The images that run through my mind any time someone mentions “indoor lacrosse” are filled with violent collisions, nifty behind the back passes, bad helmets, and cross checks. Unfortunately, I’m deficient in all of those skills and those box helmets make me look like an overweight C3PO.

All the running and gunning is a blast for our converted defensemen.

Needless to say, when I was informed by the management of Blarney LC that we would be participating in a winter indoor league down in Beltsville, MD, I wasn’t the least bit interested.  C’mon guys!  Do we ever get a break?  Spring ball, fall ball, summer ball, tourneys all up and down the east coast!  When do I get some ME time?  Winter is for packing on the pounds, staying in my robe until 3 on weekends, and watching the NFL. Heck, the only reason I’m posting on this lame site before March is because I was promised LAS stickers!

This was a sweet cup save. The ball is at his feet.

After listening to my wife begging me to go away for a few hours, I decided to fire up the GPS (which in my case means scotch taping Google map directions to the dashboard of my RAV4 and constantly turning on my hood light to read them) and head on down to Beltsville on a 23 degree evening at 9PM to play indoor lax. Everyone else my age is asleep, drunk, or both by this time of night. Oh, and the indoor facility is right next to the Goddard Space Flight center which means that small prop planes being flown by monkeys could dart across the sky at anytime. So I have one eye on the sky (looking for monkeys) and one eye on the dash (reading my GPS, a.k.a. color print out of a map).  It’s a God damn adventure just getting there I tell you!

Yours truly about to d-up Art Thamasangvarn from Thailand Lax

Well as it turns out, Masters Indoor is not filled with violent collisions, the behind the back passes are feeble at best, cross checking is illegal, and no one wears those awful box lids. There’s one ref who is  borrowed from the “undocumented immigrant soccer league” that wraps up just before we start. The fields are uber small, but that’s good ’cause I hate running. The goals are outdoor goals (6×6) which is good ’cause I can’t aim very well. The only draw back is that there’s only 18 inches of field behind the goal! That really stinks because that limited distance doesn’t allow me to gather enough speed to launch over the net for my dunks! Oh well, at least I can shoot from midfield which is roughly 25′ from the crease. It’s sweet because I’m always in range. Even my goalie scored on a shot from the outside!

No need to back up the shot. It's not going very far.

All joking aside, I’m having a blast playing this style of indoor. Three games and three wins doesn’t hurt either. This is a great way to keep my legs and my stick fresh for the spring. Plus, I’m seeing some guys I haven’t seen since summer ball which is nice. A few 24 Seven readers have been spotted as well. I’ll still keep an eye out for those monkeys.