Lacrosse Network presents an ambitious project: take the simulation engine that we use to project the remainder of the NLL season each week and matchup 32 of the best teams in league history in a single season to see which team wins the title of “Best Team Ever”.  All 22 champions, plus 10 of the best non-champions, will duke it out through a 5 week regular season consisting of 38 games (and you thought 2 games in a weekend was tough!).  For the 16 teams that survive, they face 4 best-of-7 series to win the overall title.

The goal of this project is a simple but ambitious one. We intend to give an answer to the question “Who is the best team ever?” When you hear that question, several teams immediately come to mind. Is it the 1993 Buffalo Bandits, the leagues’ only perfect team? Or the 1994 Philadelphia Wings with one of the most potent offenses ever assembled and an incredible home field advantage? How about the 2001 Toronto Rock, who stifled teams with their brick wall of defense?

To accomplish this, we have brought together 32 of the best teams from the 22 seasons 1987 through 2008. We have all 22 championship teams, plus 10 ‘at large’ selections decided upon by Lacrosse Network’s staff. While the at large teams didn’t win it all, they all have impressive resumes as well, and some of them will surely make a deep playoff run.

The 32 teams were randomly drawn into 4 divisions, split between 2 conferences. The Cline conference will have the Gait and Marechek divisions, while the Jennings conference hosts the teams from the Tavares and Eliuk divisions. The regular season will consist of 38 games for each team. Each team will play 2 games against the other 7 teams in their own division, and 1 game against the other 24 teams. We will be presenting the results each Wednesday evening from the prior week’s games. Weeks 1 and 5 are exclusively devoted to the divisional games, while Weeks 2-4 matchup inter-divisional foes. Login to Lacrosse Network to see the schedule.

Once the regular season is complete, we’ll head to the playoffs. 16 teams will qualify for the postseason, the 4 division winners will earn the #1 through #4 seeds, while the next 12 records will get in as wild cards. Every matchup is played as a best of 7 playoff series, with the higher seed hosting games 1, 2, 5, and 7. We don’t reseed as the rounds move along, so a team that pulls off an upset will get the benefit of the higher seed’s position.

Since every game is only being played once, instead of the 25,000 time like in the in-season simulations, we are also going to generate a box score for each and every game. These will be available through the schedule. These box scores are based on the actual stats from the season in question. If Gary Gait had 30% of the 1999 Baltimore Thunder’s goals in real life, he’ll probably end up with around 30% of the Thunder’s goals in the simulation. We are only simulating goals and assists, not shots or penalties, so the only statistical leaderboards available will be Goals, Assists, Points, and GAA.

Every team has 16 runners and 2 goalies on their roster for this simulation, based on the number of games played for the team in question that season. All players will be active for every game. Obviously, only 1 goalie will be playing at any particular time; the starter will be determined randomly, based on the number of minutes they played during the season. Goalie switches in the middle of a game could happen as well. While this has no impact on the simulation (which generates the final score, and the box score based on that), it will allow the box scores to have a more realistic feel to them.

Finally, with each Wednesday update, look for R.A. Philly’s game report on the ‘Game of the Week’, one of the key matchups during that week. When we get to the playoffs, we’ll have a report for the deciding game of each and every series.

That’s enough with the preliminaries. Let’s introduce you to the 32 teams that will make up this NLL Super League.