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Mardi Gras Tourney – Saturday

As anticipated, I was totally right about needing a McDonald’s breakfast on Saturday morning.  I picked one up near the La Salle Park and it did the trick.  Disaster number two averted.  I started off the day with scorekeeper duties for a women’s game where a club team from Vanderbilt and a women’s club team called Central played.  Lauren, my brother’s fiance, played for the first time in 3 years for Central and it was great to see someone get back out on the field, play well and really enjoy herself.

Women's faceoffs are particularly nonsensical: they are like self-actualized tip-offs.

In NOLC’s first game we played Team Adeona out of New York City.  Adeona is short for the Adeona Foundation and if you want to learn more about what these young corporate titans/do-gooders are up to, click here.  Adeona had a full roster of Ivy leaguers and maybe a couple of other D1 guys.  Mostly Princeton guys.  Grant Hewitt (Princeton) and Doug Faron (Brown “State”), of Citylax volunteerism fame were on the team and they were a formidable opponent, regardless of how tired or hungover they were.

Baltimore Lacrosse Club sideline. Their uniforms are almost as snazzy as the ref's hat.

Let’s get one thing straight right now: New Orleans goes hard and when you come in from out of town, you are straight up out of your league.  That’s just the way it is but honestly it effects everyone so the playing field was pretty even.  They would have smoked us no matter what.  And that’s what happened.  But it was a good time to get out there and “sweat it out”, if you will and after the game everyone headed over to the hair of the dog tent.  Hot BBQ Pulled Pork sandwiches got us through the day.

A lot of orange out there. NASCAR themes uniforms? Appropriate.

The Crease Monkey’s were in town and they had a really good game with the Baltimore Lacrosse Club on Saturday afternoon.  The Crease Monkey’s came out on top 11-8 and numbers X, 33 and Z, John Glynn (Cornell), Glenn Adams (Wesleyan) and Brian Christopher (Hopkins) were tearing it up.  There was also a solid contingent of Cabrini grads on the CM squad.

John Glynn, #X (Cornell/CM), marks up on a Baltimore LC middie

Adeona took on Wisconsin’s club team in the afternoon and the Wisconsin guys seemed pumped to be playing a team like Adeona and really went after it early going up big 5-1 or something like that.  Adeona pulled back and eventually won by one in a pretty chippy game.  Wisconsin is NOT the most talented team in the world but if this contingent (which was a mixed bag of a lot of players from different Wisc teams.  Yeah, Wisc has more than one lacrosse team.) is any representation of the talent up there, I think the MCLA will have another solid top 20 team this year.  At this point, Adeona was undefeated and headed to the Championship game on Sunday.  The Mardi Gras tourney is an act of genius in that you only play one game on Sunday; 1 v 2, 3 v 4, etc.  The Crease Monkey’s were the other undefeated squad when they took down the UVA Club Alumni team that came down to play in easy fashion.  I met up with Knox Hutchinson before my next game and it’s always great to not only connect with fellow LAS contributors but to talk about spreading the game and what’s being done.  Just this week I’ve had the pleasure of hearing that teams in both New Orleans and Los Angeles now boast over 100 players.  We believe in spreading the game beyond traditional borders and are excited to bring you even more coverage of the above in the future.

Wisconsin and the Maple Danlgers do work on Saturday afternoon.

NOLC played Healthquest in our final Saturday game.  I think they were all Doctors, or medical sales reps, or receptionists.  Or they were just lax dudes.  I’m not really sure but Grayson Connors, a former attackman from Wesleyan, was playing for them so we talked a bit in between playing.  Another Wesleyan guy, Baker Woods, was supposedly on that team as well but this can only be confirmed as rumor since I didn’t see him once all weekend.  We lost again, going 0-3.  I think we may have lost every game 6-3, of course my memory is clearly compromised but whatever, winning games wasn’t the only item on the weekend’s long priority list.  I had spent a good deal of the day talking with the Canadians and they were kind enough to ask me to play a game with them.  We played the Flying Elvis team and managed to pull out the one-goal win.  I love playing with Canadians.  I used to play with a guy named simply, Canadian Mike, and he was just a pleasure to watch.  Great stick, very creative, he played the game with a passion and intensity but also managed to always have a good time.  And you know what?  These Brampton guys were all the same way!  Maybe it’s because I love Slap Shot, who knows?

More Saturday action: Healthquest (light) v. Flying Elvis (dark)

At the end of a long day filled with light beer, we headed back and took some much needed showers.  No rain whatsoever (a miracle, I hear) and although it was windy, I found it bearable by wearing a lot of clothes between games.  My brother was acting like it was July.  He works out on oil rigs sometimes as an engineer so he’s just tougher than I am and that’s all there is to it.  As an older brother, it’s hard to admit that.

More CM/Baltimore LC action. Definitely the game of the day.

We headed over to the lacrosse party, which was held at the Red Eye in the New Orleans warehouse district or something.  Again, I had no idea where I was most of the time.  That City is totally foreign to me still.  New York, I get.  New Orleans? Not so much.  It seemed like pretty much everyone from the tournament was there and there was both ironic and non-ironic fist pumping.  I got to spend some time with Glenn Adams of Wesleyan, MLL, etc (shameless plug), which is always a good time.

Wesleyan dudes don't shake hands. Wesleyan dudes hug.

Also in attendance?  An unprecedented amount of flow and, in my opinion, it was quite unconventional.  And that’s what I’m talking about with this game spreading craziness you read above… this is San Antonio Wisconsin flow.  You say the movement is over?  Nay, perhaps:

Curly or wavy... it don't matter as long as it's dark. Texas sized, Wisconsin approved Flow.

After all that laxiness it was back to St. Charles for a bit and then eventually home to sleep.  Finally.  Sunday morning?  Oh noes.

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