The 2018 Ales Hrebesky Memorial is just around the corner, and the AHM is easily one of my favorite weeks of the year, every year. While the FIL men’s, women’s, European, indoor, and U19 championships are amazing, they are also on a four-year staggered rotation, so it’s a different show every summer. With the AHM taking place every April, followed by one or two FIL Championships in the Summer, and wrapping up the late Summer/early fall with Lake Placid and LASNAI, it’s really like the AHM is the kickoff to an unforgettable year, single every year.
Editor’s Note: For the first time, LaxAllStars.com will have three of our members on the ground in Radotín for the 2018 Ales Hrebesky Memorial to give you the most in-depth coverage and behind the scenes views of the week. Thanks to the support of MaxLax, the world leader in box lacrosse gear for goalies and players, we’ll be showing off the AHM like never before! Make sure you peep the new MaxLax player gloves – super protective, super comfortable, old school inspired beauties!
Before each AHM, we preface the tournament with write-ups going in depth looking at who might and who might not be making runs for the hardware. We talk briefly about each of the teams, but the real attention goes to the heavyweights and the title contenders.
Aside from the annual heavy hitters, there are three other story lines I’d like to bring a little attention to for the 2018 Ales Hrebesky, because while only one team gets to celebrate a championship, pretty much anyone who makes the annual pilgrimage to Radotín walks away feeling like they had the best week of their life. We want to shed a little light on a couple of stories that might not have gotten too much attention otherwise.
Hungry Young Wolves and Old Dogs
First off we’ll talk local Czech shop. As we discussed at length in our previous article, the 2018 Ales Hrebesky Memorial box lacrosse tournament will be expanding from 21 teams to a new high score of 24 teams. With this expansion, we’re seeing the return of two NBLL (Czech League) teams that have been absent the past few AHM tournaments.
The Plzen Old Dogs have been absent from the Ales Hrebesky Memorial for the past three or four AHM tournaments, as they struggled for numbers for a few years, and when they were able to return, their spot had been filled by a different team and weren’t able to get into the tournament.
Plzen plays a no-nonsense game of box lacrosse. It isn’t super flashy, and it isn’t super aggressive, but the Old Dogs can surprise opponents and put the simple shots in the back of the net. I’ve seen the Old Dogs at the Menschner Cup and Mayor’s Cup this past year, and I believe that we’ll see the Old Dogs try to jump the London Knights early, and they might even be able to give the Riggers a run for their money in pool play.
Radotin’s junior team, the LCC Wolves, also make their return to the 25th annual holding of the tournament. When foreign teams looking to come and play in the tournament reached capacity, LCC made the hard but correct decision to pull their junior team so that another team slot could be filled with a high-level international team.
The Wolves players still wanted to get their runs in though, so over the years teams like the Megamen, Glasgow Clydesiders, and Green Gaels have adopted some of the rising junior players so that they too can participate in the tournament. LCC’s senior team, the Custodes, haven’t taken on too many new players in recent years. You have to be better than the guy above you to take his spot, instead of just simply inheriting the position when older players graduate or leave.
You can play until you decide to retire in the Czech League, so some of these Wolves have been playing together for years and years working – not waiting, for their opportunity to play for the senior squad. As a result of practicing with the Custodes and being coached by the previous generation, we’re seeing a new wave of fast, physical and SMART box lacrosse players coming up in the Czech Republic.
The Wolves see Deutschland Adler and Czech League familiar opponent the Bratislava Bats in pool play. Some people are saying the Wolves could go 2-0. Some people are saying the Wolves could go 0-2. I think they’re both right. Either of those scenarios COULD happen, and I think all the games in this group will be decided by two goals or less!
2018 Ales Hrebesky – 2 NEW Teams
In addition to the teams that are returning from hiatus, we also have two brand spanking new teams for the 2018 Ales Hrebesky! It’s baptism by fire at the Memorial, and it’ll be exciting to see who steps up to the plate, and who might run the risk of getting buried. Poor performance in pool play could have heavy consequences for these two teams. As they are unseeded from prior finishes, they’ll start in the “Silver” group, meaning the lower 12 out of 24. It’s a long road to the top, but it’s a short road to the bottom if they are unable to pull out a pool group win. An 0-2 start would mean immediate relegation and a best possible finish of 17th.
First up we have the Jagged Mountain boys from Colorado. The vast majority of these guys are box guys who play the Colorado Regional Box Lacrosse League in the Interstate Box Lacrosse Association. This is the single most rapidly developing leagues, with 5 leagues across the United States. Colorado’s Parker Rangers won that national title in 2017, and Jagged Mountain is comprised primarily of Parker Rangers players.
Have they ever played FIL box rules? Does a single player on the roster have experience playing against Czech-style box lacrosse? One would venture a ‘no’ on both counts, but what we can gather is that we’re going to see guys with a decade more experience (minimum) with a lacrosse stick in their hands, and that experience and the stick skills and IQ might be enough to get the job done. To be clear – these are box players, but with American box lacrosse still in it’s infancy out West, it’ll be very interesting to see what the Jagged Mountain product looks like on the floor outside of Prague!
The last team we’re going to go in depth with for the 2018 Ales Hrebesky is the Non-Olympic Athletes from Everywhere. The moniker is derived as a spin on the “Olympic Athlete from Russia” hockey team that won gold in the 2018 Winter Olympics just a few months ago. One team from 2017 dropped out. With this tournament as difficult as it is to get a team in, when the opportunity arose to put a team in the tournament, good buddy Scott Neiss and I looked at each other and it wasn’t even a discussion. We declared that we would be putting a team in.
We were out at a team practice when we made the decision to form the NOAFE, and before my 45-minute commute home was through, we already had 75% of the team filled up. This is year one for the team, which has its own unique challenges. One of those challenges is that the majority of the team will not know or meet each other until the week of the tournament. Where chemistry might be an issue, talent should not be a problem. Members of Israel’s 30-man national squad, a couple boys from Upstate, and our obligatory local Czech! Of course, no team AHM team is complete without ze German contingent, rounded out with some Canadian talent and our very own Mark Donahue captaining the ship!
The NOAFE have a tough-but-achievable draw. The very first game of the tournament (08:10 local disco time Wednesday) will feature NOAFE vs TJ Malesice. Malesice is one of the top teams in the Czech Republic and brings a much more physical brand of Czech box than other clubs. Four hours later, the boys from Everywhere will square off with Chocolax, the ever-improving Swiss squad that also brings a physical game to the floor. Before lunch is over, we will find out if the NOAFE will be 2-0, 0-2 or split the difference in which they would escape their group.
Having a lot of fun – and doing a lot of good!
Let’s face it – we’re a lucky few. We travel the continent and the world doing what we love, and so it’s important to remember to be good stewards to our international community. Keeping that in mind, service to others is a must. By no means am I the only one who’s of this mindset, and one of the great byproducts of this tournament is that more guys ask themselves “how can I be help?”.
This year, we have a couple different options. Since the tournament’s inception, an underlying theme has been for the players to give their time and attention to the local Czech youth. The Green Gaels started this clinic years ago, and now players from the Gaels, Goldstar Tel-Aviv, Sultans, and many other teams are on the floor for the youth clinic every year, playing catch and teaching fundamentals to kids of all ages. Some speak English, most don’t. That doesn’t matter. It never has, it never will. Sport transcends language.
Gear is also a big deal, and one of the hardest things to come by (easily/affordably) in Europe, especially for youth players just getting their feet wet with the sport. Everyone knows that, and any AHM vet coming from North America is probably carrying at LEAST 20 pounds of gear for their European friends. Just yesterday, I was having lunch at LCC’s clubhouse, and out of the van hops Maximum Lacrosse founder/CEO/all-around great guy Marty O’Neil with two MONSTROUS goalie bags full of MaxLax gear. Goalie Santa has landed in RadotÍn! I know Connor is bringing over gear for kids, players, and friends, and as part of the Gaels, they are bringing gear to two smaller clubs in the Czech Republic located in Brno and Koprivnice.
In addition to MaxLax and the Gaels’ continued goodwill towards growing lacrosse in Europe, the Glasgow Clydesiders have posted an impromptu gear drive in collaboration with the European Lacrosse Federation and Lacrosse All Stars. We have three empty bags that we hope to turn into three full bags, and Mark and myself will transport the gear to the Silesia Cup the weekend following the AHM to distribute to teams from all over Europe in an effort to spread the love around!
I’ve been getting snapchats and picture messages of piles of gear that guys are bringing over to donate. My second favorite kind of snapchat! Love to see it!
One last feel-good story is a collaboration between the Bratislava Bats and myself. The Bratislava Bats will be raffling off FIVE of their different uniforms from over the past decade, with some really beautiful pieces in the collection. All the funds will be donated in a Bats Against Kids Cancer fundraiser in which all of the proceeds will be donated.
This is in collaboration with my own personal efforts to raise money for charitable good. I’ll be shaving my head the Friday of the AHM, after five years of careful follicle cultivation (read: too cheap and lazy to get a haircut). I’m raising money for an amazing charity, the St. Baldrick’s Foundation – a foundation that directly funds research and aggressive trials specifically targeting pediatric cancers.
Back home, my father runs an annual event for St. Baldrick’s, and last I heard they’ve cleared $77,000 this year alone! My brother and I have teamed up, and a couple of other boys will be raising money and shaving heads Friday. We’re already over $1,000 raised, but if you’d like to help us in our benevolent efforts (or you just want to see what I look like without a bird’s nest on my head), please feel free to follow this link and contribute to our Couple O’ Muppets team.
https://www.stbaldricks.org/teams/muppets
If you’re in Prague on Friday and you’re looking for a free haircut, we’ll see you at the Chinese Disco! (If you’re not looking for a free haircut, you should avoid the disco).
So now you know a little bit more about some different teams and their different backgrounds. The young guns looking to make a name at home. The Old Dogs looking to re-make their name. Colorado boys looking to show the world the Rocky Mountain Way of how to play box lacrosse. The Non-Olympic Athletes from Everywhere are showing up to represent their home planet of Earth and proving what athletes who are Non-Olympic can do!
We’re really looking forward to this next week. I’m in Belgium for the International School Of Brussels youth tournament coaching native Israeli teams in the U-15 and U-19 divisions, and back in Prague we have the 4th annual E-Box Invitational kicking off!
Be sure to follow us on YouTube and all of our other media outlets, as we will be streaming ALL the games from the Memorial LIVE with the option of watching them on our page later where each game will live forever!
To get you jazzed up, here’s a throwback to 2006!
2018 is proving to be a breakout year for international lacrosse, and the 2018 Ales Hrebesky is going to provide an amazing start to it all. Don’t blink until October (at the earliest) and stick with us as we continue to bring the international game home, and more importantly, as we continue to bring the game international!
Safe travels, see you in Prague. 2018 Ales Hrebesky here we come.
