The Three Stooges
Take yourself back to a simpler time.
The top artist in the world was a Swedish pop band. The top film involved a man being shot in the buttocks. Hockey mattered, but baseball didn’t. Children’s superheroes were color-coded. And the biggest celebrities either busted kneecaps or fled from police.
Oh, and there was still an apartheid. No big deal.
And, 1994 was the last time a single Powell brother wasn’t on the national stage in field lacrosse—until now.
Casey, 33, Ryan, 31 and Mikey, 26 won’t be gracing a field this summer in the MLL. And nobody knows if they’ll ever again.
“Casey’s my age,” said Outlaws head coach and general manager Brian Reese, who was a four-time MLL all-star from 2001 to 2005. “I’m so fat and out of shape and have no desire to play lacrosse. But he’s playing very well. If he stopped playing, I would totally accept that. And Ryan’s not too far behind. He has a few years left in him. But I don’t know.”
This past weekend, all three teams that own rights to the Powell brothers began their respective seasons. Only the Nationals won, while Boston and Denver fell to teams that had worse records than them last summer.
As recently as last season, all three brothers were voted to the All-Star team. Officials around the league agree unanimously that all three are irreplaceable. Yet as the Powells have seemed to move on, the league apparently needs to do the same.
“I would have loved to have Casey join us,” said Nationals head coach Dave Huntley, who inherited Casey’s rights via player assignment after contraction. “He had a great indoor season and was great for Rochester last year. That being said we are a new team so nothing changes.”
This summer, the league must move on from contraction, and move on without its all-time scoring leader (Casey), one of the two players to win an MVP award twice (Ryan), and…the little guy who has a bunch of bobblehead dolls in the Cannons office (guess who). Seriously, Facebook Cannons Executive Bench Garson Adam Hazen and he’ll hook you up. He claims I killed Mikey when I broke one of these bobbleheads on film—several times.
But how can the league move on with the footprint they’ve left? Combined, the tripod combines for two league MVPs, two Offensive Player of the Year awards, two All-Star MVPs, 11 All-Star game appearances, five MLL records, four Steinfeld Cups and a bunch of YouTube clips called “Goalie Confusion.”
I even have an autographed poster of one Powell (guess who it isn’t) sitting on my wall. Yet somehow, we’re supposed to move beyond all of that.
Certainly, the Powells are not the only stars to sit out this summer. But excluding the announced retirement of Outlaws midfielder Matt Hanna last fall, the Powells are the members of the 2008 all-star teams who failed to sign contracts for the 2009 season. If last year’s all-stars truly represent the most talented, popular and marketable players in the league, then the Powell’s are the only ones we’re really missing.
According to various league officials, their reasons varied across a range of personal issues. Still, their collective decisions did not come entirely expected.
“I wouldn’t say I expected [Mikey leaving], but I wasn’t totally caught off guard,” Cannons coach Bill Daye said. “It was sort of his experience last year of being hurt. He didn’t have a good experience. He missed a lot of games. It was tough. He’s a guy who wants to be out there competing. He just decided it was best for him to take the year off and focus on other things he’s been working on.”
And unlike Hanna, another anonymous league official says at least one of the Powell’s left their decision to the league the day contracts were due for all players, with sparse communication in between—even though the Powells rely on lacrosse as their principle source of income, through camps, sponsorship deals and both field and indoor contracts. Other league officials denied comment.
Daye has a different account. “We talked,” he said, regarding Mikey. “I make it a pact to talk to my players pre-season about their roles and everything. It took a bit longer to talk to him. But he was upfront and honest about not playing this year. I don’t think it was late, but I’m sure it was a tough decision for him and that’s why it took him awhile to communicate with me.”
While none of the Powells can certainly be replaced outright, Daye likely has the easiest time filling Mikey’s role, with the addition of Ryan Boyle, who quarterbacked the now-defunct (and funky-smelling) Gar-bage to two MLL championships. The Nationals feature a revamped attack, with Gary Gait ironically filling Casey’s spot, while the Outlaws roll third-year midfielder Drew Westervelt back to offense, where he played for four years at UMBC.
“We moved Westervelt down there, and that’s his natural system,” Reese said. “He looks awesome. He looks like a man-child down there. He shoots the crap out of the ball, so that’s what we’ll do.”
So really, aside from how the Powell’s left, how do the fans move on? According to Reese, they won’t need to.
“Players don’t make any difference in attendance,” Reese said. In fact, with the addition of Ryan Powell last summer, the Outlaws game attendance only increased by less than 300 fans per game. “I think people on the West Coast are appreciative of any lacrosse they can get. They appreciate good lacrosse and everyone in the league is a very good player and they jump all over it.”
If that’s the case, what’s different between then and 1994? For one, there’s a lot more star players. And for two, as the league suffers with the loss of four whole teams, losing three brothers / superstars seems not as big of a deal as it used to be.
“They’re all very good lacrosse players, but we have a league of very good lacrosse players,” Reese said. “With contraction, we’re in no shortage of star players. For every guy who doesn’t want to play, there’s 10 willing to take their sports. I appreciate what they’ve done for the league, but let’s move on.”
In the end, the MLL still has a #22—in fact, the original. And he doesn’t even need a bobblehead.
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