Below are some of the smaller items which made news in the National Lacrosse League in July 2001, including trades, rumors, odd facts and injury updates.

30 July 2001:
      Ho hum -- another day, another pack of signings by the Vancouver Ravens. The expansion team likes to announce signings in threes, and today was no exception, with forwards Bruce Murray, David Nadalin, and Aaron ("AJ") Smith joining the club. Each of the three is playing this summer in the WLA -- Murray has eight goals and nineteen assists in sixteen games for the New Westminster Salmonbellies, Nadalin has eleven goals and four assists in fifteen games for the Maple Ridge Burrards, and Smith has two assists and thirteen penalty minutes in twelve games for the Coquitlam Adanacs.

 

29 July 2001:
      Amidst running a "lacrosse school" this weekend in Quebec, Montreal Express coach Terry Sanderson took the time to sign two players in attendance, goaltender Alain Lalumiere, who is expected to contend for the starting role and could be the team's only Quebecer this season, and forward Lance Mitchell. Officially, tryout camps are forbidden until 14 September, meaning that Sanderson must be very careful about what he does and says regarding the school, or else risk a $10,000 fine. Four members of both the Express and his summer team, the Brampton Excelsiors, assisted in running the school -- Wayne Burke, Aime Caines, Bruce Codd, and Scott Forbes. "If we find 10 guys we thought could play [with the Express]," Sanderson said of the fifty-some players at the camp, "we'd be ecstatic. But if we find only one or two, we're still going to be happy. No matter what, if they show us enough respect to come out and give us a shot, then we'll give back the same respect and put them through a good lacrosse workout."

26 July 2001:
      Canadian lacrosse legend Gaylord Powless is near death, in the final stages of stomach cancer which has spread throughout his body. According to those close to the 54-year-old Powless, he has whittled away to skin and bones and expects he will pass away within the next two weeks. In a career that spanned from 1964 to 1977, Powless scored 1502 regular-season and 524 postseason points in OLA Junior A, Senior A, and Major; Western Lacrosse Association; National Lacrosse Association; and National Lacrosse League action. His 824 career assists on the Major/Senior/Pro level ranks eighth alltime. He rose to prominence as one of the stars of the mid-1960s Oshawa Green Gaels and continued with great success as a member of the Brantford Warriors and several other teams.
      The Vancouver Ravens continued their rapid roster-building today, signing four players. Forwards Fred Jenner, Jeff Hanson, Kevin Stewardson and Rob Williams, all playing this summer in the WLA, have joined the expansion team. In addition, the Ravens named Eric Cowieson as one of the team's four assistant coaches.
      Three other teams were active today, each signing one player. The Calgary Roughnecks added forward Rob Colville (18 goals, 13 assists for Burnaby (WLA)), the Montreal Express inked goaltender Corey Quinn (playing this summer for the St Catharines Athletics of OLA Major), and the Philadelphia Wings resigned forward Chris Schiller (2 goals and 4 assists this summer for MLL's Rochester Rattlers).

 

25 July 2001:
      The Calgary Roughnecks added another Western Lacrosse Association product to their crew today, signing free agent Darcy Rhodes. In nineteen games this summer for the WLA's Okanagan Thunder, Rhodes has 14 goals and 12 assists, with a 28.57% shooting percentage (fifth-best on the Thunder). He will make his professional debut this winter.
      Several days ago, this column reported on a planned exhibition game in St. John's, Newfoundland on 4 November, with the Toronto Rock as one team. The other team in the exhibition, as reported today, will be the expansion Montreal Express. An additional game, the previous night in Halifax, Nova Scotia, is still under discussion.
      The biggest one-day free agency splash in a long time, and perhaps biggest in longer to come, occurred today when the Vancouver Ravens signed twelve players to contracts for the coming season, with forward Brian Baker, forward Jesse Phillips and goaltender Jeff Gombar at the hed of the class. Baker owns WLA's eighth-best career assist total, 313, and 16th-best career point total, 477. Phillips, the only active NLL player in the dozen, was selected a month ago from the Washington Power in the expansion draft. Gombar, currently on injured reserve with the WLA's Okanagan Thunder, led the Baltimore Thunder to the 1991 MILL Championship Game; he previously had signed a tryout agreement with the Ravens. Also signed today were Rich Cattermole, Brad Downey, Darren Goundrey, Todd Harper, Chad Miller, Blair Mitchell, John Olson, Chris Pavan and Scott Whitley. None of the last nine have played in NLL, nor has Baker; all twelve signees are from British Columbia.
      Neil Doddridge, one of the league's longest-tenured players and one of its most transient, as well, has resigned with the Washington Power. In ten MILL/NLL seasons (only a handful have played more), Doddridge has played for five franchises (no one has been with more), Detroit, Boston, Buffalo, Syracuse, and Pittsburgh/Washington. In fourteen games with the Power this season, Doddridge scored six goals and had ten assists. His major contributions came in other areas, though -- 80 loose balls and 45 penalty minutes.

 

24 July 2001:
      Adam Bysouth today became the first free agent to sign with the expansion Calgary Roughnecks. The 22-year-old Bysouth, playing this summer for the WLA's Burnaby Lakers, has no goals and three assists in eleven games. The past three summers, he played for the Burnaby Junior Lakers, where he played in three Minto Cup championship series and won the trophy twice.
      The Vancouver Ravens are wasting no time stocking up on players, either, inking three free agents today. Joining the Ravens are forwards Kyle Goundrey (24 goals and 51 assists for the Maple Ridge Burrards, fourth-most points in WLA), Peter Morgan (27 + 35 for the New Westminster Salmonbellies, seventh-best in points), and Ben Hieltjes, a former Salmonbellie great who is ending a six-year retirement to play professionally. Only Goundrey has NLL experience.

 

23 July 2001:
      The Montreal Xpress has dived into the free agent market, signing three players today. Forward-defensemen Peter Lough and Shawn Parnell and defenseman Scott Forbes, all playing this summer in the OLA Major circuit, join the freshly-relocated former Columbus Landsharks. Lough is playing this summer for the Brooklin Redmen (8G, 13A), while Parnell has thirteen points and a staggering 86 penalty minutes (most in the league) for the Peterborough Lakers and Forbes has accumulated 42 penalty minutes for the Brampton Excelsiors. None of the three have played in NLL.
      A day after resigning Pat McCabe, the New York Saints have signed someone from outside the organization, inking Tim O'Brien to a contract today. O'Brien, who played one game for the Rochester Knighthawks in 2000 (0 points, 2 penalty minutes), has been racking up time in the sin bin this summer for Brampton, with seventy penalty minutes in eighteen games, currently the third-highest total in the league.

 

22 July 2001:
      Don't get your hopes up just yet, but there's a pleasingly good rumor on the mill -- that the NLL is days away from announcing an American television contract with ESPN, bringing the game of the week back to life. No word on when the games will air (live or taped), how the Canadian game of the week efforts are going, or just how much money the league is fronting to pull this off.
      The expansion New Jersey Storm has signed unrestricted free agent Steve Sombrotto, making the ten-year veteran the first to jump ship in the Big Apple's newest sporting rivalry. In eleven games this season for New York, Sombrotto scored ten goals and had seventeen assists. Longtime Saint teammate Matt Panetta, rumored to be in negotiations with the Storm, could soon follow Sombrotto to East Rutherford.
      The news isn't all bad in Uniondale today -- the New York Saints have resigned free agent Pat McCabe. The defensive stalwart played in all fourteen games this season, scooping up 85 loose balls. McCabe, like Sombrotto and Panetta, qualified for unrestricted free agency.

 

21 July 2001:
      Jim Brady apparently is using his St. Catharines connections to lure free agents to the New Jersey Storm. Reports say that the Storm are close to signing Derek Graham and Grant Johnston. A five-year veteran with Detroit, Buffalo, Syracuse, and Washington, Graham had six goals and five assists in nine games this season for the Power. Johnston, the 1999 OLA Major Most Valuable Player, has had two short tours of duty in the pro ranks, with Buffalo in 1995 and Albany in 2000.
      The Toronto Rock took one of this summer's top unrestricted free agents off the market yesterday (the first day of the open market on talent), naming Jim Veltman as a franchise player. The franchise tag prevents Veltman from negotiating with other teams, but guarantees him a salary ten percent larger than he otherwise would be entitled to receive. "Jim Veltman is the heart and soul of this team," Rock coach and general manager Les Bartley said. "Hopefully, he'll be with this organization for years to come, even after he has finished playing." Defenseman Terry Bullen is the team's lone remaining unrestricted free agent, while forwards Ken Millin and Dean Harrison are restricted free agents. Bartley himself is unsigned, but is reportedly close to a two-year contract, with a one-year option, to remain with the Rock.
      In other Toronto Rock news, managing director Brad Watters tells the Toronto Sun in today's editions that the team will (finally) enter the realm of preseason games, planning a 4 November exhibition at St. John's, Newfoundland and looking to schedule a second such game somewhere else in the Maritime Provinces the same weekend.
      Season ticket sales for the expansion and relocation teams is already heating up, months before the season's start. Early in their marketing campaign, the Calgary Roughnecks have sold more than 1,300 season packages. The Montreal Xpress, meanwhile, report 1,600 ticket subscribers despite a late start, while the Vancouver Ravens have had several thousand fans register an interest in their Raven Black, Spirit Red, and Bionda Gold eight-game plans. No information was available from Columbus or New Jersey.

 

20 July 2001:
      Laugh if you must at this item, but perhaps it's time to tune in weekdays at four to get the latest NLL news. Sources around the league are confirming rumors that Harpo Productions, the broadcast and print media outfit run by television talk show queen Oprah Winfrey, is looking to bring an NLL expansion franchise to Chicago. And to think, just three months ago, we viewed Jayson Williams as the biggest celebrity who would come knocking on NLL's door any time soon...

 

17 July 2001:
      The Columbus Landsharks have traded forward Nick Trudeau to the Albany Attack for forwards Kevin Lunnie, Jamie Dubrick, and Mark Steenhuis; defenseman Brad Reed; and the Attack's first- and second-round picks (ninth and twenty-fourth overall) in August's entry draft. The six-for-one trade reinforces the fact that the Landsharks are starting from scratch, having lost most of its roster to Montreal in a complex expansion deal and urgently needing to replace the missing talent. Albany, meanwhile, adds a rising offensive weapon to a team that played so defensively a year ago.
      After more than a year of discussion among the fans, the NLL Fanarama is finally on the schedule. A chance for fans from around the league to gather for a weekend of offseason fun, the first annual Fanarama will be held in Rochester, on 10 and 11 August. Among the events planned are trips to Frontier Field for games involving MLL's Rochester Rattlers (Friday night) and A-League's Rochester Raging Rhinos (Saturday night), an open golf tournament, and lunch at the Dinosaur Barbeque Pit in Rochester. Visiting fans will be staying at the Four Points Sheraton in Rochester, home to the Knighthawks' postgame parties. To reserve a space at Fanarama, contact Tim Knab at 716.415.6227 or Krew@Lacrosse.com no later than 3 August.

 

10 July 2001:
      The NLL, understandably concerned about several teams' struggles to attract large crowds and market themselves well, today announced the creation of the Team Services Division. The new department will focus primarily on ticket sales and local sponsorships, with the league's newest executive, Vice President of Team Services Brett Vickers, visiting teams to provide on-site assistance. "This League Office will not rest until all thirteen member clubs are maximizing their attendance and sponsorship sales," NLL commissioner Jim Jennings said. "I see the creation of the Team Services Division as a major step in that direction."

 

6 July 2001:
      Wondering if the Washington Power would go off the beaten path and play its home games on concrete, now that it is the primary tenant at Capital Centre? Wonder no more. "It was considered," says Power GM Steve Govett, "but the rules don't allow it." All NLL teams must play on astroturf, although, contrary to reports last fall, there is not an official provider of playing surfaces. Apparently, outgoing commissioner John Livsey never got the deal in writing.
      Speaking of John Livsey, the final chapter of his four years in the league is an especially dark one -- not only did he mismanage the original Columbus Landsharks into the ground, he earned nothing by unloading the team. Livsey, you may recall, acquired the Landsharks as a going-away gift after his three-year tenure as league commissioner, paying no franchise fee and finding others to provide operating capital. In a matter of months, the team reached the brink of bankrupcy, and Randy Gilles and Michael Holliday took possession of the franchise simply by paying off the Landsharks' reported $800,000 debt. Livsey was left with the dubious distinction of entering the league's ownership without a dime leaving his pocket and leaving the ownership without a dime entering his pocket.