By James H. Jackson - Baltimore Sun - 2/10/1985
Box lacrosse, a cross between ice hockey and field lacrosse that has few rivals for mayhem and brute force, will be on display at the Civic Center at 8 o’clock tonight when Team USA meets Team Canada in another chapter of the Super Series of Lacrosse.
More than 7,000 spectators packed the War Memorial Auditorium in Rochester, N.Y., two weeks ago to see Canada, which invented the sport, wallop the United States, 19-9. Last week, almost 14,000 fans rocked the Spectrum in Philadelphia as Team USA turned the tables on the Canadians, 19-17.
The Super Series of Lacrosse, a tour of 13 North American cities, is the brainstorm of Ira Blumenthal, a former University of Maryland player, Towson State assistant coach and official with the Maryland Arrows of the defunct Professional Box Lacrosse Association. Blumenthal
eventually hopes to form a professional box lacrosse league.
Team USA is coached by Bob Tarring and Steve Marshall, and composed of field lacrosse players from the Maryland and Long Island areas who helped the United States win the World Games title in 1982 and pre-Olympic Games crown last summer.
Tarring, who also is Team USA’s general manager, says that more than 4,000 tickets have been sold for tonight’s game, but he believes the walk-up sale will be big.
“We had big game-day ticket sales in Rochester and Philadelphia, and I’m sure it will be the same here. Lacrosse people are notorious for not buying tickets in advance.”
Some eyebrows were raised by the turnaround in the second game, after the ease with which Canada handled Team USA in the first game of the series, causing some to say the Canadians took it easy on the Yanks in Philadelphia.
“That’s a lot of baloney,” said Marshall, head coach at Archbishop Curley High School and Overlea LC in addition to being field coach for Team USA.
“Our team was just unfamiliar with the game in Rochester. Also, the Canadians said they would modify the rules to make the game more like the field game cut out crosschecking, hitting from the rear and boarding- but they didn’t.
“In the second game, we said OK, you want to be physical, it’s physical you’ll get. We’re in better condition than the Canadians and we have bet- ter athletes, and we showed that in Philadelphia.
“We came out hitting and we gave back to the Canadians everything they dished out and then some. You know, the Canadians are either all left-handed or all right-handed; they can’t go both ways like American players, and we took advantage of that. Also, they don’t play behind the goal like we do and we took advantage of that, too.”
John Tucker, who started playing lacrosse in the Maryland Junior League as a 12-year-old, also played for Mount Washington Club and for Johns Hopkins University’s National Collegiate Athletic Association national championship team last spring, echoed Marshall’s thoughts.
“Anyone who says the Canadians took it easy on us in Philadelphia is just handing out sour grapes,” said Tucker.
“We were used to field lacrosse and were tentative in the game in Rochester. But that woke us up. We found out that there is no free time in box lacrosse like there is in field lacrosse.
There’s no time to stand around and admire what you accomplished. There’s constant action, constant hitting.
“We just outhit, outhustled, out-shot, outran and outplayed the Canadians at their own game in Philadelphia.”
