Same Old Song And Dance From Winston Seeney Sunday March 31, 2002 WHITBY -- A tiring read in an a big city Canadian newspaper. Its theme was yawningly repetitious and simple. Aliens from the outside world, invade the bright lights of the big smoke and they snatch the attention of sports fans The alien world is somewhere - outside the borders of a large Canadian city. Most Toronto folks know two major roads across Ontario. The road that leads to the cottage, and the road that leads back home. Toronto Sports fans enjoy their hot dogs and coke while watching the Yankees. Their Raptors are cool guys. And as for the Leafs - well, The National Hockey League has gone south for so many years that Toronto has become a northern extension of another American pro league. Sports in the backwoods? Can you be serious? Maybe the odd tractor pull or two, and a few guys spinning on logs - or boats ripping up a lake at a summer regatta. Somehow, the entire issue of what is professional and what is amateur is defined by Toronto's wonky geographic perspective. It goes something like this. North - South is big time. East - West is bush. The Argo's play in an east west league. Toronto's football fans suck up to the NFL and ignore the Argonauts. The Toronto Rock routinely draw between 17 and 19k in a game dominated by American franchise numbers. Ironically, the Rock wouldn't exist if it weren't for a half a dozen OLA Major Teams in Ontario and the WLA. Teams which have been the stuff of Canadian Legends - the New Westminster Salmonbellies, the St. Catharines Athletics, and the legendary Oshawa Green Gaels are a dim part of the Toronto sport conscience. Little does it matter that The Brampton Excelsiors which play on the northern edge of the big town, are the oldest, organized, continuous sports team in Canada. There is something about the game that almost all Toronto writers have missed. The game is ours. Purely and simply ours. Its not about Shoeless Joe's or imported, Good Old Boys from Southern football colleges, or Swedish hockey players struggling to learn English. It is spawned from such a small town as Huntsville which hasn't quite figured out if its in the wilderness or on the edge.. Its something about being so Canadian it hurts. It means watching world class athletes playing for a sport trophy in a hugely athletic game which was old when the NFL and the NBA were born. It means seeing the heroes of your game, ride the subways unknown, while Toronto sports fan, fawn over some kid from Buckeye State. Sometimes, the numbers of fans who follow the Rock, dizzy the perspective of suburban lacrosse teams. It would seem logical - that if 20,000 fans pack out the ACC - they would drive 15 minutes north of the city to Brampton to see the stars of the NLL play in the summer leagues? Affecianados of the sport, swear that NLL ":Shoot out the lights - run and gun" lacrosse presents a trivialized, watered down, one dimensional version of the Canadian box game. Whats the old saying.... Show them the lights and the fans will come? So the Exelsiors organize a dynamic opening game extravaganza, hard on the heels of mind blowing Toronto Rock attendance numbers. A couple of hundred fans turned out. Pro lacrosse has failed to dint attendance stats among Ontario's Major Series teams. Could it be that these arena's are off the familiar highway on the drive to the cottage? Lacrosse fans are all accustomed to bearing the sting of ridicule from sports writers, who know little about a game that is as Canadian as Salada tea and maple syrup. While the game expands exponentially across Canada sports fans are realizing that we have great sports heroes, athletes of distinction, who play in a highly creative sport in their own backyard. Urbanity, seems to suck in its breath in astonishment when it discovers that lacrosse players, play at a high intensity level, and struggle with intangibles such as jobs, pain, and lack of big city recognition, - because they don't know anything else. They are simply athletes - and as proud as hell of their game. And so it is, that the major Canadian media voices get caught up in the whirlwind of their discovery. Few and far between are the media jocks that take the time to familiarize themselves with the game. Ty Pilson, of Calgary, is one of the only major city writers to use such traditional lacrosse terms as "the draw", creasemen and shooters. Most writers, give credit to the game - and respect its athleticism. But, there are those who still write about empty press boxes, unknown stars, beer drinkers, noise and popcorn sales They fail to see the forest for the trees. And somehow, this too is very, very Canadian.
Summer Lacrosse Webcasts From Winston Seeney Sunday September 16, 2001 WHITBY -- Let me share with you how much fun this summer was in being involved with lacrosse webcasting on www.lacrossenetwork.com Listeners had to content with a lot of "growing pains" as we stickhandled our way into the webcast game. Disconnected telephones, failures in connection boxes, frantic last minute searches in an arena basement for a phone connection, microphones overloaded with crowd noise, missing announcers, overtaxed laptop speakers, inexperienced play by play announcers,and a game called from behind the glass in the lobby of the Whitby Arena, counted among a few of our challenges. We bled for our listeners when they tried to follow their teams but were thwarted by technical failures. We thrilled as Scott provided us with an indication of the development of a listening base. We were delighted to receive emails to read on the air. Webcasting is like talking to yourself or to your partner on a telephone, beside you - you don't know if you are being heard by anyone. My biggest high came when a sports reporter from a large American newspaper joined us in the pressbox to thank us. He stumbled upon our webcast from his home in the States and dropped in to see a game and say hello. As the season moved along - there were signs of thing to come. Keith Welner of BigScoreDesigns, stepped up big time to cover this series with voice and video when it appeared that it would not be covered. By the time the season ended, our coverage expanded from Brooklin to Peterborough to Brampton. We expect that these three teams will provide us with 50% of all the OLA Major Series games next year. Discussions have been underway to bring in even more teams. Thanks to: Brampton Excelsiors. Ed Gajewski, Mike Hancock, Troy Cordingly, Dan Doneleavy, Keith Welner, and Blair Campbell. Brooklin Redmen and Peterborough Lakers: Calvin Curtis, Ted Higgins, Allison - Lakers team trainer, Ben Knight, Ron Messer, Bernie Bernhart, Larry Power, Paul Whiteside. Behind the Scenes with advice, technical support, and encouragement: Scott Neiss, Daryl Fernquist, RA Philly. Saul Davidson. EXPANSION If you live in the area surrounding the St. Catharines Athletics, the Akwesasne Thunder, the 6 Nations Arrows, the Peterborough Lakers, and are interested in possibly being one of our play by play or colour team members - you are invited to respond by e-mail. The season ended with the thrilling Coquitlam - Brampton series and game seven being decided by Colin Doyle's goal in the last 34 seconds of the game. The thrill generated by this game - whetted heightened everyone's anticipation for the forthcoming NLL season.
From Winston Seeney Sunday September 16, 2001 WHITBY --I am presently using Rogers Cable as my service provider. They provide excite.ca as their website browser. When I check out their sports section I find lacrosse buried deep in Other sports surrounded by everything from kayaking to skydiving to Gaelic Sports. I sent Excite.Ca the following e mail letter. A couple of years ago a CTV sportsnet representative told me that they had only had a handful of people write in asking CTV to increase their lacrosse coverage. Let's take a stand for our game. _____________________________________________________ http://home-sports.excite.ca/ Dear Friends at Excite. I am writing to ask if you would be willing to add Lacrosse and in particular the National Lacrosse League (NLL) among your premier sports site selections this winter. In presenting to you a series of what I think are legitimate reasons - I trust that you won't feel that I am taking a adverserial, or antagonistic attitude. This isn't the case. 1. Canada will have this winter, 5 Professional Lacrosse teams in the National Lacrosse League. These teams represent 4 provinces and most likely 2/3 of the population areas of Canada. The National Hockey league has 6 teams in 4 provinces. 2. The Origins of Lacrosse run deep in Canada's sporting soul. It was our first great sport, and until recently it was Canada's singular national game. 3. The Brampton Excelsiors lacrosse club has the history of being Canada's oldest and longest consistently operating sports franchise in the country. 4. Canadians have been represented in lacrosse at an international level of competition in the Olympics and in world championship matches consistently through the years. 4. Rogers Cable has taken a big lead in televising lacrosse in Ontario and BC, and has been reflecting a concerned attitude towards representing Canadian sports through the television media. 5. There has been a strong increase in interest in the game in Canada. It has been televised nationally on Headline Sports and CTV Sportsnet. If not mistaken, from what I have heard reported ratings have been very high and they have equalled The Toronto Raptors Basketball team, across the Country. 6. The National Lacrosse League will be presented by 2 Cable TV networks in the USA, and a national contract with a Canadian network will soon be announced. 7. It is a well established league with franchises in 13 cities. 8. Toronto last year set a world lacrosse indoor attendance record with about 20 000 people in attendance. Toronto Rock games are covered on TV on TV and Radio. In conclusion, the game is presently buried deep in the bottom other sports section and is surrounded by gaelic sports, kayaking, and a bevy of lesser followed, minor activities. Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to present an argument in favour of enhancing the presentation of this great game. Baggy's Letter To Rogers Cable
Field Influence in the boxla game From Winston Seeney Friday July 13, 2001 Hi to all, I don't know if you caught any of our internet broadcast Joe but I took your question to former player and member of the Redmen, Mike Gray. Mike reports that up until 10 years ago, Canadian box players pretty well all, used wooden sticks. Canadian field players began returning with lightweight sticks and within a decade light sticks have become the stick of choice. Mike noted your comment on how the field game has become more physical. Mike laughed and said.....that the influence of field lacrosse and lightweight sticks have seen the change of checking migrate more from physical checking to an increase in stick checking. John Grant Jr. didn't expand too much upon the topic - because I don't think he had thought much about it. He noted in his colour commentary that Canadians prefer the interfold of of two games in one - the defensive game and the offensive game. The Canadian game is slower paced, and more deliberate. John noted that Americans prefer "run and gun" lacrosse with lots of goals and higher scores. Canadians don't mind games with lower scores - because they like watching the developmental struggle between the forces of defence and offence - to see which side eventually dominates. This is a subject for some discussion, I am sure - down the road. John commented, how Canadian box players who play the field game are accustomed to tight inside traffic and excel in the "tight going in close quarters" because of their experience. It was a busy broadcast......John Grant Jr. was our special guest through the 3rd period. Paul Whiteside aka Thistles Forever - Canada's foremost lacrosse historian was in the booth with us and spoke for a few minutes about the older field game. Wamper dropped off a tape of a 1988 Mann Cup game - which I may be able to get copied for anyone to see - and my stats were provided by Larry's Driver (Bernie). I am fortunate to have such a great crew around me. Snowball league playoffs. There is impulse towards having an increased number of games during the playoffs. Look for Ben Knight to do some coverage and my colour man, Ron Messer may take a crack at internetcasting. And this is possibly the first time I have released this, but I may be transferring my internetcasts to Peterborough next season, since it is closer to my new home. Ted Higgins, the owner of the team is supportive of the idea. We had a nice comment sent to us by Cindy Walsh, of Montreal. Cindy is a new fan to the game and she eagerly awaits the arrival of the Xpress. Here's to all in the "Great Game" Winston