By GENE O’DONNELL
With a little bit of Western Massachusetts flavor, the New England Blazers of the Major Indoor Lacrosse League will make their home debut tomorrow night.
The Blazers begin their second season at the Worcester Centrum when they host the New York Saints in the first of four regular season home games.
New England began its season last Friday with a 14-11 loss to the Pittsburgh Bulls at the Civic Arena. Pittsburgh played as the Washington Wave last season.
A crowd in excess of 10,000 is expected for the 8 p.m. faceoff. The team drew an average of 8,100 last season and had 10,100 at the 1989 opener.
“We’re looking forward to the opening at Worcester,” said MILL Director of Program Development Ed Wayda from his Kansas City office. “We expect at least 10,000 and hope to do much better than that this year. The Blazers were fourth in league attendance last year.”
Western Mass, is represented with August, who hails from Northampton, and former college players Michael Gorassi, Glenn Stephens, Jack Piatelli, Peter Schmitz, Raymond Cozzi and Kelley Carr.
Newton’s Piatelli developed his forward play at Springfield College before signing with the Blazers.
Gorassi, a forward, played at Westfield State College after graduation from high school in Malden.
Stephens and Carr, both forwards from the University of Massachusetts, lead a contingent of players from Waltham.
Forward Todd Francis, who attended lacrosse power Cornell, also came from Waltham.
Schmitz, a forward from Bristol, R.I., also played in the tradition-rich UMass lacrosse program for head coach Dick Garber.
All 26 members, including 21 from Massachusetts, hail from New England. Five are from Rhode Island.
The sport, dating back to the Canadian Indian tribes and a national outdoor sport of our Northern neighbors, moved inside several years ago with the advent of the National Box Lacrosse League.
The game was played on an ice hockey-sized rink with artificial turf placed over the ice surface as in indoor soccer.
Using regular lacrosse nets, the play goes much like the outdoor version — except on a smaller scale. That smaller playing surface opens up the game to some fierce hitting with use of the boards to crunch opponents.
It was the winter of 1987 that the MILL was born in four hotbeds of lacrosse fever with the formation of the Eagle League and its four leagues — the Baltimore Thunder, New Jersey Saints, Washington Wave and Philadelphia Wings.
The Eagle League was renamed the Major Indoor Lacrosse League in 1989 as the league expanded into New England (Worcester) and with the Detroit Turbos, who played in Joe Louis Arena.
The New Jersey franchise relocated to Long Island and played at Nassau Coliseum, the home of the New York Islanders.
Washington’s shift to Pittsburgh was the only change from last season.
Ron Fraser is back for his second year at the helm. The former lacrosse All-American is a member of the Lacrosse Hall of Fame. He will be joined by assistant coach Peter Lasagna, who holds the same position with Brown University.
The rest of the home schedule has the Blazers hosting Pittsburgh on Saturday, Feb. 10; Detroit on Friday, Feb. 23 and Philadelphia on Friday, March 16.
