Roughnecks to end league’s longest in-season sidelined stretch
Curtis Dickson & Liam LeClair, Calgary Roughnecks (Photo: Ben Green)
From the not-breaking news department: There have been a helluva lot of weeks of inactivity for National Lacrosse League teams so far this season.
Extra-long bye weeks, provincial indoor gathering restrictions, COVID-crippled rosters, and most recently a wicked winter storm has wreaked havoc on the 2021/22 NLL regular season schedule.
With that said, many teams around the league are doing everything they can to ensure games are getting played, eventually.
The Calgary Roughnecks have not played a game since December 17th. When they hit the turf tonight in San Diego, 43 days will have passed since the club last competed. They’ve been required to reschedule three home dates and an away game in Rochester, a match that got moved because of a suspected COVID outbreak deemed too significant for the teams to restock their roster like others have done this year. The team was also supposed to play right after Christmas, but the league opted to reschedule those dates during a significant spike of COVID cases over the holidays. While the Calgary club did confirm the rescheduling of their other dates, no reason for the changes were provided.
Calgary’s Scotiabank Saddledome (Photo: Calgary Roughnecks)
The province of Alberta does presently permit for 50% capacity in Calgary’s Scotiabank Saddledome, but does now allow for any concession sales or consumption. The NHL’s Calgary Flames, who at one point hadn’t played a home date for 33 days between mid-December and mid-January, have played three games at the Saddledome this month with a fourth scheduled against the Vancouver Canucks tonight.
Postmedia columnist & TSN broadcaster, Bruce Garrioch, recently editorialized about the anticipated negative impact Canada’s restrictions will have on the country’s NHL clubs’ bottom line.
Well, ditto for most of the NLL’s franchises north of the border, whose revenue relies heavily on tickets sold. It’s those revenue-related reasons many believe the Roughnecks have rescheduled those additional dates.
Not surprisingly, the team’s 43 days of no lacrosse is the longest in-season stretch of inactivity during any previous NLL regular season, ever. Since Calgary last competed on an NLL carpet, 15 regular season games have been played by the rest of the league, including two in Ontario, a province that has faced some of the country’s most extreme pandemic-related restrictions.
Toronto Rock at FirstOntario Centre (Photo: Ryan McCullough)
The Halifax Thunderbirds, who recently moved a pair of home dates to Hamilton, have not played at the Scotiabank Centre in downtown Halifax since December 10th, and don’t know for certain when their next game there will be. The hope is mid February, but Nova Scotia has arguably been the country’s strictest when it comes to restrictions, recently extending them, again.
The Vancouver Warriors, who like the Roughnecks face similar indoor gathering restrictions in British Columbia, play tonight in Denver, ending a 22-day stretch of no game play. They sat for 21 straight days earlier this season too.
While many players have been placed on the league’s COVID-19 protocol list this year as part of required roster moves, it’s believed that upwards of 70% or more of the entire NLL player pool has already tested positive for COVID and then negative too. Players popping positive but never being put in protocol have contracted the rapid-spreading virus during team’s lengthy stretches of inactivity, which wouldn’t require a transaction to make space in their lineup for a healthy body.
Below, see the longest each NLL team has been forced to sit on the sidelines as a result of various pandemic-related roadblocks this season, plus their results after sitting stagnant for so long.
43 Days
Calgary: Dec. 17 – Jan. 29 (at San Diego)
36 Days
Halifax: Dec. 10 – Jan. 15 (14-13W at Toronto)
34 Days
New York: Dec. 12 – Jan. 15 (12-13L vs. Panther City)
Rochester: Dec. 18 – Jan. 21 (8-12L vs. Georgia)
28 Days
Buffalo: Dec. 11 – Jan. 8 (12-6W vs. Toronto)
27 Days
Georgia: Dec. 12 – Jan. 8 (11-12L at Philadelphia)
22 Days
Colorado: Jan. 7 – Jan. 29 (vs. Vancouver)
Panther City: Dec. 17 – Jan. 8 (15-12L at San Diego)
San Diego: Dec. 17 – Jan. 8 (15-12W vs. Panther City)
Saskatchewan: Dan. 17 – Jan. 8 (5-10L at Albany)
Vancouver: Jan. 7 – Jan. 29 (at Colorado)
21 Days
Albany: Dec. 18 – Jan. 8 (10-5W vs. Saskatchewan)
Philadelphia: Dec. 18 – Jan. 8 (12-11W vs. Georgia)
Toronto: Dec. 18 – Jan. 8 (6-12L at Buffalo)