I WAS THERE, and I watched it with my own eyes! My son plays hockey and if the benches clear, the game is called and both teams are kicked out of the tournament. Also, I never passed judgement, these are 13 and in some cases 14 year old boys who are going to make mistakes and need to be taught that there is consequences for those actions. I stated that both teams should have been ejected for leaving the sidelines and it is the coaches responsibility to keep the players on the sideline. It honestly does not make either Club look good. They are the 2 best teams on Long Island and both are top 4 teams in the Country. There was no need for either cheap shot, the first by the Express boy which drew the flag and whistle and the retaliatory after the whistle cheap shot by the Igloo player. This highlights the problem with youth lacrosse and USA Lacrosse. In Hockey both players and their coaches would be suspended for a long time and both teams would have been tossed from the tournament. Honestly Blatant drop the ball big time.
Refereeing in hockey is much more controlled, both in terms of the refs themselves as well as the rule book they use for in game control and resulting protocol for situations like what happened in this game. This is just another example of where USAL is very weak governing organization versus USAH - there are a myriad of problems the sport of lacrosse has with a vacuum at the "top". The sport will continue to have problems, amplified by the growth in participation. USAL either needs to step up, or an alternative organization/body should start up. Lacrosse needs to look to what other youth sports have already experienced and matured forward from - there is nothign unique about lacrosse that makes it different or immune from the issues other sports have already successfully dealt with.
