WHAT ARE THE NEW RULES FOR LAX HEADS?

There are new head dimensions that a lacrosse stick head must conform to in order to be NCAA legal in 2010, and for the most part the changes can be boiled down to a few main morsels.  The meaty part of the new rules that everyone will need to chew on, swallow and digest is that the THROAT opening of the head will be mandated by measurements in a way that will make it quite a bit WIDER than it generally has been.  Pocket restrictions and legalities were previously the only things in the rulebook that dealt with the lower part of the head.  That opening area space kept becoming narrower and smaller.  There was a minimum measurement for between the sidewalls, but that applied to just a single measuring point in a place close to the top of the head and near the scoop, nowhere near the throat.

There will now be a 3.0” minimum measurement required between the sidewalls starting at a place very close to the throat of the head.  Further, the distance must stay at least at that 3” minimum (generally making it much wider than it has been) more or less halfway up the head. This will of course make the throat area of most all heads more visually open than they have been, too.  The 3” minimum goes up the side 3”, and at 5 inches up the opening must remain at least 3.5 inches, making the center section of heads in most cases much more open than they have been during the ‘pinched head era’.  The ball only takes up about 2.5” of space.

Another dimension change for heads is that at the NCAA level of play they will only need to be 6” or more (1/2 inch narrower than before) at the widest opening at the top of the stick.  Before 2010 they had to be at least 6.5” at that widest point.  This is presumably a narrowing concession for the rule change detractors that will give back a little for more ball retention, but at the same time it also takes away some of the catching area of the head.   Another thing about the narrower 6.0” top measurement is that there will be a little less stick head for the defender to check, making it perhaps a little easier for the ball carrier to ‘hide’ it from a defender.

The head manufacturers were given a couple of years to prepare for and make appropriate changes to get the head designs in line for 2010.  D-Day has arrived, however.

WHAT BROUGHT ABOUT THE CHANGE?

Prior to 2010 most of the heads on the market were being manufactured with an opening in the lower part of the head that was barely big enough for the ball to fit through, and this made for the ball being very snug and safe in the pocket.  It was becoming almost impossible to dislodge ball from stick with a good check.  There is no doubt that an opening that is only just about as big as the ball helps to trap the ball behind the sidewall more than the new ones that will have visible space on either side of the ball when it is sitting still in the pocket.

By rule it has always been the case that when the ball is in the vertical stick and the head of the stick is tipped forward of 90 degrees the ball must roll freely and easily out of the pocket over the foam stop area of the head.  It came to pass that with many heads the slightest bit of pocket attaching string in the wrong place on the sidewall could trap the ball so it couldn’t roll out when tipped, making the pocket illegal, a one minute infraction against the player and his stick. The throats were getting so squeezed by manufacturers and by pinching the head in an oven, etc. that it almost became a trick just to keep the pocket legal so the ball wouldn’t get stuck in the pocket, period.  All this became a major problem for coaches, players, referees, consumers, everyone.  Kids had illegal sticks far too often and with much less intent than ever before. That, in theory won’t happen anymore.  With the changes, this part of keeping it all legal will be much easier. If the ball is trapped inside the head now it will be due to how the pocket is constructed, etc., and not because of factors caused by the head opening width, or should I say lack of it.

THE OBJECTIVE

I think the rule makers are trying to bring back the effective defender’s stick check with the new rules. They are attempting to change what had become the new balance of power in lacrosse.  The lack of stick specifications as they had been made for a game that in fact tilted the field decidedly in a direction that favored the player carrying the ball, or the offense, as if the game doesn’t already give the offensive player enough advantage.  They wanted to make it more possible for a defender to knock the ball out of the stick.  The rule changers surely took note of the fact that great checks by great defensemen were going unrewarded.  I concur that it has seemed like the ball would never come out of anyone’s stick anymore, especially at the college level. 

It is also likely that they factored in the fairly obvious trend that more ball carriers were becoming less afraid of trying to maneuver into the critical shooting area right in front of the cage. In lacrosse it should be hard to get in the goalie’s face with the ball, and the evolution that came over time created the perception that it had perhaps gotten too easy for one guy to get close. 

The thinking was likely that this trend was not in the best interest of the game.  For example, good offensive players knew that most whacks from defenders were not going to dislodge the ball from their stick so consequently they could try to do more with dodging.  Confidence is a great enabler.

HOW MUCH WILL THE NEW RULES CHANGE THE GAME?

The game of lacrosse at the college level is where the rules change will take affect on January 1, 2010.  It is likely that it will become standard everywhere within a couple of years.  It is probably not going to radically change what you see on the field overnight, but there are some intriguing questions.

Will this rule change actually bring about the desired affect of allowing the ball to get knocked out of the head more frequently?  I think so, to one degree or another.

WHAT WILL THAT CHANGE FOR THE PLAYER?

In theory, since the idea is for the ball not to get so easily trapped inside the stick, the first assumption to make is that ball carriers will now have to hone their stick skills to a sharper place than ever before if they hope to really hold on to the valuable little piece of rubber we affectionately call THE BALL.  Who knows?  Players might start cradling again.

A big challenge for any player will be which of the 50 heads available to choose.  All together, we have 65 heads on our Rock-it Pocket product page right now. The manufacturers are throwing out and onto the market more head models than ever, but it is very possible that the uniformity to the new dimensions could make all these styles perform more like one another than ever.  Time will tell on this point.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN FOR THE POCKET?

Players will try to compensate for the widening-of-the-head rule by trying to get the narrowness back through the pocket and how the stick is strung.  The art and science of this will evolve to be sure. The mesh pocket piece is a single, standard size.  Because the throat area of the stick has been getting narrower and narrower it has left more and more sag or depth potential to the pocket in the throat area.  More mesh + less area to cover = more pocket depth.  By widening the throat it will pull the mesh ‘up’ a little, which will likely tend to make pocket central want to move generally a little upward towards the mid section of the head, and to a place where the ball is a little more vulnerable to a defender’s stick check.

There are techniques for stringing the mesh, inside the wall or out for example that can make a difference and keep the pocket narrow and channeled, and we are indeed finding that HOW the mesh is strung in the new heads can make a big difference, so this is definitely something to keep in mind as a player navigating the forest of new heads.

NCAA ONLY

The new NCAA heads can be as narrow as 6 inches wide at the widest point and previously they had to measure at least 6.5 inches, so in fact, with wider at the bottom and narrower at the top, the 6X heads will have more head width uniformity, which will likely make for more consistent ball tracking. 

The narrowing at the top is likely a concession of sorts.  It does make the catching area of the heads a little smaller.  That is something that long pole players especially will want to consider.  They need as much catching area as they can get in my opinion.  At the same time, these heads might hold up better for poke checking because the smaller opening will allow for less flex of the head and scoop when ‘poking’, etc..

WILL TEAM OFFENSE CHANGE?

Will the dodge become a little bit less of the dominant offensive weapon used and make it become a little more important to break down a defense with good passing?  Team offense is not a new concept, but I do think the changes will have an impact on how teams play offense in the future.

WILL TEAM DEFENSE CHANGE?

One affect that all the pinched heads had on the game over the years was that they made it generally more difficult for a team to really protect the net they were defending.  It was not enough to just play good individual one on one defense on the guy with the ball.  It got harder for the individual defender to keep the shooter from getting in a good shooting place.  In response to that trend defense minded thinking has made some good adjustments over the years.

For one thing there has been an emergence of short stick defensive specialists in recent years, and that fact along with the ball not quite so tightly hugged by the stick might make it harder to find ‘easy’ offensive match-ups to dodge against. There will be reflections of this visible on both sides of the ball.

Team defensive tactics also evolved with the challenges that the individual stick being so pinched brought to the game.  In recent years great emphasis has been put on playing great team defense, which, by the way is the great way, in my opinion, to approach defense every day anyway   I believe the defense has the greatest chance of taking the ball away from the other team with body checks and crisp double-teams. I like to use a great defender for his individual skill, but as a coach I have never wanted to totally depend on that.  I want everyone to know how to do things well as a total defense and how to help each other take an aggressive approach to playing defense. 

Great team defense puts a premium on things like excellent spacing and communication. These are not always easy things.  A hallmark of great team defense is that it does things to make your goalie look good, and that is always a good thing, too, but I digress.

Real team defense has been really taught for a long time now.  The “Princeton” quick sliding defense is 20 years old.  Kids have been learning the importance of the slide on defense ever since they were knee-high to a long pole.  They are not playing grandpa’s defense in lacrosse anymore.  With this rule change and a little bit of a supposed advantage being leveraged toward the defender, it seems almost certain that there will be a somewhat profound effect on the game that will follow sooner or later.

In addition perhaps with these new head rules teams might not have quite as much of an itchy squeeze finger on the slide ‘trigger’ defensively.  Coaches will have more confidence in any one player’s ability to play one on one defense within the team scheme.  This might allow for other unforeseen trends to emerge in the playing of defense.  Time and not speculation will reveal the growth rings on that tree.

WHAT ABOUT FACE-OFFS?

I must admit that it will be interesting to see how all this impacts face-off performance.  Things will be at least somewhat equalized for the face-off guys with these new standardized dimensions.  Players won’t be able to get the extra advantage on a clamp move for example because they have pinched the head a little more than the other guy.  Everyone will more or less have the same face-off stick so it might be a little less obvious as to which head is best for facing off.

NEW DAY/BACK IN THE DAY

The thing that sticks out to me now with the new head dimensions is that the head will need all the help it can get in the area of ball retention, something that is right up the Rock-it Pocket design alley.  The Rock-it Pockets are designed to narrow the pocket and keep the ball safely nestled in one spot.

As an aside, I have been trying to use mesh pockets this fall to warm up goalies, etc., and I know I am prejudice, but it escapes me why everyone doesn’t think that leather for ball tracking and real shooting strings (not only hockey laces) is the only way to go.   With the Rock-it Pocket in particular you get that consistent, quick release that I just can’t find as well with mesh. By just keeping a little tension on the center leathers and the side strings or leathers tight you can have maximum hold and virtually no whip regardless of the distance between the sidewalls.  And if you want more whip, that is easy to find in the leather adjustment as well.  The Rock-it Pocket also hugs the ball with the leather strips, which helps to hold the ball in the stick better.