Super Saturday: NLL to set new single-day record with seven games
Justin Salt & Logan Schuss (Photo: Jordan Leigh)
Updated: On Friday, January 28, 2022 the New York Riptide were forced to move their January 29th home date due to a severe winter storm. See “Record-setting, seven-game Saturday squashed due to snow scare” for more.
During a regular season soured with games postponed, fans restricted and players placed in protocol, the National Lacrosse League is days away from pulling off a pretty special, significant and noteworthy new single-day record.
This coming Saturday, the league will feature all 14 of its franchises in games. The seven games that will be played on January 29th will be the most the NLL has ever hosted on the same day.
The most games the league had hosted on one specific day previous to the 2021/22 season was six, doing that a handful of times during the 2007 season and their unfinished 2019/20 regular season.
Both campaigns featured 13 teams, one short of the record-setting 14 clubs the league currently has (15 next year with the highly anticipated in-season addition of Las Vegas). In 2002, the NLL included 13 franchises, but had maxed out at five games in one day.
Two decades later and only the Buffalo Bandits, Toronto Rock and Calgary Roughnecks remain (unmoved) in the league since that season. While the NLL has relocated a handful of franchises in recent years, not a single one has completely ceased operation since the Boston Blazers in 2011. Prior to the start of the current season, NLL Commissioner, Nick Sakiewicz, had told the Sports Business Journal that he has hopes of a 30-team league by around 2035, but in the short term envisions adding a 16th franchise in the United States and a 17th club potentially in Canada.
The NLL’s upcoming Saturday schedule will include the following games:
Rochester Knighthawks at Toronto Rock 7pm ET
Philadelphia Wings at Georgia Swarm 7pm ET
Buffalo Bandits at New York Riptide 7:30pm ET
Halifax Thunderbirds at Albany FireWolves 8pm ET
Panther City Lacrosse Club at Saskatchewan Rush 8:30pm ET
Vancouver Warriors at Colorado Mammoth 9pm ET
Calgary Roughnecks at San Diego Seals 10pm ET
Unless changes are made to the schedule, on the last day of the season the NLL will again feature all 14 teams in seven games.