Sean Mahon
Sports Editor and Photographer
This February, the Premier Lacrosse League will be introducing a new format to the league with the Championship Series. The Championship series will be hosted at The St. James in Washington D.C. from February 22nd to February 26th. The series will feature the four top teams of the 2022 regular season who will face off in a six-on-six competition and each team will feature a 12 man roster. All players will use a short-stick and are eligible to move around the 70 meter by 36 meter field as midfielders. In terms of team possessions, if shots and passes result with the ball going out of bounds the possession reverts to the defense. The shot clock has also been cut down from the standard 52 second in the regular season to 30 second making it the fastest shot clock in all levels of lacrosse. Another way the league has made this format more fast paced is that they only have face offs at the beginning of each quarter which drastically reduces wasted time teams use when substituting FOGOs (Face Off Get Off) and Long Stick Midfielders.
The series will take place in a course of a week where four teams will be competing in nine games. The first round is the Round Robin followed by the Semifinals, and lastly the Championship. The Round Robin will be played from Wednesday, February 22nd to Friday, February 24th where two games will be played each day. The Semifinals will be played on Saturday, February 25th and the Championship game will be played on Sunday, February 26th. On February 22nd at 5:30PM ET the Atlas will be taking on the Whipsnakes followed by the Chrome taking on the Archers at 7:30PM ET. On February 23rd at 6:30PM ET the Archers will be taking on the Whipsnakes followed by the Atlas taking on the Chrome. On February 24th at 5:30PM ET the Atlas will be taking on the Archers followed by the Chrome taking on the Whipsnakes. Updates on who will move on to the Semi Finals and Championships will be announced following the conclusion of the Round Robin.
