For The Sixth Time In A Row, It Will Be USA vs Canada In The World Lacrosse Championships Final
Quick little history lesson for all you boys and girls back home…
In 1978, Canada defeated Team USA 17-16 in overtime to claim their first ever World Lacrosse Championship. They would meet again in the final in 1986 when it was Team USA doubling up the Canadians with an 18-9 win. USA would go back-to-back and beat the Canadians again in 1990. Then it was USA vs Australia in 1994. And then in every World Lacrosse Championships since 1998, it has been the Canadians vs USA in the final. USA won in 1998, 2002 and 2010. Canada would win in 2006 and most recently in 2014. On Saturday morning at 3am, the two teams will play for the 6th straight time in the finals and the 9th time overall. It will also keep the streak alive for Team USA playing in the gold medal game in every World Lacrosse Championship game since the tournament started in 1967. Not a big deal or anything.
How They Got Here:
Canada
Canada only has one loss on the tournament so far and it was a 1-goal loss to Team USA in pool play. They came out today in the semifinals against the Iroquois Nationals. Now when most people saw the brackets, they’d think that Canada got the worse draw here having to go up against guys like the Thompsons, the Staats and Tehoka Nanticoke. Meanwhile the Americans got to play against Australia in their semifinal matchup. You’d think that this Iroquois team–even if they didn’t beat the Canadians–could at least wear them down enough to effect their play in the championship game. But this was a full blown ass kicking for the Canadians and there was never a moment in this game where it was close. This game came down to 2 things.
1) The Iroquois defense just not having enough to slow down the Canadian offense at all.
You see here it was just a bunch of miscommunications for the Iroquois all day. #77 is showing for a slide there, #24 thinks he’s going so he looks to recover and find a new man, meanwhile #77 never slides and gives Ben McIntosh a free lane to the rack. That one is ending up in the back of the net 100% of the time.
2) Dillon Ward being an absolute wall in net for the Canadians
Now it’s hard to tell if Dillon Ward was just an absolute animal in cage today for the Canucks or if the Iroquois shooters were just pissing away opportunities by not changing planes on their shots. Maybe it was a combination of both. Either way, Dillon Ward was on fire today, put up a ton of saves and on a lot of those saves he was able to immediately spring transition for the Canadians like he did on this Curtis Dickson goal right here. That goal was a total dagger in this game and it was still relatively early in the day. That’s a major 2-goal swing right there. You rob a goal against on one end of the field, and then 5 seconds later you put the ball in the back of the net on the other end. Tough for the Iroquois to do anything against that and even tougher for them to try to come back. This was a dominant display by Canada from start to finish.
USA
Like I said before, you’d think that USA vs Australia would have been the bigger blowout of the two semifinal games. I mean…the first time these teams played each other, it was a 19-1 win for Team USA. That’s a prime time dick kicking. So maybe Team USA took the Australians a little too lightly before the game today or maybe the Sharks were just buzzin. Regardless, Australia was able to keep this one tight pretty much through the entire first half. It was 2-2 at the end of the 1st quarter and then I forget off the top of my head but I think it was only a 7-5 game at halftime. And the thing that was really working for the Australians was just eating as much clock as possible on their possessions and then finishing them off with a goal. I’ll be honest–I hate how easy it is to stall in the international game. But as long as there is no shot clock at the FIL level, Australia wasn’t doing anything against the rules. It may have been boring as shit, but it was working for them. At least for the first half.
But the saving grace for Team USA? Well they have Tom Schreiber and Australia does not.
They have Ned Crotty and Australia does not
They have Jordan Wolf and Australia does not
So eventually it was just too much for the Australians to handle and Team USA was able to pull away. But it sure as shit wasn’t pretty. But a win is a win and now it’ll be USA vs Canada Round 9 in the final.
The Canadians are the reigning champs. They’ll be looking to defend their gold and go back-to-back as World Lacrosse Champions for the first time ever. Team USA is obviously heading into Saturday morning with revenge on the mind and looking to go undefeated at the 2018 World Lacrosse Championships. If the first matchup between these teams in this tournament was any indication, Saturday morning is going to be an absolute gongshow (You can read the full recap on that game right here). My prediction is Dillon Ward has about 15 saves this game, forces the game to go to overtime and then it’s Team USA reclaiming gold and getting back to that #1 world ranking. I’ll see you bitches not-so-bright and early on Saturday morning.
P.S. – the reason why the game is being played at 3am on Saturday is because of a Jewish holiday. The games are being played in Netanya, Israel and the stadium needs to be cleared out by a certain point in the day. Obviously it sucks balls for everybody here on Eastern Standard Time, especially considering the majority of the lacrosse playing population lives here. But whatever. You can either stay up extra late on Friday night to catch the game, or you can wake up and get an extra early start on your Saturday. You can’t drink all day if you don’t start at 3am to watch a little lax.
