Player Spotlight


Player Spotlight highlights the finer details and elements while supplying insight to the fans on what a player's thought process may be pertaining to a certain play, game or situation. It brings the intensity, passion, and inner most thoughts of the individual player that otherwise may not be felt or heard.

Tonights inaugural home game for the Albany Attack showed the locals of Albany what the NLL is made of. The game featured the highest scoring game yet this season. A 21-19 win for the Attack, a barrage of great hits, penalties, and a pre-game fire works show which set the building on fire during the National Anthem. Lucky for the fans, the fire was extinguished before the fire alarms were activated.

In the Player Spotlight this week is Adam Mueller of the of the Albany Attack. Adam brings the most experience of indoor lacrosse to this 1st year expansion team boasting a 10 year history with the MILL / NLL. Adam's tenure in the league has seen him on the rosters of the Detroit Turbos, the Baltimore Thunder, and the Philadelphia Wings. In the Attacks inaugural game in Philadelphia, they shocked the Wings to an 11-11 tie at the end of regulation only to suffer defeat a minute into sudden death overtime. Although Adam didn't dress for tonight's roster, we met up with him after the game and talked with him about his career and the Albany Attack.

PLPA correspondent Saul Davidson interviewed Mueller after the game.

Team: Albany Attack
Player: # 24 Adam Mueller
Born: 08-25-66
Tenure: 10 years


Question Great win tonight, how does it feel for the team?
Answer It's great going (1-1) against two playoff teams, Philadelphia and Baltimore, it's quite an accomplishment for us. We thought we should've won last week, but let it slip away. But making up for it tonight is great.


Question How about this inaugural home crowd? Do you feel indoor lacrosse is going to have a permanent home here in Albany?
Answer I think so! It's surprising, we had 8,500 or so which is great for a first time.


Question You guys had some good runs tonight with some unanswered goals of four and up to five in one case. How does it make the team feel to be on fire like that?
Answer It's great. Every time we seemed that we got ahead by a couple of goals, Pittsburgh came back with two or three goals of their own, and we answered them with two or three ore of our own.


Question Being a 10 year veteran and coming into your 11th season in professional indoor lacrosse you've seen several aspects and several rosters of the MILL / NLL. How does the new expansion team Attack differ from the ones that you 've been a part of?
Answer I think that by trading our top draft pick for a couple of veteran players, it doesn't really make us look like an expansion team, but more of a veteran team. We've got a lot of guys that teams kinda discounted and wanted to get rid of and I think those guys are stepping up and scoring and we've got 5 - 6 rookies that have stepped up and are playing better which helps a lot.


Question There was some comments being tossed around last week in Philadelphia about some bad officiating, and several goals being called back. How do you feel the officials are so far this year? Fair? No?
Answer Well in the first game, I don't think I've ever seen in my life 4 goals get called back on one team in one game and the goalie Dallas Eliuk has been known for knockin' the goal off its spot. And he did that, I think, about 4 times in that game and that was kinda tough. And we still went into overtime and we still had a chance to win it, and we didn't win it. Tonight, we had a lot of early calls and they had a lot of late calls and we ended up pullin' it out.


Question In regards to Dallas Eliuk, goalies are responsible for the position of their goals by rule, are they not?
Answer Yes they are.


Question If an outdoor league were come to play. Is that something that you'd anticipate being a player in?
Answer I don't think my wife's gonna let me. 6 months a year is enough for her I think. So, I think I'm going to be spending some time at home with my kids watching a lot of lacrosse in the summer time.


Question I've always been a strong supporter of returning a team to the Boston / New England market. Would you like to see Boston return to the league in next year's season?
Answer That would be great. I know we had a lot of guys from Boston try out for this team and there were a lot of good ball players. I know it's a tough decision that they didn't make the team, but if Boston comes back with it, it would be a legitimate franchise right of the bat.


Question You've played for a total of four teams now over your decade-long career? Which season stands out as the most memorable for you, and why?
Answer I would say my last year in Detroit. My fifth year in Detroit right before the team disbanded. We had a lot of young guys who are stars in the league right now, still! I thought if that team had stayed together it would've been a great situation. But then again this team, the way they built this team, the coaching staff, and the way things look for us now, I think I'm more excited about this year then just about any other year.


PLPA Correspondent

Saul Davidson has followed the MILL / NLL since 1990. His first involvement with the MILL came with the forming of the Boston Blazers Boosters at the FleetCenter in Massachusetts in 1995, under the close eye of the Blazers PR department. He also constructed and maintained the Blazer's homepage on the world wide web, which is still in existence today. His history includes news articles and awards for several news web sites, including e-lacrosse, the Boston Herald, the Outsiders Guide to the NLL, and many other fan sites. Since the departure of the Blazers franchise from the league, he formed Arena Media in early 1998, a one stop source on the Internet for sports, stadium and expansion news. Arena Media currently hosts one of the largest sources of professional lacrosse news.



PLPA Correspondent

Tom Borrelli, fell in love with lacrosse while writing for his school campus paper "The Record" as a student at Buffalo State College in 1977.

He has seen and covered over 1000 games at all levels which includes the Buffalo Bandits for the Buffalo News since their inception in 1991, NCAA Tournament games, Final Four Championships, upstate New York schools games, the Canadian Mann Cup Championship, the OLA Major Box Lacrosse Series, the Buffalo Gamblers of the OLA Major Series and high school events.

Tom presently writes for the Buffalo News and does extensive feature writing for Lacrosse Magazine and Inside Lacrosse. Between pro box, college and high school field and OLA box lacrosse Tom attends about 50 to 60 games a year (and Dick Vitale thinks he has it made with hoops!) The PLPA is happy to have Tom on board as a contributing writer for the Player Spotlight.