The tournament started at 11 am on Saturday on the practice field of the Karlsruhe Storm with the match Karlsruhe versus the Bretten Wardogs.
Throughout the next 10 hours 22 games were played. Although the games were only 20 minutes long and on a 70 yard field the stamina of each player was fully tested.

The tournament favorites the Stuttgart Kickers won all eight of their matches beating the Dresden Braves in final 7:2 under the flood
lights.  The 160 minutes of high intensity Lacrosse for each team in one day was capped off by the player’s party, which lasted until sun-up on Sunday.

The atmosphere of the tournament is what Lacrosse is all about: playing hard, respecting the game and having fun.  The short field and modified rules worked extremely well. The most positive result of the day is the
bitter rivalry between Karlsruhe and Stuttgart is only on the field. When the game is over, the hatchet is buried and the keg tapped.

The tournament’s tenacity award went to Stuttgart’s Eric Heintze (#21). The
Goal-Getter award went to Dresden’s Andreas Stolper (#89) with 15 goals in
eight games.

Results

1. Stuttgart Kickers 8-0

2. Dresden Braves 5-3

3. Bretten Wardogs 2-5

4. Karlsruhe Storm 3-5

5. Kurpfalz Tigers (Mannheim/Heidelberg) 1-5

Thanks!

Duesseldorf Sport-Club 1899 vs. HTHC Hamburg Warriors

For the staff it’s a long day, usually early start, set up and take down, plus refereeing what is the most frantic paced game of Lacrosse you’ll ever see.

The game is played with the molded plastic stick and a soft ball is used. Teams are 5 a side (must have boys and girls) and the ball can only be carried for 4 seconds. No keepers and small 3 by 3 goals makes it high scoring and exciting.

This year was the 20th National Pop final and the winners were Hale Preparatory School from Cheshire.

On another note the New Zealand girls took on Scotland and lost 18 to nil, then the Scots took on Australia and lost 22 to nil.

Let’s hope the teams were experimental (unless your Australian of course, in which case watch out the worlds in Prague).

Cobham Lacrosse club are a new junior girls club out of West side of London, and they are part of a great sports facility based around the Rugby club, really nice facilities and excellent playing fields.

So it was a natural place to hold a warm up game for England and Australia, both in their last throws of preparation for the World Cup in Prague. Of course, it will be slightly more difficult for Australia to make any changes to personnel if they’ve got something wrong.

One thing Cobham managed is to attract a good sized crowd to the game, with 1100 plus tickets sold, a triumph in an area where Lacrosse isn’t that well known.

With sponsors and merchants all around the whole site looked great, the atmosphere fantastic and the weather sunny the beer “just” right, what more could anybody want.

The game itself was interesting, England raced into a 4 to 0 lead only to be gradually pegged back by a more settled Australian team. England though played to their strengths scoring on fast breaks whenever Australia lost the ball. The final score of 8:6 was a good one for England, after all Australia are the current world champions. But if one analyses the game the England goalie with at least 4 saves  was a big factor, plus I saw the pipe hit 3 times. The actual world cup games will be interesting.

The game was also watched by the New Zealand team who are being hosted by Reading Lacrosse Club, they will play a few friendlies (one against Scotland) before going over to main land Europe.

This weekend sees the National Pop Lacrosse tournament in Hertfordshire, 20 Primary Schools (Elementary to the US readers) with reams of eight 11 yr olds trying to become National Champions, It’s fast furious and exciting. I love it. For the staff it’s a 6 am start on a Sunday morning, someone tell me what a lie in is.

Wow, the season’s over like it seems only yesterday and we’re already preparing for the next one.

For the English Lacrosse staff that means interviewing potential coaches to go into the Local Development Officer  (LDO) and School Community Officer  (SCO) Scheme. So two weeks of flat out interviewing in Baltimore was the order of the day (taking in the final four weekend of course). I must say, the standard of applicants from the US this year is outstanding, lots of coaching and lots of teaching experience, coupled with a good playing ability.

For those not in the know, the LDO program has been running since 1983 (the SCO about 10 years ago) when it was decided that the game in England needed a push, what better way than to bring in outside expertise.

Now 26 years later we bring in over 80 coaches, we place them at clubs and large (mainly boarding) schools. The contracts are for a year, and this crop of coaches will have the extra incentive of a major tournament at the end of the season (yes the World Cup in Manchester is now one season away). Of course a lot of the work is making sure the right coach fits the right program, and that’s what June is all about, we’ve looked at the coaches, time to fit square pegs into not so square holes. Given that the majority of the SCO’s are in the South of England, that means lots of miles and telephone conversations for yours truly.

On the South domestic front Lacrosse is now in tournament mode and the domestic closing tournament “Bluesfest 09” was this weekend This is a two day camp over affair and extremely popular, the tent village goes up on the Friday, and the partying starts, lots of Lacrosse (Men’s and Women’s) on the Saturday, live band in the evening, more lacrosse on the Sunday…job done. With well over 400 players staying over (including the referees) it’s a mammoth job for the host club Walcountian Blues, and they should be congratulated for getting it all to run so smoothly. The Men’s final was between the Northern guest team called Jedi Lacrosse and the LDO team (not sure of the name, might have been SOCO and Lime, without the lime). The Women’s was between Croydon Foxes and the SCO team called Gin and Juice, there is definitely a theme being used by the Americans.

This week sees the Australian Women play England at Cobham Lacrosse club (near London) before both teams go on to Prague to compete in the World Cup, a real coup for a new and upcoming club, 1100 tickets sold is a great achievement in an area not known for lacrosse.

On the update side, in case you’ve actually read my other Blogs, Mike Carey (bad leg, remember) is well on the mend, the wounds have all but healed (fantastic scars) and he’s starting to jog, although he won’t be fully mobile, he still intends to attend two US camps this summer, the firs being at Navy, brave or mad….you decide.

Especially the southern league surprised the German lacrosse community by sending two teams, one from Stuttgart , the other one from Munich to the DM. Also the FC Inde Hahn from Aachen (western league) and the host of the famous Berlin Open, the Berlin Lacrosse Club BLAX (eastern league) were able to win their respective game to qualify for the DM.

Now all four teams will have two weeks time to bring their game to perfection until they fight each other on the battle field of lacrosse to win the great trophy of the German lacrosse champion this year.

On April 19^th history was made in Hamburg, Germany, when the Hamburg girls team faced the Hannover girls team in the first ever German girls lacrosse scrimmage. The impetus for a competitive game started with Mareile Kriwall, the head of German women’s lacrosse and a player on both Hannover and the German National Team. With a month to prepare, both teams, fans and proud coaches showed up with great anticipation, and ready to rumble.

We followed the model of the boys teams, who have been playing for 2 years now in Germany, and used a half field, with goals on the ‘sidelines’ – creating a 60×50 meter field. The 11 meter was shortened to 10, the center circle from 9-7, and the midfield was 15 meters from fan to fan. We played 7 v 7 including goalies and no restraining line – though plan to add a restrainer and keep 1 behind for the German Championship exhibition games.

The 20 minute halves overflowed with excitement – most goals were scored on fast breaks and 1v1’s, or 1v none’s, and the first half ended with a score of 10-5 for Hannover. As Hamburg had forgone fitness training in favor of stick skills, Coaches Amy Alvord and Katharina Freier were worried about their girls’ endurance. On the other hand, they had 2 full strings of players while Hannover had no subs.

Over half of the Hamburg team started playing lacrosse only one month earlier – and the huge learning curve that beginners enjoy was evident as they turned the game around just short of 180 degrees in the second half, scoring 5 goals to Hanover’s 1. Final score Hannover 11, Hamburg 10.

by Amy Alvord ~ Hamburg Coach

So “Why,” you’re probably thinking “Is he starting his blog at the end of his season?” I procrastinated. I am a procrastinator, I even meant to write this blog last weekend, but didn’t.

The season over here in England runs from September – starting with the Bath 8s organized by fellow my blogger to Nik Roberts to April where the Flags festivals bring the curtain down.

I’m not going to batter on about my club, and the league, and how our the flat above our changing rooms got burned out and no-one told us so we turned up for a game and had no changing rooms – luckily the weather was nice and the opposition understanding, at least not today anyway.

Today I am going to talk about me and my life with lacrosse.

My life started at the age of 19 ¾. Well not exactly…but you get what I’m saying.

It was a Sunday in 2003, 11 days into my time at Loughborough University, I was hung over – and the sight of people doing karate or taekwondo or something was making me feel sick. Then all of a sudden, there was a girl stood on a table. She was wearing hot pants – or at the very least short shorts. She had in her hands a lacrosse stick. I was smitten.

Yes, that is correct – I started playing lacrosse to meet girls, sue me*!
(* I wouldn’t bother, I don’t actually have any money)

So I started to play lacrosse based mainly on the fact that there were only about 10 other guys in the club and around 30 girls. The girls team were (and are currently) National Champions, there was no men’s team. We played mixed – a bastardized version of women’s lacrosse that involved running faster than the girls and shooting really hard from point blank range. The club now has over 100 members with about 50/50 gender split, two womens teams, and a mens squad that won the National Cup (2^nd tier) competition.

We finally had enough guys to get a team going towards the end of my second year (of three) we played some tournaments at home and abroad (Ireland) and played some friendlies against other nearby unis who were at a similar stage.

In fact there were enough unis nearby at a similar stage that the next year SEMLA started a league for us. We did ok. I personally did ok, played some 2 way middie, took some face offs (even won 4 or 5 I think) scored some goals got some assists and didn’t get into any fights. Oh and I captained and coached the team made up mostly of guys who like me hadn’t picked up a stick until they came to uni. It was at the very least stressful and sometimes it was even fun.

Then I left uni and moved back home to Newcastle. I knew the Uni (not to be confused with the Poly) had a team, but they recently had tough on non-students playing so I was without lax. It was tough. I played some rugby drank some beers for a year then decided to get back into it.

So during the 07/08 season I travelled to Leeds to play…2 hours on the train and a 45 minute bus ride to the ground…I thought I was mad, so who knows what the rest of the boys thought.

Then in April It happened. I got an email. From a Dr Mark Webb. “Let’s start a club in Newcastle” it said. “Okay” I replied. That was that sometime in the middle of March 2008. Now a year later Newcastle upon Tyne LC (new website to follow shortly) is finishing 4^th in the League and lost a close Nigel Wayne Trophy (aka John Wayne Shootout) final to Leeds 11-6.

Not a bad first 12 months (give or take) in my opinion…not a bad first blog either…