Lacrosse World Indoor Championships 2007

Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, May 2007

The second world indoor championships (after the inaugural 2003 event) took place in the 10,000-seater Halifax Metro Centre, in Halifax, Nova Scotia, from May 14th to May 20th 2007.

The nations

Eight nations took part in this event, the six nations from the 2003 championships together with newcomers England and Ireland. The hosts and reigning champions Canada were of course hot favourites, threatened mainly by USA and Iroquois. Battling for the other positions were Australia, Czech Republic and 2003's surprise team, Scotland.

The Group Stage

The eight teams were split up into two groups, of equal stature. Within each group, each team played each of the other teams once, with the following results:

Group A USA Australia Ireland
Canada Canada 18-5 Canada 24-4 Canada 25-1
USA   USA 19-9 USA 20-0
Australia     Australia 14-8
Group B England Scotland Czech
Iroquois Iroquois 27-8 Iroquois 19-4 Iroquois 24-4
England   England 15-7 England 9-7
Scotland     Scotland 11-9

After the two group rounds, both Canada and Iroquois go through with three comfortable wins, Canada's performance including an impressive 18-5 against the USA. Both Ireland and the Czech Republic finish winless, although the Czechs had two very narrow defeats against England and Scotland. Scotland in particular failed to repeat their successes from 2003, this time losing heavily to the Iroquois.

The Playoffs

In the playoffs, the top team from each group (Canada and Iroquois) were rewarded with a free pass to the semi-finals. The second- and third-placed teams in each group faced each other to decide who would meet those teams in the semis, and the fourth-placed teams (Ireland and the Czech Republic) met to decide 7th and 8th rankings.

This 7th/8th place decider was surprisingly one-sided, with Czech getting their first win 22-5 (storming away from a half-time score of 11-4). Then followed the two quarter-final games, between USA and Scotland (a relentless 17-9 for the USA) and England against Australia (a more even 15-11 to England despite Australia's face-off and ground ball dominance).

That left 5th and 6th place to be claimed by Scotland and Australia, which Scotland ran away with 14-8. And then the semi-finals, with Canada paired against England, and Iroquois facing the USA.

Canada gave England no chances and blasted past them 24-9, and the unbeaten Iroquois also had no problems dispatching the USA 14-4. The indoor game is certainly different from the outdoor one.

On the final day of the championships, England faced the USA for the 3rd/4th place playoff, and despite holding them to 8-6 (to the USA) at half-time, struggled in the third quarter and ended with a 17-10 defeat.

And so to the final, with a predictable line-up of Canada (unbeaten hosts, and reigning champions) against Iroquois (unbeaten, and runners-up in 2003). In the first quarter, helped by a superiority in ground balls and face-offs, Canada edged to a 4-2 lead. By half-time the tide had reversed and with three goals in less than a minute Iroquois had pulled back to 8-7 in front. In the third quarter, Canada's two early goals were answered by two late ones from the Iroquois, leaving it a nailbiting 10-9 going into the final quarter.

Three early Canada goals brought them again in front, only to be answered by three Iroquois goals. Two man-up goals from John Grant in quick succession brought a Canada victory tantalisingly close, only for Iroquois Dean Hill to snatch the equalizer in the final minute of the game to tie it at 14-14.

Extra time was called for, to decide the championship. Thirty seconds later, Canadian Jeff Zywicki, who had assisted many of the earlier Canadian goals, claimed his first goal of the match, making it 15-14, ending the sudden-death overtime and crowning Canada once again world indoor lacrosse champions.

Final rankings

The final placings for the championship (with 2003 ranking in brackets) were therefore:

  1. Canada (1)
  2. Iroquois (2)
  3. USA (3)
  4. England (-)
  5. Scotland (4)
  6. Australia (5)
  7. Czech Republic (6)
  8. Ireland (-)

Sources

The best sources of stats and results are worldindoorlacrosse.com and of course Wikipedia.

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