Mark Millon is in the Player Spotlight
after the Philadelphia Wings won their final game of the season beating
the Albany Attack 9 - 4. He talked about the victory with PLPA
correspondent Saul Davidson after the game.
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Great game tonight Mark... let's talk a bit
about the first quarter and
the Wing's performance on the floor. What do you think the differences
were
out there?
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Well the last couple of years Rob Blasdell has been one of the best
goalies in the league and you look at these guys from Albany and they've
been in just about every game. They really start with their defense. We
just started to pound away in the first quarter and if things didn't go
our
way we'd continue on that and hope they'd eventually fall. It's kind of
what happened when we played them at our home earlier this season. We
have
a lot of respect for them. I think we just came out a little slow just
because it was the last game and then we had a home playoff game riding on
it and the intensity just wasn't there. But we knew they had a good
defense
and a good goalie and we just had to pound away until they dropped.
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The Wings are now 4-0 lifetime against the
Attack franchise. How was the
confidence coming into this game even though 2 of those wins came on 1
goal
decisions?
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Well, we don't look at that too much. We just kind of look at it game
by
game. Everybody in this league is giving it! Even Ottawa, they were only
1
and 13. They were pretty much in every game also. You do expect a little
bit of confidence going in on a team that you're 3-0 against. We knew we
had to play them hard and we knew we had to beat
them.
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You've seen all sorts of aspects of this team
including league changes,
also playing with New York and Syracuse. How do you feel about your
position in Philly?
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Oh it's great. Some of the other teams I played for I had a great
time
playing for and the guys were great. As far as the organization and the
fan
support and the group of guys, I don't think there's anything close in the
league. Toronto is obviously pretty special too. They pack their
building
and they've won some championships. I wouldn't want to be playing
anywhere
else. It's really special.
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Now with Philly's playoff outlook, you have home
field advantage in the
first round against Rochester and if Washington gets by Toronto, you'll be
hosting the championship. What's the team going to be looking to do to
get
by Rochester next week?
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It's hard not to look at that a little bit. We will not look past
Rochester at all. We've been fortunate to beat them twice this year. If
you look at their schedule, after they lost to us they did pretty good.
The
won 6 or 7 games or so. In this league it's hard to beat a team three
times
in a season, especially a team that's that good. We have home field and
that building and the crowd really tends to get us fired up. If we can
suck
that energy in, it's going to be a close game. Maybe a 1 or 2 goal game,
and maybe we can play a little bit better than them.
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Coming this summer you're going to be looking at
some year round lacrosse
and you'll be a member of the Baltimore Bayhawks squad. Tell us a little
bit of what you're going to be looking forward to in Major League
Lacrosse.
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I'm really looking forward to it. Obviously there's a decent amount
of
money behind it. There are some good sponsors for the league. For the
Bayhawks we have a pretty good group of guys on paper so far. I'm really
looking forward to getting outdoors. While the NLL is fun for me and I
really enjoy playing, field lacrosse is what I grew up playing and it's
really the strength of my game. We'll go after the championship here in
the
next couple of weeks and try to win it and then I'll be really fired up
for
field lacrosse.
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Now you also represent one of the major title
sponsors for the MLL,
Warrior Lacrosse. Tell us a bit about your involvement with them.
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It's a great group. It's a great group of guys that we have on board.
It starts with David Morrow on the top. He was a great lacrosse player
and
he started the company about 8 years ago. His philosophy is let's not try
to mess around and try to grow, but let's grow our market share and keep
knockin' heads with STX and Brine. Let's try to grow the market and grow
lacrosse. He did that by putting money back into the game continuously
and
hiring a great group of guys. We've got myself, Casey Powell, Jesse
Hubbard, and Ryan Powell. We all work full time for the company. Things
are going incredible for us. We've taken a lot of the market share. I
think we're at about a 4 on a scale of 1 to 10. We really think that
Major
League Lacrosse will be really huge for us.
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You're on a very talented squad and you yourself
are a strong veteran in
the league. Is there anyone that you still look up to in this sport?
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Oh yeah. I have respect for all of our guys! Obviously Dallas
carried
us. He's the best goalie in the league whether he has the best save
percentages or not. Dallas IS the best goalie in the league. Playing
with
Tommy Marachek, I actually live with Tom. He and I are roommates. And
Jake
has had an unbelievable year. It really is a team effort. If one guy
doesn
't have a good night, hopefully one of the others will pick it up. We try
to do everything and try to put a real team effort on the floor.
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You're a great player both indoors and out, tell
us about your passion
for this game.
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I love it. I have a lot of fun playing the game. I've also been able
to
make a great living from it. And hopefully it will just keep growing.
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