Lacrosse comes to Boston

Saturday marks my introduction to and the home opener of Boston’s own professional Lacrosse team, the Blazers. I was in attendance for this less than capacity crowd at the TDBankNorth Garden and I have to admit when I entered the doors I had no idea what to expect.

First off, when I was told, “it’s a Blazers game.” I thought I was going to see the Portland Trail Blazers play the Celts. I was already getting fired up to see Greg Oden come to town. You can imagine my dismay when I heard it was Men’s Lacrosse.

My reaction was: “Lacrosse… they have a pro league?.” By the way, not only do they have a league, the Boston Blazers have been a franchise before. They played at the Fleetcenter circa 1995...who knew?

Okay, before I go any further I need to make a statement in my defense:
I’m definitely not trying to hate on Lacrosse, but I asked a lot of people about the NLL (National Lacrosse League) and most thought I was making it up. I could not find anything on the NLL on Yahoo Sports.

Also, how can a sport and a team most people thought played women’s basketball be expected to fill the Garden? Is it unfair for me to ask these questions?

Anyway, The game consists of four 15-minute quarters and they have a dance team to keep spectators interested during game breaks. On this night, the Blazzers were facing the, league powerhouse, New York Titans.

Moving forward, Lacrosse is way more violent then hockey. They let these guys fight. It’s not like in Hockey where punches are thrown until someone slips on the ice. These dudes literally drop the gloves and fight in sneakers on Astroturf.  Apparently KO’s happen frequently.

I have to say that is about the crazy thing I have seen in pro sports. Knocking a guy out only gets you five minutes. I have seen some pretty crazy hockey fights, but I encourage you to YouTube Lacrosse fights...It will blow your mind.

Anyway, the sport is about as full contact as it gets. They frequently hit each other with the sticks and do all sorts of other crazy sh*t. I don’t know this for a fact, but I would guess that the average Lacrosse player has experienced some sort of head trauma. 

Also, Lacrosse games feature tons of goals and the dancers gave me a free t-shirt. I’m a sucker for free stuff...So, that made my day.

Alright, to sum it up, Lacrosse was okay. I can’t say I’ll follow it but I can see why people like it. I hate and do not understand why they feel they need to play music during the action. I have never seen a sport that does that and don’t really want to see it implemented anywhere else.

Honestly, the whole event seemed to be a huge gimmick. Is Lacrosse really so boring that you need to play music during the game to entertain people. Also, they had a contest at half time featuring Jack Nicholson and Whoppi Goldberg look-a-likes. That was easily the stupidest thing I have ever seen.

I couldn't help but think how much this sport reminded me of a WWE event. Sorry, but there was a severe element of cheesy-ness to the whole thing. I literally heard from Blazzers’ staff that they encourage player fighting if the venue starts to clear out.

Also, the coach submitted a specific list of songs he wanted played during the game. It seemed a little ridiculous. I think Lacrosse has some appeal but I think promoters are going to ruin it with all the gimmicks before the team has a fighting chance of winning over its fans. It’s really popular in Canada, maybe we should play the game the way they do.

Final Score: Boston Blazers: 9- New York Titans: 13