With back-to-back National Lacrosse League titles under their belt, everybody carrying a lacrosse stick is looking to get a piece of the Toronto Rock.

And Northlands Park is clearly serious about getting a piece of the NLL for the City of Champions. All of which means the phone in NLL commissioner Jim Jennings' office should be ringing early in the new year.

"We're going to go at it aggressively to find out what it's going to take to get a team here," said Northlands Park sales manager Duane Vienneau yesterday.

In addition to Toronto, the NLL has franchises in Ottawa; Albany, Buffalo, Rochester and Uniondale, NY; Washington, DC; Columbus, OH; and Philadelphia.

The 14-game NLL season currently runs from late December through early April.

Northlands Park began exploring the possibility of pursuing an NLL franchise two years ago, but put the plan on hold after Wojtek Wojcicki acquired the NPSL's Edmonton Drillers.

However, with the future of professional indoor soccer up in the air, Northlands is once again exploring ways to fill dates in Skyreach Centre.

Bumping up the number of dates in Skyreach could also include the possibility of Northlands allowing the Atlanta-based Indoor Professional Football League to put a team in the building on spec.

"We haven't done a lot with lacrosse to this point," admitted Vienneau. "We looked at it when the Drillers were in town because we thought we could have a third team playing out of Skyreach.

"When everything happened with the Drillers, that's when (the current plan) kicked into gear. I didn't want to do anything while the Drillers were in town or Lyle Best's group were still looking at purchasing the team."

Northlands' preliminary NLL investigation amounted to little more than tire kicking. In fact, Northlands has yet to contact Jennings or the league directly.

"The investigative work we did was along the lines of what we thought the paid attendance could be, could Edmonton support the team and is there any potential for local ownership?" Vienneau offered.

"We can't buy a team. Northlands doesn't have the money to buy the team, so we would have to find an owner locally to get a team."

The asking price for an expansion franchise is currently pegged at $500,000 US. According to Jennings, franchise fees will jump to $1 million US on 1 June 2001. The NLL features a collective bargaining agreement which dictates a salary cap of $15,000 US per player. As a result, Jennings says each of the league's nine teams have identical operating budgets of $1.3 million US per season.

Despite the fact Edmonton is now out of the NLL loop geographically, that could literally change overnight.

A Chicago group has already committed to a franchise for the 2001-02 season and Jennings expects to announce the addition of teams in Anaheim, Sacramento, San Jose and Portland later today.

"We have a lot of interest in Anaheim," said the commissioner. "It's probably going to come on next year and we're going to try and bring those other three on with it to make a western division.

"Edmonton would fall right in there. We'll get four or five teams going out there in a West Coast division, they'll play each other and maybe they'll come east once or twice."

The NLL commissioner is convinced Vancouver would be a shoo-in if Anaheim joins. Jennings is also scheduled to meet with a group in Winnipeg in the hope of putting a team there in 2001-02.

"We don't like to be in buildings that have less than 13,000 seats--15,000-plus is perfect for us," Jennings said. "We're tying to keep it to those big buildings because we only have seven dates to put people in the stands.

"Once we announce Anaheim, I think Vancouver will be right there. We have a lot of interest from the hockey people in Vancouver and that's kind of the direction we're going."

Northlands has yet to approach the Edmonton Oilers Investors Group regarding any potential interest they may have in an NLL squad.

"We haven't gone that far and that is because of the Drillers situation," said Vienneau. "We'll have to go hard at it in January and February because the lacrosse would have to start in (December 2001)."