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.



Tonight the Albany Attack showed the New York Saints a bit of OverTime revenge as they shut down the Saints 11-10 in sudden death. In the low scoring game that showed tough defensive abilities it was strong strategy and a five goal run for Dan Teat that put the Attack on top in the end. Another contributer to the score board tonight was Steve Fannell who notched a goal in the second period. PLPA Correspondent Saul Davidson met with Steve at the Albany post game party at Broadway Joes in New York.....




Question Tonight looked like a great turn of events from last year with the Saints. You went down to Nassau Coliseum and took a tough overtime loss. And tonight you had a bit of a rematch and defeated the Saints on your own turf in overtime.
Answer Well we talked about that a bit tonight before the game and realized that New York took quite advantage of us early last year. They took that game off us and we said this year we re not going to let them do it especially in our home arena. We came out and played hard and we knew they were going to be a good team this year. They had a good game their first game.


Question Both teams looked like they had a slow start offensively, and a real tight defensive match. Then to top it all off the down to the wire finish at the end. Your thoughts?
Answer Well they re learning to play more of a defensive role right now so they re stopping more of our big guns and we re doing the same with them. I think it just took us a little bit of time to feel each other out.


Question You got a goal in the second period to put yourself on the board, that was a great shot. We re there any weaknesses in New York tonight that you tried to utilize?
Answer Actually what we tried to do was just play ball control on offense. Defensively they showed some great defense and hopefully we figured the ball would just go our way. Eventually it did and Teddy Dowling got that big goal in overtime and Dan Teat got five goals, that was amazing.


Question It was a great night for Teat. Overall there is a tight Canadian bond on the Albany Attack squad. What s the relationship with all of you as players on the field.
Answer I think we re a big threat. We re all good friends. And we re a close family. We all travel down together (from Canada) on the bus. You get to know the guys really well as opposed to just in the dressing room. You get to learn about everyone s lifestyle. We re a close bunch of guys and it s really good. And I m really happy.


Question How about your feelings towards Cam Woods and his nomination to Captain?
Answer Cammy s actually a great choice for Captain. I really respect him. In the summer he s Captain of his Brooklin team so he has the respect of a lot of the older players and the younger players. And he really speaks his mind. He is really positive about things. He s a good Captain. Very good choice.


Question On the strategy side of things, has Terry (Sanderson) made any changes in the style of gameplay this year from last year?
Answer Yeah, last year we did 4 guys on offense, 8 in the middle and 3 on defense. This year we do the same but the 2nd and 4th quarter we try 2 on offense, 11 in the middle and 2 on the back. Just a little bit more style maybe to open up a little bit more through transistions. It s helped us out a little bit.


Question I noticed Troy Cordingly missing from tonight s lineup. It looked like he was substituted with a few different legs this week.
Answer Yeah, I guess the coaches decided that Troy needed to sit out tonight and a few of us players didn t understand because we thought he had a really good game last game. But they re coaches decisions and as players we cant take it to heart. We have to go out there and give 100 percent of the time. We hope the best for Troy and we know he ll be back in the lineup.


Question Tell us where you want to be in the future of lacrosse and the NLL.
Answer Well, hopefully still playing in Albany. And hopefully we ll win that championship this year. I wanna just stay with Albany and keep winning. I don t have any intention of quitting or retiring or anything like that. I feel good here.



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.



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