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August 2013 Updates
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September 2013
- 08/26/2013 - Co-Owner Andy Arlotta was named Minnesota Swarm President
today. Andy has run the day to day operations for the Swarm since 2008 when he and his father
John Arlotta purchased the team. His responsibilities and experience has
increased greatly through the years as his father splits time between the Swarm and his professional
responsibilites in the health care industry. It still appears that John keeps lacrosse personnel
decisions in his own domain but maybe Andy with this announcement will have more say in this part, too.
I guess we will see.
- 08/23/2013 - The National Lacrosse League (NLL) announced today that the Minnesota Swarm will move back to the East Division starting the 2014 NLL Season.
The Swarm started in the East in 2005 and played in the East through 2008 until they moved West in 2009. They will join the Toronto Rock, Philadelphia Wings,
Buffalo Bandits and the two-time defending NLL Champion Rochester Knighthawks in the East. The East Division lineup will be exactly the same as it was in
the Swarm's inauguaral season in 2005.
2013 Swarm regular sesaon vs. East Division
- Buffalo 1-1 (H 1-0 A 0-1)
- Philadelphia 1-1 (H 1-0 A 0-1)
- Rochester DNP
- Toronto 1-1 (H 1-0 A 0-1)
Last year, the Swarm were the crossover team finishing last in the West but with a better record than East Division fourth and last place finisher Buffalo. Therefore,
the Swarm became the fourth seed in the East, where they beat Toronto 20-11 in Toronto and lost in the East Division Finals 12-10 in Rochester to the Knighthawks.
Divisional realignement is not official until the CBA is finalized.
- 08/23/2013 - The National Lacrosse League (NLL) announced that the league will start the 2014 season around December 28th and will finish up by the end of May.
The regular season now consists of eighteen games which is one reason for the extension of the season.
In addition, the playoff format will change. The top three teams in each division instead of four will make the playoffs. The regular season division winners
will have a bye to the division finals. The second and third seeds will face off in each division for one game each. The winners will advance to the division
finals to face the regular season division winners.
The division finals will be a best of two series as will be the Champions Cup. The first game will be hosted by the lowest seed. The second game will be the
following week at the higher seed. If there is a split, there will be an intermission followed by a ten minute overtime. If still tied after ten minutes, the teams
will play sudden death overtime to decide the series.
Playoff Summary:
- Week 1 - Division Semifinals - Higher seed hosts
- Week 2 - Game 1 - Division Finals - Lower seed hosts
- Week 3 - Game 2 - Division Finals - Higher seed hosts - 10 minute OT to decide series winner if split
- Week 4 - Game 1 - Champions Cup - Lower seed hosts
- Week 5 - Game 2 - Champions Cup - Higher seed hosts - 10 minute OT to decide series winner if split
In total, there will be eighteen regular season games and five weeks of playoffs.
The new playoff format and lengthening of the season is not official until the CBA is finalized.
- 08/22/2013 - Pat Smith underwent successful surgery on his torn acl today. He tweets and facebooks that he will be bigger, stronger &
faster for 2014 and already is working on his range of motion.
- 08/22/2013 - The Swarm will once again be at the Minnesota State Fair as it begins today through Labor Day in Falcon Heights, Minnesota. The Swarm booth is
at the intersection of Dan Patch & Underwood at the Fan Central building. As of today per the team, there are no player or coach appearances scheduled at the Fair
at this time.
- 08/12/2013 - The NLL has announced that the 2013 NLL Entry Draft will be held at the Toronto Rock Athletic Centre (TRAC) in Oakville, Ontario on Monday, September 16th at 6:00 pm CST.
On the weekend leading up to draft day, the NLL will hold a combine for rookies and free agents at the TRAC.
The Swarm have nine picks in the 2013 NLL Entry Draft at this moment. Four of the them are in the first round, including the first two overall picks. Those
two picks project to be lefthanded forward Logan Schuss
and lefthanded transition player Jason Noble.
You can follow the draft at this link.
- 08/10/2013 - The Swarm turn nine years old today as they get ready to celebrate their tenth anniversary season. Nine years ago on this date, Minnesota Sports and Entertainment, owned by
former Minnesota Wild owner Bob Naegele, brought NLL lacrosse to the state of Minnesota to begin play in the 2005 season. Part of
the reason for the start of the team was that the NHL was looking at lockout of the players due to CBA negotiations and MSE
wanted to fill dates in case that happened, which it did. The Swarm were not the Swarm at the start. They were known as
Minnesota Lacrosse and they immediately started a name the team contest with the following four choices that they submitted,
definitely none of those names were submitted by soon to be fans:
- Bullheads
- Rush
- Swarm
- Thrill
- 08/06/13 - Andrew Suitor tweets that he is now cleared to run by doctors as he continues
his rehabilitation of his knee injury that ended his 2013 season on February 22nd. He is hoping to be ready for camp in November.
- 08/03/13 - Minnesota Swarm Depth Chart Off Season Update
The Swarm will be starting their tenth season either this upcoming late December or early January. The regular season will increase from sixteen
to eighteen games, so there will be more Swarm action for fans. Also, the league and the players are negotiating a new collective bargaining
agreement (CBA) to hopefully start this season. One of the rumors is that the active rosters will decrease from 23 players to maybe 21 players. That is not
yet set in stone but is definitely on the table.
The Swarm have already made a trade this off season as they sent Ryan Benesch and Andrew Watt
to the Buffalo Bandits for future draft picks in 2015, 2016 & 2017. With that, the Swarm have 21 players on their active roster as today.
Andrew Suitor is on injured reserve right now with his knee injury and his status for the upcoming season is definitely up in the air. He
probably will not participate in training camp. Pat Smith is also recovering from injury but he has tweeted he should be
ready for the regular season. There are no other injury concerns that are known at this time.
Of course, the Swarm will be heavily involved in the 2013 NLL Entry Draft slated to be in late September or early October.
The team has four first round picks for the second straight year including the first two picks in the draft. They also
have picks fifth and seventh overall at this time. Lefty forward Logan Schuss is expected to be taken first overall
to replace Benesch while lefty transition player Jason Noble is expected to be taken second overall to replace Watt.
The following players are under contract for the 2014 season as of today. Until the CBA is finalized, we probably won't see
any players being signed. There already is a moratorium on free agent signing agreed upon by both sides until the CBA is agreed
upon:
- Tyler Hass
- Andrew Suitor
- Tyler Carlson
- Evan Kirk
- Dan Ball
- Nik Bilic
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