It was shortly after 12:30 p.m. when Paul Rabil, founding father of the Premier Lacrosse League, awarded the Maybelline Ladies’s Lacrosse League championship trophy to the Boston Guard after successful the grand last of the WLL Championship Sequence.
In the course of the ceremony, he uttered a sentence. “I can’t wait to let you know what’s going to occur subsequent.”
A part of the conversations within the halls of the St. James facility in Springfield, Va. within the final week was about what was subsequent for skilled girls’s lacrosse. Would there be one other Sixes collection? Will there be a 10-on-10 league like UWLX or Athletes Limitless? Is it slated to be 12-on-12 just like the WPLL?
And, most essential, when will it begin?
Bulletins a couple of new league are sooner or later, I’m certain. However by the ability invested in me as one of many few individuals to have witnessed professional girls’s lacrosse from its 2016 begin up till at this time, we’re supplying you with, the reader, what we expect is a reasoned plan for the WLL for a full startup.
So, what are we planning on right here? I believe we’re ultimately going to see eight groups, identical to within the Premier Lacrosse League. I believe will probably be 10-v-10, and shall be a roaming feast of video games — doubleheaders on Saturday and Sunday in areas of the nation the place women’ and girls’s lacrosse is keenly adopted and the place there are some good-sized stadia for followers.
I don’t see makes an attempt at filling deal with soccer stadiums beginning in 12 months 1, however as an alternative going for mid-sized soccer and lacrosse-specific stadiums.
The eight markets the place I believe WLL may, and may, go are as follows:
Boston
New York
Philadelphia
Baltimore
Chicago
Colorado
California
Florida
I believe the eight groups also needs to mirror the websites of weekend competitors. It is likely to be glib to attempt to fill giant stadiums with WLL crowds, however what has to occur is to hit a candy spot, someplace in direction of the smaller finish of the newer “area of interest” stadiums that are being constructed across the nation for subject hockey, lacrosse, and soccer.
There are numerous nice services that seat lower than 4,000 and would wish extra added seating so as to have the ability to host bigger crowds. It’s subsequently a tough ask to determine eight good services, however we expect we now have some good locales for our eight groups:
Boston: Nickerson Discipline. This historic stadium has been downsized within the final quarter-century and now holds round 10,000. I believe this beats out Harvard and Boston Faculty for the most effective accessible facility for a nascent girls’s league.
New York: James Shuart Stadium, Hempstead. This 12,000-seater has been an amazing host for NCAA males’s regional lacrosse video games through the years, and is correct close to the Hempstead LIRR station.
Philadelphia: Tomlinson-Fillippo Discipline at Farrell Stadium, West Chester. The host of the 1989 Last 4, this stadium seats round 7,500.
Baltimore: Homewood Discipline. There are numerous locations which may have a WLL facet, however Homewood is the ancestral residence for the sport in the USA. And it’s simply the best dimension, seating about 8,500.
Chicago: SeatGeek Stadium, Bridgeview. The soccer-specific stadium now has just one soccer group calling it residence, with the Chicago Hearth enjoying the vast majority of its video games at Soldier subject. It has 20,000 seats.
Colorado: Dick’s Sporting Items Park, Commerce Metropolis. Whereas we’d like to have Barton Stadium at Denver College be the host, its capability is just 2,000.
California: BMO Stadium, Los Angeles. This park, residence of LAFC in Main League Soccer, has a capability of about 22,000, and we needed to choose this one as a result of we all know there shall be numerous work being performed within the space of Dignity Well being Sports activities Park due to the 2028 Olympics.
Florida: Inter&Co Stadium, Orlando. It’s within the bigger echelon of stadiums in our thought experiment, and it is likely to be troublesome to get video games in throughout a summer season schedule due to the subtropical climate. However it’ll draw followers.
Now, a part of a brand new outside league goes to be the identities of the eight groups. We’ve thought of the historical past of lacrosse, each males’s and girls’s, to bestow nicknames names on the eight groups. Right here’s the product we’re proposing to go on the sphere:
Boston Guard: This impressed nickname will endlessly be within the lore of girls’s lacrosse as the primary winner of the MWLL Championship Sequence.
New York Battle: Certain, having a group named Lengthy Island Sound could be an amazing throwback to the UWLX days, however the New York Battle was an amazing title out of the WPLL. And, just like the MWLL’s New York Charging, the Battle had the identical shade of sunshine blue within the 2018 season.
Philadelphia Drive: One of many names of the unique 4 UWLX sides, the group received the third league title in 2018.
Baltimore Trip: I believe this was the best title of any of the professional girls’s sides within the UWLX, given the truth that the nickname is a lacrosse-specific tactic for a urgent midfield protection.
Chicago Machine: This was an MLL nickname, however when the ladies’s lacrosse historical past of the realm, you perceive the machine-like precision of the Northwestern girls’s program because it holds eight NCAA titles.
Colorado Command: Using the WPLL’s New England moniker from the outdated league is a pure to make an alliterave group identification.
California Palms: Not solely was this an amazing title inside the Maybelline Ladies’s Lacrosse League, however an amazing group identification with the multicolored numbers. It could work regardless of the place the Palms play.
Florida Launch: One of many nice nicknames and identities of Main League Lacrosse, this title would mirror the house trade.
How do you assume a brand new girls’s professional outside league will look?
