There’s a new commanding officer for the Air Force Base Gyrfalcon’s and his name is Bill Wilson. Wilson was promoted to the head coaching position after former head Eric Seremet resigned following a brutal 2018 season after he was served with a full year suspension for allegations of hazing. A tradition that has been kept from coach Seremet’s tenure has been the competition known as the Trifecta. The first climb of the Air Force men’s lacrosse team’s Trifecta took off at Stanley Canyon, a trail at the base of the Rocky Mountains just a short drive from the U.S. Air Force Academy campus in Colorado Springs, Colo. The same goes for Stage 2, which will take place at Eagle’s Peak, a popular trail adjacent to the Academy’s Visitor Center. Stage 3 will commence at Manitou Springs — a mile of stairs at the base of Pike’s Peak, the 14,000-foot staple of the Colorado Rocky Mountains. The three stages comprise the Trifecta, a timed competition between Air Force’s six “tribes” — Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca, Tuscarora, Mohawk and Oneida. The top average time between the tribes will win. It’s a tradition of which former coach Eric Seremet was a major proponent during his 16 seasons at Air Force, both as an assistant and head coach. While he resigned from the program following the 2018 season — one where he served a season-long suspension amid a hazing investigation — the program isn’t erasing all of its history. “We all loved Coach Seremet,” Jones said. “He’s a great coach. He was the one who started the whole Trifecta run and the tribe system, so we try to keep that culture with us. We feel like it helped us a lot.” Bill Wilson, Seremet’s former assistant, served as the interim head coach for the 2018 season. Air Force has since removed the interim label. Both Wilson and the players are eager to move on from the player suspensions and a 5-10 record that included a 3-4 mark in the Southern Conference.
2018 Season Highlights
The season is getting ever closer so let us reflect on some of the top plays from last season to get ready for the excitement that is to come in the middle of January. Go Pios!
Roster almost set for World Juniors
Twenty-two current NCAA players are among the 29 invited to the United States World Junior Camp, which will be held Dec. 15-17 in Everett, Wash. The roster will be pared down to 23 in time for the World Junior Championships, which takes place this year in Vancouver and Victoria, British Columbia, starting Dec. 26. There are five players that are returning from last year’s team, Mikey Anderson (Minnesota-Duluth), Quinn Hughes (Michigan), Dylan Samberg (Minnesota-Duluth), Josh Norris (Michigan) and Ryan Poehling (St. Cloud State), that took home the bronze medal. Leading all U.S. players with international experience is Quinn Hughes, drafted seventh overall by the Vancouver Canucks in the 2018 NHL Draft, who has earned three IIHF medals for the United States, including one gold medal (2017 IIHF Under-18 Men’s World Championship) and two bronze medals. Additionally, his brother Jack Hughes (U.S. National Under-18 Team), the projected top pick in the 2019 NHL Draft, helped the U.S. earn a silver medal at the 2017 IIHF Under-18 Men’s World Championship where he earned the Directorate Award as the top forward and a spot on the Media All-Star Team after leading the tournament with 12 points (5-7) in seven games. Other NCAA defensemen include Michael Callahan (Providence), Ty Emberson and K’Andre Miller (Wisconsin), Mattias Samuelsson (Western Michigan), and Jack St. Ivany and Phil Kemp (Yale). Other forwards are Evan Barratt (Penn State), Noah Cates (UMD), Logan Cockerill and Joel Farabee (BU), Sean Dhooghe (Wisconsin), Tyler Madden (Northeastern), Jay O’Brien (Providence), Sammy Walker (Minnesota) and Oliver Wahlstrom (Boston College).
More Trouble for the MLL
The MLL has found themselves in deep with an unfair labor charge filed by Rich Furlong on the behalf of four current MLL players: Jason and Jeremy Noble, Graeme Hossack, and Dillon Ward. The suit revolves around a clause in the contract that states players cannot discuss elements of their contracts with one another. Furlong has been involved in lacrosse for many years and has negotiated the Canadian Lacrosse Association’s agreement with the National Lacrosse Team Players Association (NLTPA). He claims that the clause in the contract is “… wholly illegal. There’s absolutely no question they’re illegal under the National Labor Relations Act.” However, the MLL Commissioner Sandy Brown does not seem to be worried about this due to his candid language and relaxed demeanor when asked questions about it. He states that “I’m overly concerned about. I believe we have the appropriate counsel handling the matter for us, people who are well-versed in working with the NLRB, so we’ll cooperate with it in whatever shape or form.” My gut is that this is not going to end well for him or the league after this. Perhaps this is just the tip of the ice berg and the introduction of the PLL showed us that this is not a random assertion.
NHL to Add 32nd Team
Seattle is getting the green light from the Board of Governors within the NHL to become the 32nd NHL franchise and will begin season play in 2021-2022. This great news for league that just added the 31st franchise in the Las Vegas Golden Knights to play their inaugural season just last year. This shows that professional hockey is growing in popularity and is now being demanded in markets that don’t currently have a team or franchise within the state that they can cheer for and support. The team will be owned by a group consisting of three members: David Bonderman, Jerry Bruckheimer, and Tod Leiweke. Billionaire businessman Bonderman and movie producer Bruckheimer will act as the majority owners for the team while Leiweke will act as the team President and CEO having worked in upper management of professional teams for over two decades. They are playing at the old SuperSonic’s home court KeyArena; however, it has been granted a $700 million renovation for the arena (will gut the whole thing but leave the roof) and will have a capacity to seat 17,400 for hockey and 18,600 for basketball. Seattle already has a great number of professional sports teams that encompass many of the different sports and professional levels within them. The lack of hockey, in an area that would make perfect sense to play hockey in, shows that this could become an even more successful expansion than the Golden Knights who drew record fans almost every game and made it all the way to the Stanley Cup Playoffs their first year.
Best Goals
These are some of the best goals from the 2017-18 season and some of these give me chills. I can’t wait to see some of these guys back out in action!
The Beginning of Change
In October of this year, lacrosse’s first million dollar athlete announced that he and his brother were going to start a new professional lacrosse league dubbed the Premier Lacrosse League (PLL). Paul Rabil has been one of lacrosse’s biggest name since he entered the league in 2008 and is now evolving the game into something new. After many years in the league, Rabil had begun tired of the routine Major League Lacrosse (MLL) schedule and the lack of growth within the league that has been happening in other levels of lacrosse. With the financial help from his brother, Mike, the two started the league with some of the games best players having already agreed to commit to playing in the inaugural 2019 season. The league will travel around the country to play in cities all over the country and especially those that are not currently being accessed by the MLL. The PLL also is compensating the players in a much different way in that they are now receiving basic benefits, such as health and dental care, are being granted financial stake within the league, and higher paying contracts. To read more about this new league, click on the link below.
https://www.insidelacrosse.com/article/it-s-official-premier-lacrosse-league-announces-formation-for-2019-season/53198
Let’s get the season going
I dunno about you but I am stoked for the season to get here. Enjoy a little pump up video with some pretty nasty dekes.
Season Underway
College hockey is a truly great gift to the world. There are the traditional hockey power-houses like UMass, Minessota Duluth, North Dakota, Notre Dame, and Denver that are consistent contenders for the FrozenFour in March and there are those that always those fringe teams that give others a tight game but can’t break the seal. It is a great gift that is always a treat for hockey fans when the winter season begins. College hockey is always a very entertaining event that provides a great way to connect with people. As for myself, I lived 15 minutes away from DU so ever since I was a little kid I have been going to games and cherishing this game. Go Pios!
2019 Inside Lacrosse D1 Rankings
Well they’re finally here and that means that the season is just that much closer. Just two days ago, Inside Lacrosse released their rankings for the top 25 programs in the country and it appears to be the usual programs break the top 10: Cornell, Yale, Johns Hopkins, Maryland; however, there are also those on-the-cusp teams that have contested these juggernaut programs and pulled away successful. The season will prove to be a tumultuous one for many of these teams and will show the true depth of some of these programs and will test many of these athletes to their limits. To buy IL’s ranking, click on the link below.