House and Garden
Blazers housemates (from left) Nick Rose, Nick Cotter, Matt Lyons and Mitch Belisle relax outside the ‘Blazer Den’ before practice. (photo: Jerry Spar/New England Lacrosse JournalJerry Spar/New England Lacrosse Journal)
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by Justin Rice/
Making their way toward TD Banknorth Garden for a Britney Spears concert, teenage girls in Ugg boots bopped past an unassuming free-standing brick house in Boston’s North End one evening last month without noticing a blue campaign-style sign in the window reading: 2009 Boston Blazers, A “Hard-hitting” Candidate. Inside, four members of Boston’s pro indoor lacrosse team ate homemade chicken Parmesan off paper plates and circulated an Xbox controller during a round of Tiger Woods PGA Tour ’08.
“He’s actually not away, he’s at the concert,” Blazers goalie Nick Rose joked of the fifth housemate/teammate, defender Jon Harnett, who was out of town during the team’s two-week break in the schedule.
“Yeah Mitch tried to get tickets,” forward Nick Cotter added, speaking of defenseman Mitch Belisle, who was sitting next to him.
“I tried to get tickets,” Belisle plainly admitted. “I talked to Lisa from 107.9 and she said if I would’ve talked to her last week she could’ve gotten them for me.”
Within view of Charlestown’s Bunker Hill monument and sandwiched between an auto garage and bakery-supply company, the house dubbed the “Blazers Den” is an unlikely home for professional lacrosse players. The players (Rose, Belisle, Cotter, Harnett and forward Matt Lyons), might even have seemed more like college players than the National Lacrosse League pros they are, but that was all part of coach Tom Ryan’s plan when he assembled the roster before the Blazers’ inaugural season started in January.
In addition to looking to acquire athletic lacrosse players “whose best lacrosse is still ahead of them,” Ryan also sought to buck the norm in a league in which players work fulltime jobs in their respective hometowns and commute to games every weekend. In fact, NLL teams only are allowed one full practice per week, so teams with players living closer to one another can’t practice more often.
Ryan still sought players willing to relocate to Boston for the winter and ended up convincing 13 members of his 24-man roster to move.
“I believe it is in our best interest to have the majority of players being local this winter since it should help us spread the word that the Blazers are back, along with helping us to establish a real sense of team,” Ryan wrote on an Oct. 17 blog post before the season.
Originally, the idea was to save money on airfare and travel expenses over the course of a 16-game season. While Ryan recently crunched the numbers and said that probably wouldn’t be the case given the cost of living in the North End, his strategy did pay off on the field. After a rough 2-2 start, the Blazers went on a five-game tear before losing, 9-8, to Toronto on March 14.
“Most teams practice once a week,” Ryan said. “Our scenario, where guys get together on a daily basis, living together and that sort of stuff, goes a long way if you can only practice once a week.”
Ryan said having the players be part of the community brings legitimacy to the club.
“I think that goes a long way,” he said, adding, “if guys come in for a weekend they can come together and have a sense of team, but it’s not the same as 14 guys living steps from the Garden. It’s inspiring to wake up and see the Garden. There’s motivation in it.”
The players work out together in a nearby gym at least twice a week and are allowed to organize shoot-arounds with eight players or less. They go on runs around the city together and play pickup roller hockey at a nearby park.
“The more time we spend together the better we play together. We bond as a group,” Belisle said, adding that 95 percent of their conversations at home revolve around lacrosse.
“It brings us closer together,” Cotter added while accidently playing Belisle’s shot on the virtual links.
In addition to the newly remodeled five-bedroom house 1½ blocks from the Garden, the Blazers also rented three other North End apartments. One is filled by brothers Paul and Dan Dawson. Brenden Thenhaus, Jon Durno and Kyle Ross occupy another. Gary Bining, Daryl Veltman and Jay Thorimbert live in the third apartment. Sean Morris, a native of Marshfield, Mass., has his own South Boston residence.
After Ryan conceived the idea to have players move to Boston, he charged Belisle, who works 20-25 hours a week in the team’s front office, with finding North End housing.
“It is not the Taj Mahal or anything,” Ryan wrote on the Oct. 17 blog post of the Blazer Den, “but if the year was 1996 and I was still sleeping on my friend Marshall’s couch in Newton Corner blowing around leaves by day and coaching Mount Ida College by afternoon … I would be totally psyched to be moving into what may someday soon be referred to as the ‘Blazer Den’ for the next six months.”
Originally, however, Ryan imagined a series of two-bedroom apartments and was skeptical of so many guys living together near so many bars and restaurants when Belisle first pitched it.
“I know more than two or three guys living together can get out of hand, but Mitch assured me he’d take responsibility and oversee the house so it didn’t turn into a frat house,” Ryan said. “They might be staying up until 6 a.m. playing video games, but they’re not out drinking.”
Belisle said they’re pretty upfront about most of their antics.
“If we do anything too crazy, we clean up the next day,” he said. “We’re usually good.”
The best aspect of their setup is that they can walk to work, rather than hopping on planes, trains and automobiles every weekend.
Working as a financial analyst on Wall Street last year after graduating from Cornell in 2007, Belisle spent the year commuting to Los Angeles, where he played for Major League Lacrosse’s Riptide.
“That was brutal,” said Belisle, who will play for MLL’s Boston Cannons this year.
Lyons played indoor for the Rochester Knighthawks last year and commuted nearly four hours from his native Ontario for games.
“I got sick of driving all the time,” said Lyons, who worked in a sporting goods store by day last season but this year was awaiting the proper visa — along with Lyons and Rose — to be able to start working for a moving company. “Plus, you get closer to your teammates, which is why we live together. You’re always with them.”
Living in such cramped quarters, especially on weekends of home games, when family and friends often crash at the house, can take its toll. Since the season started, a weekend hasn’t gone by without a house guest sleeping on one of two couches in the living room.
“We live it, and it’s what we love,” Belisle said. “At the same time, if you ever need to get away, it’s a big city. That’s the good part.”
Earning between $12,000 and $20,000 for their services, most NLL players are a throwback to the days when professional athletes only moonlighted as professional athletes after working day jobs. For the guys who don’t work during the day, filling free time also can be a challenge, although they said with 13 teammates in the neighborhood there’s always something to do. For the most part, however, relocating to Boston has freed the players to focus on lacrosse and live a lifestyle closer to the ones most professional athletes live. It all comes at a cost, though, as they are removed from family and friends and have to put off working regular jobs.
“Some of these guys put their lives on hold because they feel this strongly about this team and this opportunity,” Ryan said. “Guys are sacrificing to be there. Once again, it shows on the floor that this is a priority and they are willing to commit six months to a team. That says a lot about who these guys are.”
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