Colorado Mammoth Message Board

Steve,
First off, thank you and the entire organization for another incredible year of lacrosse. It was a shame it ended the way it did, but as they say, you canÂ’t win them all.

My question is again another clarification of rules.
Basically, when is a crease violation a crease violation? ItÂ’s been my understanding for the past 5 years that basically, if a player enters the crease after he takes a shot and before the ball goes into the net, then that is to be ruled a crease violation and a change of possession.
Now IÂ’m hearing talk that the player can be in the crease as so long as he does not touch the goalie and can leave the crease before the ball crosses the goal plane and the goal would be considered good.

How is the rule supposed to be determined?

Thank you for your time.

Bump...

I would like to hear an answer to this one. Now that things have cooled down from last year.

Thank you for the question and I apologize for the long delay in answering. As you can understand it has been an incredibly busy offseason. More on that later...

As far as your crease violation question goes the rules are exactly as how you interpret them in your first paragraph.

Rule 46 a) of the 2007 rule book states "an attacking player may not be in the opponent's goal - crease area at any time. An attacking player who, after taking a shot on goal, or making a pass, steps by way of his momentum into the crease and then immediately out, is not in violation of the goal - crease area restriction."

This was put in, in an attempt to speed up the game, if a whistle blew every time a player inadvertently steps into the crease there would be multiple stoppages that really didn't affect the play.

With all that being said Rule 43 b) in the 2007 rulebook says this "when the ball passes through the plane of the goal and when any part of the body of a player of the attacking team is in the goal crease area at the time of his own volition...the goal shall not be counted".

Players can run through the crease as long as they don't touch the goalie while they are there and they immediately exit. However they can't be in there while a ball is crossing the line.

The situation in our playoff game on the game winning overtime goal by San Jose was determined by the league afterwards that it should not have been allowed because two players were inside the crease while the ball passed over the plane of the goal line.

These things happen and we hope every game that the officials ensure that all the rules are called correctly but inevitably there always exists the opportunity for human error. That's what makes the games so exciting, players don't always make the best decisions on the spur of the moment and officials sometimes have that problem as well.

Incidently, I have just returned from a lengthy trip to Vancouver where the competition committee met for several grueling days to redesign the entire NLL rule book. Our intentions are to make the rulebook more understandable for all, including referees, players, coaches and fans. It wasn't much fun but was a necessary and long overdue task. Our hope is that the redesigned rulebook allows for more consistency for everyone involved. Rather than changing rules and confusing the people that have to administer the book, we decided that making the book more understandable would benefit everyone. We will see.

SG

Mr. Govett,
As always, thank you for your time and insight.

I feel that this is a common sentiment about the officials of lacrosse, though I will only speak for myself in stating that it is quite frustrating to see the lack of consistency among officials around the league. There are a handful of officials that make me cringe every time I see them take the floor of the Pepsi Center; some give the impression that they make calls depending on their opinion at the time while others seem to have an outright bias against the Mammoth.

I know that this is a very face paced game and it is impossible to catch all infractions or be correct 100% of the time, but I sincerely hope that the corrections and additions to the rule book can help iron out some questionable language that may be the cause for some of these inconsistencies.

Again, thank you for your time, sir.

_________________
Go Hawks.

this sucks, now im mad about the hole thing all over again.

why isnt there instant replay for controversal calls.
(_especially in a situation like that, i mean, OT in a playoff game should get reviewed right away rather it was questionable or not_)

Well I'm out. First the League cannot find competent refs and now no CBA. Part of the respect that I as a fan had for these players that they played at the highest level in their sport AND still carried on everyday lives. If these workaday guys cannot come up with a good compromise and the League cannon compromise than neither will I. I QUIT! If the NLL is gonna act like children than so am am I! I'm taking my money and going home. boo hoo.

I seriously doubt that this childish behavior on all parts will impress any sponsors, find any new fans or grow the NLL.

It was fun while it lasted. but got to H377

The MLB (1994) NBA (1998), NHL (1994 & 2004) all had lock-outs. Does that keep you from watching or supporting any of these sports?

In order to have a successful revenue producing sport, their has to be a CBA in effect so that teams across all markets can compete and parody can exist. (ie salary cap, free agency, revenue sharing). Your attitude is more childish than the way that the NLL is handling things. From what I can find, the NLL has never had a strike so this could be an excellent opportunity to make some changes. The players finally will have to sit out a year because they dragged their feet on this deal. The league can't continue to operate a loss, so this could be the opportunity to fix the kinks.

Don't judge the NLL and the players for something that has occurred, and is still occurring, behind the scenes. There is probably much more to this than advertised and this set back could prove very beneficial for the league. The fans will come back for the love of the sport and if improvements are made, fans should be more attracted and the NLL could rebound quickly