Boston Blazers (2009-2011)

National Lacrosse League (2009-2011)

Background

The Boston Blazers were a three-year entry in the indoor National Lacrosse League (NLL), playing three winter seasons at TD Garden from 2009 through 2011. The team was a brand revival of the original Boston Blazers box lacrosse team that played at the old Boston Garden and TD Garden (then known as the FleetCenter) from 1992 through 1997. However, the new team elected not to revive the garish green, orange & white colors of the 1990’s Blazers, opting instead for a new logo and a more conservative black, red & white color palette.

The team was the victim of rotten timing in a couple of regards. Originally awarded as an expansion franchise in the spring of 2007, the Blazers were due to begin play that December. But stalled negotiations with its players over a new collective bargaining agreement led the National Lacrosse League to announce the cancellation of its 2007-08 season in October. Though the league would backtrack within two weeks and reinstate the season, the chaos caused by this brinkmanship cost the league two of its members. Both the Blazers and the Arizona Sting announced they would sit out the 2007-08 season. (The Sting, in fact, would never return to play).

The Blazers would finally make their long-delayed debut in January 2009. This brought the team into the sponsorship and ticket sales marketplace in the second half of 2008, just in time for the subprime meltdown and the Great Recession to plunge the nation into its worst economic calamity since the 1930’s.

On The Carpet

Despite their expansion status, the 2009 Blazers skillfully used various expansion, entry and dispersal drafts to put together a young, talented and competitive squad. Head Coach Tom Ryan was a former member of the original Boston Blazers from 1995 to 1997. Ryan grabbed star forward Dan Dawson and veteran goaltender Anthony Cosmo through dispersal drafts of recently disbanded clubs. The Blazers also held the #1 overall pick in the entry draft and took attackman Daryl Veltman of Hobart College, who would lead the team in goal scoring (34) as a rookie. Mitch Belisle, an expansion draft pick-up from the New York Titans, provided solid support in defense.

The Blazers finished their debut campaign 10-6. Dan Dawson earned NLL Most Valuable Player honors along the way. But the season finished in disappointing fashion with a first round playoff loss to the Buffalo Bandits.

The Blazers returned to the playoffs in 2010 following an 8-8 regular season, but were once again bounced in the opening game, this time at the hands of the Orlando Titans.

Scorched: Season 3

The Blazers re-tooled ahead of their third and final season in 2011. The team acquired reigning NLL Most Valuable Player Casey Powell in a pre-season dispersal draft of the defunct Orlando Titans franchise. This move gave the Blazers each of the past two league MVPs, between Powell and Dan Dawson. Boston also acquired perennial All-Pro Josh Sanderson from the Calgary Roughnecks in a trade that brought about the departure of Daryl Veltman.

But then things got weird. First, the Blazers rather mysteriously fired head coach Tom Ryan two days before Christmas, only a couple of weeks before the 2011 season opener.

Then, on January 15th, 2011, the Blazers played their home opener at TD Garden against the Edmonton Rush. During the halftime break, Scorch, the team’s flame-headed humanoid lacrosse ball mascot, hustled out to the center of the arena floor. Instead of his usual antics, Scorch parked himself on a chair while a procession of three young ladies trotted up to perform a graphic lap dance competition, egged on by the team’s public address announcer and sound effects engineers. Irate parents flooded the Blazers’ social media feeds with complaints. The team’s wild miscalculation went viral, earning scolding clips and coverage everywhere from Fox News to The Huffington Post.

Scorch’s champagne room antics brought the team the most attention it had ever received from the media – nothing else really even came close. But the episode also left Blazers officials on the defensive, scrambling to proclaim the team’s affordable family entertainment values and to reconcile that stance with a sport that (unlike outdoor field lacrosse) had historically promoted fist fighting and scantily clad dancing girls as core parts of the arena experience.

The Blazers finished a disappointing 8-8 in 2011. For the third straight year, the team exited the playoffs with a first round playoff loss, this one coming on the road against the Buffalo Bandits on April 30th. This turned out to be the last game the Blazers ever played.

Extinguished

In late summer, the Blazers announced they were suspending operations for one year while seeking a new (cheaper) arena partner to replace the TD Garden. Nothing ever came of that effort and the team was never heard from again. The Blazers players were put into a dispersal draft and scattered to the winds in September 2011.

Boston Blazers Shop

Boston Blazers Video

2011 Boston Blazers hype video.

Links

National Lacrosse League Media Guides (1998-Present)

National Lacrosse League Programs

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