They also brought in NLL veteran forward Callum Crawford as a free agent and swung a deal with San Diego to acquire forward Connor Kearnan. Teat is just one piece of what the Riptide is hoping to be a potential championship puzzle at some point in the near future. I think the PLL definitely prepared me well. I haven’t really played a box lacrosse game in over two years so it’s going to be exciting to step out on the floor. “It’s been a long time for everybody who has played box lacrosse.
He began his professional career playing outdoors this past season in the Premier Lacrosse League, tied for second in points at 32 and winning Rookie of the Year.
Teat is ready to get back to box lacrosse after he played his first season in MSL in 2019 for Brampton, leading the league in goals scored and points. The first big move was when the Riptide selected forward Jeff Teat with the first overall selection in the 2020 NLL Entry Draft. The pandemic not only cut short the 2019-20 season without crowning a champion but it also forced the cancellation of the 2020-21 campaign so the hiatus has given the Riptide plenty of time to examine what went wrong during their expansion season and what needed to be done to the roster to have a chance at contending for a playoff spot. We’ve been rebuilding this thing for over 15 months now.”
“This is what we live for if you’re a lacrosse junkie like I am,” said Veltman. As the Riptide prepares for their second NLL season, they have turned over about 70% of their roster from their expansion season as they look to build a championship team for the lacrosse hotbed of Long Island. The return of box lacrosse to Long Island certainly experienced some immediate growing pains and it led to a massive shakeup within the organization.įollowing the season, the Riptide made some significant changes by hiring National Lacrosse League Hall of Famer, Jim Veltman as their new General Manager and eleven-year NLL veteran defenseman Dan Ladoceur as their new Head Coach. They had a record of 1-12 and were in the midst of a seven-game losing streak when the season was cut short because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Things did not go very well for the New York Riptide when they were an expansion team during the 2019-20 season.