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Mardi Gras Tourney – Sunday + VIDEO!

After a long weekend of lacrosse and beer, the Mardi Gras Tournament wrapped up on Sunday, Feb 7th with one last round of games.  Instead of playoffs all day Sunday, the tourney in New Orleans just seeds teams based on their Friday and Saturday results and you play the team one seed higher or lower.

And after a weekend in New Orleans like the one described above, only playing one game on Sunday is a very much appreciated concept.  Another morning of McDonald’s breakfast was needed and again, I felt better than I thought I would.  Southern Style Chicken on Biscuit Sandwiches are a true life saver.  Just enough grease to make me feel better but not so much that I felt like I might make a mess in my pants.   You know what I’m saying.  The weather was the best we saw all weekend and it was sunny and warm and there was very little wind.  By the afternoon it really felt like springtime!  A good sign of things to come for us stuck up North hopefully.

Mike (on the left) started playing lax 20 years ago when he was 25. So COOL.

We came in as the bottom or second to bottom seed (having lost all of our games on Fri and Sat) and played Houston LC, who had experienced a similar win-loss record at the tournament.  NOLC came out hot early and put the game away before the first half was over.  We got great play from all of our longsticks and our middies and attack were really moving the ball and finishing quick stick opportunities.  We still didn’t win many faceoffs (next year I’m bringing a good fogo with me) but managed to take the ball away before the Houston team could settle into their offensive sets.  It was nice to finish off the tournament with a win.

That's a good looking D right there. Long sleeves required.

In the 3rd/4th place game, the Maple Danglers (out of Oh, Canada) took on the Baltimore Lacrosse Club and although BLC went up early, the MDs came back and made it tight before letting the game slip through their fingers and losing by a couple.  The two highlights of the game were a Maple Dangler attackman hitting the BLC goalie in the face with a 90mph rip from about 4 yards out as well as quite possibly, the longest assist in the entire history of lacrosse.  One of the Canadian poles scooped up the rock and proceeded to heave the ball all the way down the field and hit an attackman in stride who caught the ball, delivered about 4 fakes and stuck the goal.  80 yd pass in the air to a seamless catch, fake, shoot.

Righty rip coming from the BLC against the Maple Danglers

Be on the lookout because I caught it all on video and it’s really worth seeing.  The Canadians also tried the 6 man huddle/hidden ball trick but it didn’t work out.  Needless to say, I really liked the effort.

Not afraid to shoot. You can just tell the goalie wants to play with one hand on his stick. Canadians.

In the Championship game, Harry Mazaheri’s Crease Monkeys took on the Princeton-heavy Adeona Foundation of of NYC.  The Monkeys had some SERIOUS firepower in their midfield and when he wasn’t jumping the whistle, John Glynn was a beast at the face-off square.  JG was also a beast the night before at the Red Eye where his bead collection and dance floor skills were the envy of many less confident men.  When you’re on a roll, you go for it.  The Monkeys were talented enough at midfield to even let Glenn Adams play attack.  I wish Glenn’s brother, Owen, had also made it down because these two guys run the hidden ball trick to perfection.  Not to mention Owen is hysterical.

Brian Christopher (Hopkins) takes the biscuit towards the basket. Ballin' gear.

The Crease Monkeys jumped out to an early lead and never looked back.  They actually rode and cleared the ball with some conviction and most of their shots were falling.  Adeona seemed to be struggling just a little bit more and out of all the teams down there, I would venture the Adeona guys went after it the hardest.  Respek.

Guys were still going hard. Nice check to the dome, Doug!

So while the Crease Monkeys were clearly the best lacrosse team at the tournament, there were really a lot of winners there… Adeona for going so hard and still making the Championship game, The Candians for coming all the way down to NOLA to play some lax, the NOLC team for putting the entire event together and being so positive all weekend and every other team for showing up, having a lot of fun and playing some sweet, sweet lax.

Awesome Picture of my brother, Lee, Ding up a Healthquest player on Saturday. Great camera work, Patrick!

I stayed on in New Orleans for the rest of the day after helping to break down the fields and put the goals away at another NO park.  I headed back to my brother’s place for the last time, washed the mud off, packed up my bad and took a cab to the Airport.  I had to get back Sunday night to go back into work on Monday so I ended up watching the Super Bowl on the plane instead of on Bourbon Street with everyone else in NOLA.

I wore my yellow and black flannel to show my support and thankfully, JetBlue has TVs on their planes!  The “air waitresses” were kept busy the whole flight back with drink orders and did a great job of keeping everyone happy.  We all know how the game turned out and everyone was all smiles as we picked up our bags from the baggage carousel.  It was a long weekend but well worth it.  To anyone who has thought about playing in the Mardi Gras tourney but has never been able to make it I say this:  FIND A WAY.  It’s a lot of fun and more importantly, it is an experience and something you’ll want to cross off your lax list before you die.  We’ll be editing video for one more NOLA post so stay tuned!

Paul, NOLC and Tourney organizer/man about town. Sweet hat. Sweet helmet. Sweet Lax.

I’d like to thank the NOLC for having me, my brother, Lee and his fiance, Lauren, for being such accomodating hosts, Patrick Niddrie, who took some AMAZING pictures (that I used in this post) and to everyone down there, it was an absolute pleasure!  Thanks for making it so memorable!

Oh, yeah you also want video? But of course! Here’s some action from all 3 days.  We’ve got some btb goals, a 6 man hidden ball trick, an 80 yard assist (at the end) and some other nifty stuff:

And there is also some Championship game love, which featured the Crease Monkey’s and Team Adeona:

Patrick’s work can be seen on his website.

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Contact the author of this post at connor@lacrosseallstars.com.