Who are the Boston Blazers?

October 30, 12:13 AMLacrosse ExaminerKatherine Hasenauer

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This January, the lacrosse-friendly Boston area will finally have a National Lacrosse League (NLL) team in the long-awaited Boston Blazers.  The Blazers, who will play their home games in the TDBanknorth Garden, will be the area's first professional indoor lacrosse team since 1998.

This is the second incarnation of the Blazers franchise.  In 1989, the New England Blazers became a part of the Major Indoor Lacrosse League, the professional indoor lacrosse league that preceded today's NLL.  After playing two years in Worcester, the franchise moved to the Boston Garden and were renamed the Boston Blazers.  Although the Blazers made playoff appearances four out of the six years of their exsistance (including a trip to the finals in 1993 and three semifinal appearances) and their attendance numbers were similar to their leaguemates, the Blazers would soon face franchise uncertainty.  After a labor strife, the Major Indoor Lacrosse League merged with their start-up rival NLL in 1997.  At that point, Blazers owner Frank DuRoss (who has recently been in sports ownership news due to his involvement with the controversey plagued Rochester Rhinos of professional soccer's USL First Division) asked for a "one year repeive" from the 1998 NLL season.  The Blazers of the 1990s would not return.

This reincarnation of the Boston Blazers have not been without some turmoil.  After announcing in 2007 that the team would enter the NLL at the start of the 2008 season, another labor disturbance threatened the league and led the Blazers' ownership group to postpone their entry until the 2009 season. The team, led by team owner Tim Armstrong of Google North America and former Blazer player and head coach Tom Ryan, selected this year's team from three separate drafts.  They first took part in June's dispersal draft after the NLL's Arizona franchise disbanded, selecting a forward Dan Dawson and defenseman Peter Veltman.  They then particpated in an expansion draft, shoring up a core part of their team by selecting twelve players originally from other NLL teams, including their first pick, highly regarded goaltender Mike Poulin late of the Toronto Rock.  After some trades throughout the late part of the summer, the most notable of which landed them defendsemen Jack Reid, who played his college lacrosse at UMass Amherst, the Blazers hosted the 2008 NLL Draft and Combine at the TDBanknorth Garden. The Draft and Combine were combined with Blazers Day, an effort to promote the sport throughout Boston and drum up interest in the franchise.  Eight players were selected by the Blazers in the draft, including another UMass product, Paul Manesis.

This new incarnation of the Boston Blazers franchise is heavy on talented players with Massachusetts roots, which should be inspiring to the many local children who line lacrosse fields during the fall and spring.  Head Coach Tom Ryan acknowledges his teams' local quality in a recent blog entry on the official Blazers website: "Our game plan was to acquire young and athletic lacrosse players whose best lacrosse is still ahead of them...  I believe it is in our best interest to have the majority of players being local this winter.  It should help us spread the word that the Blazers are back along with helping us to establish a real sense of team."  Despite a few bumps along the road, the Blazers franchise looks ready to build on the competitiveness of its previous incarnation, and ready to establish its name in the sports-centric Boston area.