go down as one of the most exciting matches in tournament history as the two teams went to double overtime before Army pulled off the major upset over the 2nd seeded Syracuse team. The match ended with a 9-8 score in favor of Army.
Notre Dame also came out on top in an upset as they took out Princeton, the number 6 seeded team in a game that ended with a score of 8-5. The excitement wasn’t over there in round one. Cornell pulled off a squeaker of a win against Loyola in a triple overtime battle that ended with a score of 11-10.
Round two continued to provide upset opportunities for the 8 remaining teams. Virginia managed to advance to the semifinals as the top seed. Cornell also managed to advance, stopping Army from producing another upset with a convincing 14-5 victory. Duke hammered North Carolina in an upset in round 2 by a score of 17-9. Notre Dame also managed to continue with the upset magic by taking out the third seeded Maryland team 7-5.
The remaining teams are Virginia and Duke in the upper half of bracket. The bottom half of the bracket has Cornell and Notre Dame remaining. The winner of each half of the bracket will square off for the championship on Monday May 31st.
One of the oldest of its kind in America, Lacrosse is a team sport with a Native American origin. It is played using a small solid rubber ball and Lacrosse Stick or a Crosse – a racquet with a long handle, the head of which is strung with a loose mesh to hold the ball.
The basic play of the game is that the offense has to hurl the rubber ball into the opponent’s goal and the defense has to evade this situation. There are three types of Lacrosse played internationally – Field Lacrosse, Box Lacrosse and Women’s Lacrosse.
Occasionally known as the “fastest sport on two feet”, Field Lacrosse is an outdoor men’s sport. This full contact sport is played with ten players on each team. The rules of this form of lacrosse are significantly different from the other two. It is played professionally by Major League Lacrosse also widely known as MLL or MLL Lacrosse.
MLL Lacrosse was founded in 1999 by Jake Steinfeld, Dave Morrow and Tim Robertson. Anyhow it started its regular season play in 2001. In the present day, it comprises of one team in Canada and five teams in the United States. From 2001 till 2005, MLL was divided into two divisions – The American Division and the National Division. It further expanded to form the MLL Western Conference that began playing since the 2006.
It’s about time to start warming up for what should be another great college lacrosse season. I tried to use all new clips for this video without sacrificing quality goals, so I hope everyone enjoys it. Song name is listed at the end of the video. All rights for music go to Three Days Grace & RCA/Sony Music. Clips courtesy ESPN/ILTV
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Yes, yes, yes…here’s the first video off the new Lacrosse album ‘Bandages for the Heart”. It’s fun. It’s great. it’s lacrosse! The song is called “We are kids”.
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