Who was that ?

Condition

There is a growing concern in the lacrosse community about the potential loss of our games’ statistical data. Let’s be clear that this is no one’s fault but rather an evolution of technology. For many, many years individual member associations kept their own records. This was mostly only at the Junior to Senior levels of lacrosse. This was primarily accomplished through game sheets completed by volunteers and often incomplete and/or inaccurate. During the most recent years we have seen a huge decline in print media that once published the names of point getters in daily newspapers.

Over the years we were very fortunate to have had 2 exceptionally dedicated people involved in the collection of statistical data. Those being Stan Shillington in British Columbia and Larry “Wamper” Powers in Ontario. Larry in particular spent countless hours travelling from town to town searching old newspapers and library film trying to get the most accurate information possible. Interesting to note as Wamper didn’t drive and he had to rely on friends to drive him and public transportation. Stan and Larry willingly shared the information they gathered by snail mail for many years to get the statistical history in one place. Wampers Bible of Lacrosse was our sole place for people to get their lacrosse information until Larry’s untimely death in 2019. The Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame has reproduced most of the work and it is to their credit that the data was not lost forever. However much of the information is limited to the highest levels of the Canadian game. Many of the leagues continued to collect the necessary data for their own use.

In 2001 the Major Lacrosse League (USA) started using Pointstreak Technologies to give the lacrosse community what they had been looking for. Lacrosse details in real time! Over the next 20 years the National Lacrosse League, Western Lacrosse Association, Major Series Lacrosse, Ontario Junior A, B and C to name a few followed suit. In western Canada the various leagues and governing bodies used several different platforms to collect statistical history. For many different reasons there was not a lot of consistency and lack in how this information was collected. We seemed to forget one segment of the community that this important information is for.

https://pointstreak.com/lacrosse/lacrosse-list.html

The Fans!

The reason baseball is America’s favorite pastime is fan engagement in numbers. Box scores, Earned Run Average, Batting Average are the lifeblood of their fans. Our lacrosse community needs and deserves more data than they are getting. What happened to listing attendance? How do you measure the success of your program without comparing it to your growth or lack of? Why are the officials no longer listed in the stats? Not only the fans want to know, but so do the teams. I am sure the individual officials would like to know how many games they have done in a season/career as the 3^rd team on the floor and at which level of play. Leagues and governing bodies should be using this as a tool to look for trends for official development. Who were the bench staff, coaches, trainers etc.?

Most lacrosse fans will not hesitate to tell you how difficult it has been to navigate the numerous websites to find what they are looking for. Websites change, links for stats disappear without a consistent process. The costs for operating statistical programs range from $25 per league to $750 per team. This is hard to comprehend given today’s state of technology.

Other users include the various lacrosse halls of fame, university and college recruiters and professional scouts. The more data available the better.

The Problem

The most obvious is without people like Larry or Stan collecting the historical information who will? What happens when current platform providers go out of business or take down their websites? Every time a league changes their provider you run that risk. There is no central place for the storage of our history. It will be gone. Forever!

The Opportunty

Who should ultimately be responsible for keeping this vault of information? As the game continues to grow internationally leading up to the 2028 Olympics the obvious choice would be World Lacrosse. The logic being every player and team in the world comes through them as conditions of registration. If not because Lacrosse Canada as they are proud to say that lacrosse is the National Summer Sport of Canada. Perhaps the Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame or the Canadian Lacrosse Foundation. It is unlikely the National Lacrosse League would take this on. With one central place for statistical data the potential for sponsorship is endless. All members would need to agree that before renewing contracts with providers that the technology going forward be provided and centralized.