Oct. 26, 2006

Earlier today, U.S. Indoor Lacrosse announced that Tom Ryan, whose dreadlocks once defined the workmanlike plight of the American box player, will be the head coach of Team USA next May when it assumes the role of underdog at the 2007 ILF World Indoor Lacrosse Championship in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

But will the players follow?

Before this event debuted in 2003, the U.S. played an indoor exhibition against Canada, the standard-bearer for indoor lacrosse, and won. It was called the Heritage Cup, held in October 2002. Team USA was stacked with players who had successfully made the field-to-box transition among the professional ranks -- Mike Regan, Tim Soudan, Jake Bergey, Roy Colsey, Kevin Finneran, Jay Jalbert, Jamie Hanford, Mark Millon, Brian Reese, Regy Thorpe and one Tom Ryan among them.

"Yeah, that was fun," Jalbert says of the 21-16 U.S. victory in Ontario, "caught `em off guard a little. We ran them. Our shots went; theirs didn't."

However, few among those U.S. players -- three, according to previously submitted rosters -- were with the team seven months later when it fell to Canada and Scotland en route to a disappointing third-place finish at the world championships. Most were already entrenched with their summer teams in Major League Lacrosse.

And that same problem stands to pose itself for potential U.S. players this time around, with the championship's second installment scheduled for May 14-20.

"They'd miss their first game of MLL," says Finneran, a member of the management group tasked by US Lacrosse to build the 2007 team. "Unfortunately, the world championships were planned this way. We're lobbying the MLL right now [to exempt U.S. players]. You know the Canadians are going to come. We just hope our guys feel the same way."

Finneran is hoping the revenge factor will draw from the woodwork some box-experienced members of the 2006 U.S. team that lost to Canada in the field version of the ILF World Championship in July.

"We're hoping these guys -- Ryan Boyle, Casey Powell, Nicky Polanco, Jay Jalbert -- are going to be fired up to represent the U.S. this May," Finneran said.

Jalbert, who was asked to join Ryan's staff but declined, called it a "long shot" that he would play, because of MLL conflicts.

But Kyle Sweeney, a defensive staple for the National Lacrosse League's Philadelphia Wings, said, "This indoor U.S. team is definitely something some of us are interested in."

Finneran said letters have been sent to all invitees. Also, open tryouts will be held Nov. 25 and Dec. 1 in Philadelphia and Baltimore, respectively.