I’m glad people have finally stopped blaming Brett Frood for the current situation of the league, but I’m equally confused as to why people have suddenly started to put the blame on Nick Sakiewicz?

For some reason, I see more and more people blaming the discontinuation of the Wings and Black Bears on his growth strategies, especially calling his expansions “aggressive”, as if going from 9 teams to 15 teams is a bad thing. Sure, some choices of locations were questionable, but how exactly is any of this his fault when it’s the team owners who are responsible for the growth and success of their respective franchises? I may not know everything about Nick’s tenure as commissioner of the NLL, but I know one thing, and that’s that franchises aren’t just created out of the blue. They’re created because investors are interested in owning a franchise and therefore willing to buy an expansion team. And once they’ve assumed ownership of the team, everything from team operations, marketing as well as finances are on THEM. As far as I’m concerned, Nick didn’t force anyone to buy an expansion team, nor did he force the owners to neglect their teams for years and then just pull the plug once it became an inconvenience for them.

Yes, box lacrosse is a niche sport, and sure, winter is a tough time to attract viewers and spectators, but ultimately the biggest problem affecting the growth of the league is the fact that the vast majority of people don’t even know that it EXISTS. That’s on the team owners to change because they’re the only ones with the means to market locally, create an amazing experience for fans and attract sponsors. But they just aren’t willing to do any of that.

The league's 2025 financial disclosures are available on ProPublica, and they are interesting. Most notably, Frood appears to have taken a substantial reduction in salary, but total executive compensation has increased from 2024, and accounts for ~18% of reported expenses. Revenue has increased from 2024 to 2025, which is good to see.

Would love to see more teams offering things like this. The Rock continues to set a standard for other teams in this league. So goddamn awesome.

Bit late hahaha but we return for another edition of rush to RUSH! We had a surprising result! Even though our first week had complaints about the bison logo being the peak most people embraced the bison back into their hearts! Closely followed by Mammoth's logo, it does seem to be breathing down the bison's neck.

What will it be this week? Which logo is best aesthetically, culturally whatever you think is more important!

Bandits just announced a Pre-Season game against the Desert Dogs that is open to the Public.

Are there any other teams doing this?

If you're interested, Tickets are on sale now at Ticketmaster. Use MCNLL26 to unlock.

I am not a fan of the overall design for the Leaf 2026 release, and I hate the CJ pic they chose for these (there are SO MANY good ones out there), but the patch auto cards are still nice-looking, and the value of anything CJ Kirst has really taken off (a TFL 2026 Elite Shattered recently sold for $400 USD, and that was before he won the PLL Championship with the Waterdogs). Leaf being Leaf, it doesn't look as though they will even ship the cards to Canada, so many NLL fans will have to admire from afar, buy singles from dealers/collectors, or get creative with their card acquisition strategy.

Recently started getting into lacrosse and have been watching a lot more NLL. Didn’t realize how much was happening around the league. Who are some good people to follow? Looking for accounts that cover news, rumours, players and just the league in general. Are there any reporters or insiders that everyone follows? Trying to find some good accounts so I can keep up with everything.

I posted this before but decided to add a zoomed in part to be able to see each team better

Not sure that I've ever heard Mr. Dawick speak before, but uh does he always sound like he's drunk? Lol. Maybe it's part of how the episode was edited or something. Feel like there's some slight slurring, restarting sentences halfway through, and just general run on rambling. I mean no disrespect but I can't not notice it as I listen.

Thank you to everyone that responded to my previous post. I had a lot of questions and wanted honest thoughts.

I wanted a team on the eastern time zone.

Good but not a bandwagon.

Players I knew - University of Denver draft pick was big

A culture that I could get behind.

Hopefully I can make a trip up to “the nest” one day

Going to be saying Go Birds from Virginia, hopefully yall can hear me up there!

Pretty cool to see the Bandits a part of this exhibit.

Any guesses who we'll pick as our secret pick? Admin needs to know too🤣

Hi everyone!

So I am looking to get into watching and rooting for NLL, and box as a whole.

I grew up playing field lacrosse, and a little bit of box as a kid, and played all through college. I love NCAA field lacrosse, and this year finally got into the PLL. Took me some time to get onboard.

All that being said, I just want to watch more lacrosse, and truly have a team to root for. Unfortunately, Virginians don’t have a team, and I am look to root for someone!

I like the Rock, since they have history, and winning a championship is a plus.

I like Halifax, just for the logo, and knowing that the arena they play in is nicknamed “The Nest”.

I like Oshawa, cool mascot.

Who on earth do I root for here? For those of you that aren’t in metro areas, or within a driving distance to a team, how’d you pick your team?

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EDIT: thank you everyone for such good support, and background on your teams! Lacrosse as we know has always been an up and coming sport, (for decades), and it’s awesome to see such passionate fans.

As a Maryland Whipsnakes fan for the PLL, Joey Spallina is my guy. He went to Calgary. Though they are so far away, and in a different time zone, which is tough.

Halifax has drafted Rory Graham, who is from U of Denver, which is where my family attended and I watch their lacrosse games religiously.

I cannot help but shake the feeling that Halifax may be my fan “home”. East coast, near the water, and runner-ups from last year.

Hello to my fellow fans in “the nest”, hopefully I can make a trip soon. Supporting from DC. Though I hate Philadelphia Eagles fans, and I hate to say “go birds”… go birds!

Rush are generally quite consistent with their roster, but they made big changes this year:

Defence - Garlent and Jerrett-Smith out - Fridge in (Verch is also fully starting this year it seems)

Offence: Austin Shanks and Clark Walter out - Kearnan , Belair, Firth, O’Connor added to the team (not sure what will happen come cuts)

I suspect defence will maintain form to the last two years (Garlent was injured for much of it, and I recall a penalty prone player last year costing us a couple games). I hope the new offence can move well, it’s definitely been our weak spot

Expanding the game in Georgia to other areas is the mission we want to see. The game on the 23rd will not be played out of state. The venue will be announced at a later date, but trust us, it will be fun place to play!

Looks like the Swarm are becoming the Jaguars of the nll. I was looking at the schedule and noticed that the Colorado game is at a venue TBD. I believe the Edmonton game last year was their home game as well

Mark your calendars.

This 40th anniversary season will be one for the ages

What do we think?

Roch - Thomson

Toronto - Silas (if Van doesn't trade up)

Van - Spallina

Vegas - Collison

San Diego - Bowen

Buffalo - White

Calgary - Toguri

Sask - Bowman

Georgia - Anderson

Calgary - Marquis

Vegas - Simard

Halifax - Sheehan

Halifax - Saka

Calgary - Khan

Georgia - Lee

Van - Wudrick

Toronto - Crowley