A Washington Stealth Fan Blog
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Off-Season Changes:
First and foremost the off season was defined by a change in ownership for the Stealth. They were owned by a little conglomerate of parties from the US and Canada the last few seasons. Now they are owned by the San Jose locals who are interested in the and the team, Steve Luczo and Bill and Denise Watkins. Steve is the former and Bill is the current CEO of the computer hard drive maker Seagate. They’ve got loads of tech money and I’m so glad that this is what they’re spending it on. I would have done the same thing if I was in their position.
I also personally know Denise and Bill from my previous job and their previous endeavor call the Eco Primal Quest. An adventure race where the competitors race through 20+ checkpoints over 4-7 days with basically no sleep. Crazy crazy crazy. It’s very exciting to be around, the event and all the people involved are full of energy that can’t be contained. It was a fun thing to be working on when I was 25. They even put my up in a hotel in Tahoe for a week. Of course I had to work 18+ hour days for 5 straight days and I didn’t actually get to see anything in Tahoe except going to and from the Reno airport, but it was still a fun experience to have had.
Bill was just interviewed this week at the CES show by cnet and had some great things to say. He’s great to listen to because he speaks straight from the heart and with truth. His company makes huge computer drives, what do people put on those drives? Porn, he knows it and he’ll tell you that. Who’s going to win the HD-DVD vs. Blu-ray battle? Neither, they’re both going to lose the war that he’ll win. Good for him. It’s his winning attitude that’s going to make sure the Stealth have all the resources necessary to win this year and every year going forward because Bill doesn’t know how to lose.
Also during the summer, the man child Paul Dawson converted from goalie to defense while playing in the OLA. Considering he’s 6’5″ 230 lbs I’m kinda amazed he was stuffed in the goal at all. He’s going to be a beast of a defender and from what I’m told the toughest guy on the team. Watch for him to be laying down the law when the other teams need it explained to them.
Assistant coach Art Webster was inducted in to the Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame. He’s a great coach, fun to talk to and a valuable member of the Stealth. Congratulations.
I also recall something about a cancellation, but there’s a game this coming Saturday so I’m going to forget that occurred.
Key Losses
I’m going to cover these before the additions, because they setup the losses. Ian Hawksbee converted two years of solid play in SJ as well as New Westminster (First team all league defense in the WLA) in to being worth a First-round draft pick next year. Good for Hawks, due to work commitments he couldn’t come down from Vancouver this year. I’ll miss him the most, but he had some great ROI for his time here. I’m certain he’ll make the West All-Star team this year, either straight up as the Edmonton representative or as an alternate since the host team get to stack the team with their players when players from divisional teams cannot play. (That’s how Richard Morgan and Bruce Alexander got their All-Star nods last year. They did okay, but there were more deserving players in the West *cough* Curtis Hodgson *cough*).
Also lost this off season in a trade with Chicago that brought over Zach Heffner and the #5 pick in the draft Frank Resetarits were Callum Crawford and Andrew Burkholder. Burkie’s been a traveling man with a new team ever season, eventually he’ll get settled, be healthy and maintain a roster spot in one town and really shine. Callum was the #3 righty forward for the Stealth last year. He could be counted on to play with Jeff Zywicki or Luke Wiles when the other needed a rest and do a good job. He scored more points than I initially expected and I felt safe when the ball was in his stick. As a fan I can’t have a much better evaluation of the second string player than “he doesn’t mess up when we put him in”. But both Callum and Burkie were replaced by players I imagine will do better than then in the same positions, so the Stealth gained by letting them go.
Finally, Darren Halls was lost in the Expansion Draft to Boston and subsequently ended up in Chicago after the Dispersal Draft. Darren came over in the Colin Doyle trade from Toronto and was a spark plug player. He could light guys up well. I think he had the hardest hit of the year last year on some bloak right at midfield. Darren came off the bench at full speed and the other guy caught a clearing pass from his own zone and probably never saw it coming. I’ll miss Darren’s energy.
Key Additions:
First up is Peter Veltman, nephew of Toronto’s great Jim “Scoop” Veltman. He’s young, he’s been around the game for years and the two of the past three years he’s been to the NLL finals, which will provide good playoff experience at the end of the season. He can also take draws to relieve Tim Booth from that duty full-time. Also helping on draws will be Greg Gurenlian. I don’t know if both Gurnelian and Booth will dress in the same games, maybe. Back to Veltman, he’s listed as a forward, but I think he’s more of a D/T player. And he played with Colin Doyle for the Coquitlam Adanacs this past summer, so they’ve got some good familiarity even before training camp started. I envision Veltman filling the void left by Hawks’ departure, which I’m very glad we have someone to do that.
From the draft we have two additions. First up the #5 pick I mentioned Frank Resetarits (I think I can spell his last name from memory now). He’s American born, but grew up in or near Buffalo and went to Bandit games growing up. And he played Junior ball in Ontario for St. Catherines which is the same Jr. squad both Zywicki and Wiles played for. He scored a lot in Junior ball, he scored a ton in the NCAA at Albany and he’s in perfect position to score a lot for the Stealth as the #3 righty.
The second key draft choice was Tom Johnson who the Stealth took with the #7 selection. Tom is a lefty forward from the Langley Thunder. He’s young and he was the Offensive Rookie of the Year in the WLA. He’s in the same position as Resetarits is. Though Tom will be the #4 lefty he’ll get several runs and score several points.
I don’t want to leave anyone off the list, I basically know very little about most of these guys, but I’d better include them so that I see their names one more time. Steve Panarelli is a draft pick from Syracuse. People on the NLL Mesage Board are very high on him, but I was personally amazed he made the roster since we had most of the D returning. Also new is Zach Heffner, a D player who I mentioned came over from Chicago, he’ll be taking the place of Darren Halls. Greg Gurenlian was picked up by the SF Dragons during the summer, he’s a face-off specialist and will fill the spot that Joe Vasold had last year. Joe sadly has never recovered from the knee injury he suffered at the New York Titans game last year and isn’t playing this year. Tyler Richards is the 3rd goaile this year, another young kid from the WLA and based on Paul Dawson’s position last year, Tyler might dress in two games this year if he’s lucky. We’ve also got two guys – Luke Hinton and Todd Fairlie on the roster, I don’t know much of anything about these two. Luke might be this year’s Sterling Mitchell, a player on the practice roster and dressing and playing in a game or two. And Todd I remember from the SF Dragons last summer. But I only know him by name, I didn’t get to watch but a couple Dragons games and he didn’t leave much of an impression on me there. I’m actually not even sure if Todd or Sean Morris is the 23rd player on the roster. The Stealth site lists Todd by the nll.com’s roster for the Stealth list Sean Morris. Morris is Zywicki’s old amigo from their days at UMass. Not known as a big indoor player, but without a lot of pressure to produce compared to the rest of the offense he’s in a great position to learn the indoor game.
Returning Players:
The Stealth lost very little during the off-season. They return their top 5 point scores – Jeff Zywicki, Gary Rosyski, Colin Doyle, Luke Wiles and Cam Sedgwick (the 2007 WLA MVP over the summer). The top goalie in the league is back, Anthony Cosmo. And 4 of the top 5 defenders that helped Cosmo get that status have returned – Shaydon Santos, Eric Martin, Kyle Sorenson and Curtis Hodgson (the 2007 WLA Defensive MVP). Other returnees are Steve Holmes, a stellar and surprising field conversion last year, Tim Booth to take draws and Aaron Bold in goal who was voted most underrated player in the NLL by the other players in the Inside Lacrosse annual player survey. With Hawks being the only lost player of the starting 11, I feel very confident about the team the Stealth are fielding this year.
Continuity:
This is going to be the Stealth’s key to success this year. Last season we picked up Colin Doyle at the end of, or after training camp was over. We had to spend the first month of the season learning to play together and the Stealth lost those games. Anthony Cosmo also skipped out on training camp and also spent the first month of the season as his training camp instead of being ready when the first game was played. Eventually the team gelled for the great play-off run, but we started slow.
In 2008 everyone is back. Players and coaches. No one else in the West can really say that. Colorado and Calgary have new coaches and Calgary has a new goalie. Edmonton has new players like Hawks and Mike Accursi to name a few. They have to gel together, which might take time. They’ll improve from last year and be dangerous at home. Lastly, Portland had a horrible season last year and picked up Dan Dawson and Derek Malawsky from Arizona for the season. Together they’ll be potent and they meshed well at training camp from what I’ve heard, but the whole team needs to contribute and show improve from their last in the West performance last year.
With all the players and coaches returning the Stealth opened training camp with the minimum number of players in attendance. No one was trying out for the team, drills weren’t done to find players. Nope, the players were in camp from Day One to plan for the season. The Stealth had four weekends of playing together to get back in the groove that they finished 2007 with. Cosmo even showed up in the final weekend of camp to spice things up and get his season started almost on time. I was very glad to see the article about that.
A frequent concern with the NLL is that players are fly-in players. They don’t make enough money to drop everything and uproot for their NLL team. So the team gets together on the weekends, does their thing and then they go their separate ways. This is also true for the Stealth, but not as a rule, but as an exception instead. Something like 16 or 17 of the players are living in San Jose this season, so they’re together all week every week. This is the advantage that Toronto had in the early 2000’s because all their players lived near each Toronto they could get together one night a week at an arena and practice on their own. With no coaches this practice is allowed. Colin Doyle has brought that experience to San Jose and is living in San Jose this season, running lacrosse camps for youth during the day and probably organizing team practices during the evenings. This proximity to each other will create a winning force. I’m excited about it.
Prediction:
I’d love to say that without a doubt, the best returning team in the West (sorry Sting fans) wins the West. But I can’t see the Stealth flat out dominating the West. If they do win the West in the regular season I’ll be happy. If they do win the West with a record of 9-7 I wouldn’t be surprised. With the Arizona/Boston dispersal all the teams in the West are evenly matched and will be knocking each other off with regularity. Winning at home is a must(!), winning your out of conference games is necessary and winning your division road games needs to be more than a luxury to be the team that wins the West. I’d say the Stealth finish 2nd in the West, Colorado is a good regular season team and will win the West in the regular season. But the Stealth get to host a playoff game, which will be super exciting.
Final regular season standings for the West:
1) Colorado Mammoth
2) San Jose Stealth
3) Calgary Roughnecks
4) Edmonton Rush (welcome to the post season, go beat the Mammoth. kk thx)
5) Portland Lumberjax (sorry, no playoffs)
Time to get things started, the first game is this Saturday at Calgary!