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)

The players are a short walk from work at the TD Banknorth Garden. (photo: Jerry Spar/New England Lacrosse Journal)

Belisle (left) and Lyons gather their equipment from the basement in preparation for a practice. (photo: Jerry Spar/New England Lacrosse Journal)

Cotter prepares a healthy breakfast. (photo: Jerry Spar/New England Lacrosse Journal)

Lyons, Rose, Cotter and Belisle take their shots with Tiger Woods PGA Tour ’08, one of the group’s video games. (photo: Jerry 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.”

From New England Lax Journal:

March 4, 2009

Impact player

Mitch Belisle (left) is earning a reputation as a hard-working and hard-hitting defender, as the New York Titans’ Jordan Hall can attest. (photo: Brian Clark/New England Lacrosse Journal)

by Justin Rice/

Whether he’s appearing in new media or old, no player on the upstart Boston Blazers has drawn more publicity to the indoor lacrosse team during its inaugural season than Mitch Belisle.

Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that the defenseman — who was featured in a Stuff magazine photo spread called Bodies by Boston — works in the team’s communications office by day. More likely, however, it has everything to do with the vicious hit Belisle laid on Jarrett Park of the New York Titans in Boston’s home opener on Jan. 17.

The hit brought the biggest cheers from the TD Banknorth Garden crowd during the 13-9 loss when Belisle stormed out of the penalty box and blindsided Park, jarring the ball, the helmet and the wind from his unsuspecting opponent and former teammate.

And as of Feb. 10, the YouTube clip of the hit had received more than 22,000 views (you can see it at www.laxjournal.com).

“That was a 1-in-100 chance. I just happened to be coming out of the box and he wasn’t looking at me,” Belisle said after the game. “Jarrett is one of my good friends and I would expect him to do the exact same thing to me if I was in that situation. I’m interested to go talk to him after the game.”

While many traditional and casual lacrosse fans might see the hit as a cheap one, Blazers coach Tom Ryan seems to be of the mindset that any publicity for the National Lacrosse League is good publicity.

“Normally, defensive guys don’t get the limelight like that, but when you blow up Jarrett Park like he did … you don’t see many hits that big in any sport,” Ryan said. “I think everyone in the league has seen that a few times. It’s brought attention to our sport to the point where people are taking notice and saying, ‘That’s a tough sport.’ That’s, as I said, one of the bigger hits that you’ll see in any sport. I do believe Mitch has a photo of that hanging up in his office.”

While he might not be used to so much hubbub around him, Belisle is no stranger to receiving accolades within the annals of lacrosse.

At Cornell, Belisle won the Schmeisser Cup as the nation’s top defenseman and was a first-team All-American as a senior.

Graduating in 2007, Belisle moved to New York City to work for the ratings agency Moody’s. After spending a year analyzing credit mortgage securities by day and flying to Los Angeles on weekends to play for Major League Lacrosse’s Riptide, Belisle was laid off from his job as the financial crisis rocked the world and Moody’s lost 90 percent of its business, according to Belisle.

“I moved there right when everything started to collapse on itself. Obviously, it was an eye-opening experience being in the market when I was,” the 23-year-old said. “It was definitely a little taxing. I was so busy and always on the move. It was a good experience and fun. I got to see two great parts of the country. It was fun but definitely tough on my body, and by the fall I was ready for a break.”

Belisle called the layoff a blessing in disguise, because he’s not a person who can sit in front of a computer all day. After he was let go, he moved to Los Angeles and coached at lacrosse camps when he wasn’t playing for the Riptide.

His future with Los Angeles’ outdoor team, however, ended when the team’s ownership group declined to renew its stake in the franchise. Shortly after he was laid off, the former New York Titan was happy to be drafted by the Blazers with the second pick in last June’s NLL dispersal draft. And in February, it was announced that his MLL rights would belong to the Boston Cannons.

The move to Boston was somewhat of a homecoming for the 5-foot-10, 195-pounder, who lived in Bourne, Mass., as a teenager and whose grandparents live in Westwood, Mass.

“I love Boston,” said Belisle, who lives with several teammates in the city’s North End. “Growing up in New England, I have a lot of family here in Boston. It’s a historic city and a little more manageable than New York. It fits my personality and lifestyle well. I like the city and hope to be here a long time.”

With a father in the Coast Guard, Belisle was bound to move around during his childhood. He was born in Severna Park, Md., and attended grades 8 through 10 in Bourne before moving back to his lacrosse-crazy home state for grades 11 and 12.

Upon arriving on the Cape, Belisle was dismayed at his lacrosse options, in that there were none. So his parents helped start a youth lacrosse program in Bourne, where Belisle also played varsity hockey as an eighth grader on one of the top Division 3 teams in the state.

“It was exciting to be part of something new, just like here with the Blazers,” Belisle said of Bourne’s youth lacrosse program. “And it was good to go back to Maryland and have a chance to go back and play [lacrosse] at a high level.

“I learned how to play [lacrosse] in Maryland and fell in love with the sport,” Belisle continued. “We moved back to Maryland and we had a hockey team but it just started. It was almost an exact flip-flop in sports.”

Belisle didn’t let that stop him from excelling on the ice. He won the Yvonne Labre award for the best public high school hockey player in Maryland and his team lost in the state semifinals his senior year of 2003.

Focusing only on lacrosse at Cornell, Belisle was moved from the midfield, which he played all his life, to defense. The team won at least a share of the Ivy League title all four years of his tenure, including an undefeated season his sophomore year. And while he’s proud to say he never lost to Cornell’s chief rival, Princeton, Belisle’s team did lose to Duke with three seconds left in the national semifinals his senior year.

The heartbreaking losses kept coming after Belisle was picked 13th overall in the MLL draft by the Riptide. Two years ago Los Angeles lost in the championship game, and last year the Riptide lost in the last minute of the semifinals. Last year his NLL team, the Titans, lost in the Eastern Conference finals.

“It’s been a pretty unfortunate stretch,” said Belisle, who in February was named to the MLL Eastern Division All-Star team. “I like to think it’s not my fault.”

Belisle was finally on the other end of a last-second stunner (coincidentally, against the Titans) on Feb. 7 at the TD Banknorth Garden. Kyle Ross scored the game-winner for the Blazers that night with a half-second remaining for a 9-8 victory.

Belisle snagged three loose balls in that game to bring his total to 29 through six games this season. He also had two goals in those six games. That’s all in addition to his duties in the team’s front office. Blazers forward Dan Dawson said Belisle is not only the backbone of the team’s defense but also the team’s traveling secretary and clubhouse manager, coordinating the team’s itinerary and schedule.

“Not only is he a good teammate, but he’s kind of our organizer,” Dawson said before commenting on how quickly Belisle has adjusted to the indoor game. “You talk about a guy who never stops working for 60 minutes, that’s Mitch.”

But his role as the team’s ambassador in the media has also earned Belisle nicknames such as Playboy and Baby Face.

“He’s a good-looking guy, he’s got a great personality,” Ryan said, speaking to why Belisle has become the Blazers’ poster boy. “It’s kind of a combination of a lot of things, but the bottom line is he goes out and he plays hard and he’s been at the right place at the right time and has come up with some big plays.”