Although the announcement of a National Lacrosse League Hall of Fame was the big news, it wasn't the only announcement to come out of the league's annual Board of Governors meetings, which ended today at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas.

Expansion Teams and Draft Position

Portland won two coin flips for the right to select first in upcoming drafts. Team owner Angela Batinovitch made the winning "heads" call on the first toss, and the as-yet-unnamed team will have its choice of drafting first in the Entry Draft or Dispersal Draft.

The Dispersal Draft is for players whose rights were held by the Anaheim Storm, which suspended operations earlier this month.

The Edmonton Rush will choose first in whichever draft is left over.

A second coin flip was then held for the teams' Expansion Draft, and Portland again won the right to draft first.

In each draft, the two expansion teams will own the top two picks in every round.

Dates for all three drafts will be announced in the coming days, as will the rules for the Expansion and Dispersal Drafts.

Divisional Alignment

NLL will continue with the two-divisional format it has used in recent seasons. In fact, aside from the addition of Edmonton and Portland and removal of Anaheim from the Western Division, the two divisions will remain unchanged from 2005.

East: Buffalo Bandits, Minnesota Swarm, Philadelphia Wings, Rochester Knighthawks, and Toronto Rock.

West: Arizona Sting, Calgary Roughnecks, Colorado Mammoth, Edmonton Rush, Portland (unnamed), and San Jose Stealth.

Expanded Playoffs

Each division will send four teams to the playoffs in 2006, for a total of eight postseason qualifiers. That's up from six teams, which had been the field each year since 2002.

In the Division Semifinal round, the fourth-place team will visit the first-place team and the third-place team will visit the second-place team.

All rounds continue to be single elimination.

Trade Deadline

The trading deadline has been moved to the midway point of the season. It had been the three-quarter mark for years.

Uniforms

In what we assume is a compromise of some sort (and a bizarre one at that), home teams will wear their light-colored sweaters at home during the first half of the season, then switch to the dark tops for the second half.