It’s now August 18th, and the updates we have are headlines that we didn’t know would be headlines the last time we talked, and the biggest focal point remains the elephant in the room.

For starts, on August 14, a day before the previously set new start of free agency on August 15, the NLL and NLLPA announced in another joint statement that continued CBA negotiations are causing the delay to push out two more weeks — to August 29. As the two sides have continued to not negotiate through the media, as the phrase goes, there’s aren’t many more things to say about it right now otherwise.

But in the meantime, two days later, live from the Women’s Major Series Lacrosse postseason tournament that took place in Peterborough this weekend, Stephen Stamp posted for Inside Lacrosse that the Albany FireWolves could be on the move to Oshawa, Ontario for the upcoming season. Multiple people worked to investigate further and even found that trademarks for Oshawa FireWolves and Ontario FireWolves were filed for on the 14th. While we don’t have the official timeline, Alphie, the FireWolves mascot, did appear at a block party event at Albany’s Palace Theatre on Saturday.

On Monday, the Times Union confirmed the report, and mentioned a source who cited the travel and NYS workers comp insurance fees as reasons the move escalated. While the team’s attendance was under 4,000 per game in its first three seasons, the team rallied to an average of 5,014 in the 2025 season. Unfortunately, that was last in the league, albeit 6 teams (including Toronto playing in Mississauga’s ~5,400 capacity arena for the year) averaged between 5,000 and 6,000 fans last season.

Albany returned to the NLL in 2021 after Mohegan Sun sold the New England Black Wolves during the COVID Pandemic, with their business obviously being severely impacted in 2020 and early-2021. An investment group led by lacrosse-lifer Oliver Marti purchased the team. In a 2021 interview, then-commissioner Nick Sakiewicz said that there was interest from several Northeastern markets, but Albany was the choice:

We looked at that as an opportunity to relocate [New England] and we had opportunities in Baltimore, Providence, Worcester, Springfield, Albany and Montreal. Ultimately the ASM Global folks who manage (the Times-Union Center) and the city leadership rolled out the red carpet for us and really put an excellent arena deal on the table. And then Oliver Marti and his group took the bull by the horns and willed their way to winning out and purchasing the team. Oliver put together what is probably our deepest, most diverse, most passionate ownership groups. They were also able to develop a partnership with Mike French and his group, which was the icing on the cake. Mike was part of the Mohegan ownership group, and it was unsure what was going to happen. And Mike has been such an ambassador for the NLL for many, many years, obviously a Hall of Fame player himself, and we were really hopeful they’d come along for the ride.

Nick Sakiewicz, late-2021

Of note from that quote, a Sportico interview with Marti in June of that year detailed Montreal as the potential choice if not for COVID border restrictions. Laval hosted an NLL game in February 2024 and has been a rumored interested destination ever since for future National Lacrosse League endeavors.

We will await more information when the official announcement comes, likely in the next 48-72 hours.

Albany’s original NLL foray, the Albany Attack, also lasted four seasons in the region before relocating to San Jose ahead of the 2004 season. The franchise is now the Vancouver Warriors.

In the meantime, some more news:

MacRae Takes Over in Ottawa

The Ottawa Black Bears had ups and downs in their first season in Canada’s capital after relocating from Long Island, but with the team missing out on the playoffs as they had in each of their 4 seasons in New York, the organization has parted ways with GM Rich Lisk and Head Coach Dan Ladouceur, the tandem that replaced original HC/GM Regy Thorpe, who is now the head coach of Syracuse University’s women’s lacrosse team.

Taking over is the franchise’s inaugural captain, Dan MacRae. The 37 year old former defender joined Pat Coyle’s staff in Colorado following his retirement from the league, and coordinated their defense for each of the last two seasons. Before that, he had coached the 2023 Burlington Blaze to a Minto Cup, Canadian Lacrosse’s Junior A championship.

The RIT grad was the 6th overall pick in the 2010 NLL draft and played his first 9 NLL seasons with the Calgary Roughnecks before being selected by the Riptide in the 2019 expansion draft. Thorpe was able to convince the pending-UFA to sign on with the team for its inaugural season as their captain. His leadership in their first season was capitalized by scoring the overtime game-winning goal in their first ever win. He finished his career with 29 goals, 90 assists, 850 loose balls, and 197 caused turnovers across 178 regular season games. He scored his lone career playoff goal in Game 1 of the 2019 NLL Finals against the Buffalo Bandits, which his Calgary Roughnecks went on to win.

MacRae’s first go around manning an NLL front office and bench comes with the privilege and challenge of building around one of the league’s studs, a 28 year old Jeff Teat. While the Black Bears were able to improve their defense with the addition of Zach Higgins between the pipes, their offensive production in turn diminished to less than 200 goals for the first time post-COVID. A second straight 8-10 finish saw them in the 9th seed in the unified standings, on the outside looking in of the 8-team playoff bracket.

The press release from the Black Bears highlighted that Brian Beisel will remain with the coaching staff for his second season as the team’s defensive coordinator.

Future Hall of Famer Retires

Lastly for today’s update, MacRae’s former teammate, Dane Dobbie, was announced as the Calgary Roughnecks new Lacrosse Operations Advisor, coinciding with retiring from an illustrious playing career. Dobbie won championships with Calgary in 2009 and 2019 and registered 574 goals (Currently 6th all-time) and 623 assists for 1,197 points (10th all-time) in 249 career games. His covid-shortened final season in Calgary saw him score 17 goals in 4 games before signing in 2021 free agency with the San Diego Seals, where he’d play 3 seasons before returning to Calgary last year, scoring 36 goals and 27 assists in 15 games for a Roughnecks team that finished 10-8 as the 6th seed in the NLL playoff bracket.

(Photo Credit: National Lacrosse League)