My Wishes for the Premier Lacrosse League

In June of 2019, the best lacrosse players in the world will suit up to play in the new Premier Lacrosse League (PLL).

I’ve already covered my PLL goalie predicted draft order. In fact, they announced the great Brett Queener was joining the league. Where would you draft him?

The beauty of creating a new sports league from scratch is that you have an open canvas to work with. Anything that isn’t right about the sport or the presentation should be up for discussion.

The list of head coaches and the potential tour cities was recently announced so more and more pieces are falling into place for the league’s construction.

But today I’m giving you my wish list of things I hope the league is currently discussing and will become a part of the league when it debuts.

Based on Rabil’s social media feed I think a few of these are all but done deals. But we’ll see.

Customized Goalie Helmets

If you’re going to play goalie in this sport you’ve got to have a pretty strong personality.

So it’s no surprise that the 12 goalies in the PLL are some of strongest characters the league has to offer.

One of the things that’s so great about ice hockey is the goalie is the given the chance to show off their personality via a custom painted helmet.

I hope the PLL gives the goalies the chance to show their own personalities by allowing customized helmets.

I believe the customized helmets can create an obsession amongst youth players and we might see more and more kids opt for the goalie position instead of wanting to play in the field or being forced into the position as a youth.

When you hear stories of how pro ice hockey goalies became enamored with the position many cite loving the equipment and especially the customized goalie helmets they saw on their favorite netminders.

I’m sure many lax artists would jump at the opportunity to design a helmet for the great Adam Ghitelman, Jack Concannon, Drew Adams, or John Galloway.

If the league is showing an interest in creativity and individuality – customized goalie helmets is a no-brainer.

Might as well throw in customized throat guards while we’re at. Then again why stop there?

Customized face masks on those custom pained helmets would also be sweet, right Scotty?

 

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Summer 18 can’t come soon enough.

A post shared by Scotty Rodgers (@scottyrodg42) on Jan 5, 2018 at 12:17pm PST

Mic’d Up Goalies/Defense

There is so much communication that happens between a goalie and his defense.

Tactical things like who’s the 1 and 2 slides. As well as phycological things like pumping up a player after a bad or good play.

At the highest level of our sport, I think everyone – including me – would love to listen in on this communication.

Goalies of all ages could learn so much just by understanding the communication that elite goalies display.

In addition to gaining lacrosse IQ, just being able to observe the players interactions – both positive and negative – would be pure gold.

I could break down the tapes here on the blog and explain why a goalie said a certain thing at a certain time.

Learning how to communicate is one of the most important things a goalie can do to increase his/her leadership skills and by having players mic’d up, it’d be an amazing opportunity to learn.

So I hope each goalie and even each field player is mic’d up when the PLL season starts.

More and Better On Field Cameras

The PLL has already promised state of the art production for covering the televised games on NBC Sports. So maybe this next request is already a done deal.

But I want incredible on-field coverage with the cameras. Similar to how the NFL has the floating camera behind the players.

I think it really captures the magic of lacrosse for the casual viewer a lot better.

Selfishly I want those close up camera angles to analyze the goalie play and write up teaching points and film breakdown here on my site.

You just can’t do that as well when the players look like ants on the TV view –

Meanwhile, the speed and strategy of this great sport are captured a little better with than on-field camera view:

There’s also the in-goal camera (or maybe even a small camera attached to the goal?) that would provide some exciting views.

I hope this view is available for every single game instead of only national championship broadcasts.

Television Visible Ball

Many lacrosse aficionados who watch a lot of games on TV like I do have all said the same thing – the white ball is very hard to follow.

I have a deep understanding and love for the game of lacrosse so I’d watch anything. But for the casual viewer who doesn’t understand the game and can’t track the ball – they’re changing the channel.

The MLL tried to solve that problem by switching to the orange ball and not only did it look weird to the lax purists – turns out orange is even harder to see than white.

I think this one is pretty much a foregone conclusion of something they’ll implement.

Especially when Rabil already put out a video like this:

A lime green lacrosse ball will take some time to get used to but it worked for tennis.

Years ago viewers of tennis broadcasts complained of not being able to track the ball.

Tennis balls used to be white but they switched to “optic yellow” in 1972 following research demonstrating they were more visible on television.

If the idea is to create the most viewer-friendly product as possible, the PLL will need to switch to a new color lacrosse ball.

Rules Back in the Goalie’s Favor

The bottom line is high scoring makes for exciting games.

Every professional sports league has trended towards introducing rules that benefit high scoring games.

Whether its rules that protect NFL quarterbacks or rules that eliminated hand checking in the NBA, the average points scored per game is trending up in those leagues.

So I don’t imagine that the PLL would ever implement any rules that would help us goalies. High scoring games get the ratings.

But hey, a goalie can dream.

But with offset heads, whip, pockets with extreme hold these players can rip shots at the corners in excess of 100 mph and at times it seems hopeless, even for the elite goalies.

What rules you ask? Not sure, but maybe start with this one?

Mandatory Leg Pads

I’m a firm believer that lacrosse youth need to be wearing more pads when they step into goal.

There’s a lot of reasons many goalies don’t want to wear pads but I think one of the main ones is none of their college or pro idols wear the pads.

When you hear about all the injuries and surgeries old lacrosse goalies have had, then you see how fast players shooting these days – it’s a real injury threat!

I don’t think pro goalies would ever wear leg pads unless they’re forced to via rules.

Again I don’t think this one is happening either.

Conclusion

The new professional Premier Lacrosse League is debuting in June of 2019.

And with the opportunity to create a new sports league from scratch comes the chance to change various elements of the game to make it more exciting and digestible, not only to lacrosse diehards but also to the casual observer.

When the PLL starts playing its games I hope the following are true:

• Customized goalie helmets
• More and Better On-Field Cameras
• Mic’d Up Goalies
• Television Visible Ball
• Rules in the Goalies Favor (yeah right haha)
• Mandatory Leg pads

The first four are very feasible. As for the last one, well a goalie can dream.

Until next time! Coach Damon

Anything you’d like to see different when the PLL unveils its first set of games? Leave me a comment down below.