With a bar overlooking a heat-smothered, carpet-covered old New England hockey barn, it’s hard to imagine the birthplace of some of the best American box lacrosse talent is Hingham, Massachusetts.

But as helmets with assorted lacrosse team logos clash and commands are hollered out from the increasingly sweat-stenched confines of the South Shore Sports Center, that’s exactly what is happening.

The Boston Box Lacrosse League (BBLL) has quietly risen to a power in indoor lacrosse development. What on the surface might look like any other men's league, there’s a plethora of emerging stars.

One such star is Cam Egan.

The Waltham, Massachusetts, native suited up for Team USA at the World Juniors in Saskatchewan in early August, his only indoor experience coming from the summer nights on the turf in coastal Massachusetts.

The former hockey star turned to lacrosse and made a collegiate career for himself at Bentley, but the skills moving the length of a rink made him a natural fit to cross over to the indoor version of lacrosse.

“As soon as I started playing box lacrosse, I was comfortable,” he said. “It’s like you’re basically in a rink. I felt at home since I grew up playing hockey, and the physicality is awesome, but I get to go to my strengths there.”

He started in the indoor game with the hopes of expanding his skills in outdoor lacrosse. With two summers of box experience, Egan has found himself in a position to potentially have an indoor lacrosse career. 

“When I started playing lacrosse, I was a long-pole and I never picked up a short stick in a game until I started playing box lacrosse right before college,” he said. “To get a short stick in my hand and be forced to use it and stay on offense, you have to play both sides a good amount. It’s helped me in transition play instead of being just another box-out defender.”

With nearly 10 percent of the U.S. men’s national team made up of alum or current talent playing in the league, the BBLL has snuck up the rest of the indoor lacrosse leagues in the nation.

The Colorado College Box Lacrosse League gained steam two years ago with a program of varsity and club players. This summer, the Ohio Box Lacrosse League emerged. For years, the Baltimore Indoor Lacrosse League and the Liberty Indoor Lacrosse League of Philadelphia have hosted pro talent on their floors.

Boston has been there, lurking, and suddenly taking over.

After the demise of the ill-fated North American Lacrosse League (NALL) and its multiple knockoff-league attempts, it seemed indoor lacrosse talent in the states was going to hit a standstill.

Mike Maggio, formerly the top overall pick in the NALL, now coaches in Winchester and plays in the BBLL, where he’s played a combined eight years.

“It’s always been extremely competitive,” he said. “Talent-wise, the players in it are great. When everyone was younger and the box experience was limited, it was still really competitive as far as what we had for talent. Now, it’s been around long enough where guys have some years under their belt and understand the game a little bit better. It’s played smart. You have some players still new to it, but for the most part, kids have at least one or two years with a feel for it.”

After being the first overall pick in the NALL in 2013, Maggio played what was then considered the highest level for developing American talent.

In the half decade since the league’s departure, elite talent has gotten more scattered, but Boston has been a good landing spot.

“That league had a mix,” he said. “The NALL was good, but I’m confident with the teams in Boston now, across the board, they’re just better. The competition is far superior. You have the same level of talent skill-wise, but you add a couple of years of knowledge behind the majority to the Boston league, where the NALL had minimum experience box lacrosse players. … The Boston Box Lacrosse League is the best combination of talent, in my opinion, excluding Canada or anything over the border.”

The NALL was intended to close the gap between the talent in the states and Canada, but didn’t get off the ground before experience could be gained.

In many ways, the issue hasn’t disappeared.

Americans in the National Lacrosse League is still at a low, even with teams in San Diego and Philadelphia starting to take shape. The national team remains without a reliable option at the goalie position.

But Rome wasn’t built in a day, even if it seems like the Boston league has emerged overnight as an option for talent development.

Some NLL teams have attempted to bring in more American field players with less box experience, such as Tom Schreiber and Kieran McArdle with the Toronto Rock, and San Diego recently adding Marcus Holman.

The New England Black Wolves took a flyer on Davey Emala last year in training camp, and he barely missed the cut. They signed him back before training camp this year, with his BBLL experience coming as no coincidence.

Will Manny and Davey Emala, with zero box experience before Boston, find themselves on the short list for Team USA.

Martin Bowes, a BBLL alum who played in the NALL and has experience on a couple of NLL practice rosters, and in MLL, is also on the list.

Before, the national team would take chances on big-name field players, athletes looking to transition to the different style of the sport.

Kyle Denhoff, now a member of the Cannons, had limited indoor experience before he felt the itch to continue playing. Getting a chance in the Boston Box League has helped keep him sharp and learning new skills. After a couple of seasons with the Onondaga Red Hawks of the Senior B circuit, and a couple of tournaments with the promotional team Syracuse Stingers, Boston was still a change of pace.

“There’s certainly more experienced folks [in Canada],” he said. “In Onondaga, we played some amateur Canadian teams, and guys there grew up playing indoor and had more experience on the offensive end, but on the athletic standpoint, Boston is on par. Guys can play defense and transition.”

The St. John Fisher College alum played five seasons with the Rattlers before landing in Boston in MLL.

“For the outdoor guys, it’s staying active and keeping sticks sharp,” he said. “One of the tough things in MLL is finding turf time in the offseason. We don’t have stadiums or facilities year-round. So it’s you either know somebody who owns a location. The nice thing about Boston Box, I knew [James] Fahey and some others played, and they mentioned how competitive it is. You want to be ready to go in MLL.”

The skills from the indoor game also help the field lacrosse players develop new skills to use in MLL. As college teams have started to recruit more from the north, the value in knowing indoor lacrosse skills has become more evident.

The collateral result of improving skills indoors has become competent indoor lacrosse players who can compete with the rest of the world.

“The first thing is shooting on the smaller nets,” said Denhoff. “It’s a skill you see a lot of the Canadians or Native American guys have. It’s helpful to play offense and get dialed in. Defensively, one of the things is working on footwork and playing the two-man game. When you go outdoors with teams with indoor guys, you see teams who play a two-man set on the wing trying to catch you. Playing in Boston Box, you’re forced to play a strong two-man game on defense.”

While Tuesday night contests in the shadows of flickering motion-sensed lights went under the radar, the athletes charged with representing the states were getting true box lacrosse experience.

Many indoor lacrosse programs for high school to college-aged lacrosse players are de facto field lacrosse training events, using field skills, long poles, and rules that don’t match the box style.

In some ways, less experienced athletes in the Boston league can be spotted, whether it be the over-the-top passes above the defense trying to create transition or defensive postures that leave a goalie out of position.

But mostly, the fast-paced nature of the league has given the less-initiated but talented field pros a chance to hone skills to compete with the best in the world.

“The type of players who go in there, a lot of them are college guys looking to keep their skill level high,” said Egan. “They’re looking to add a new element to their game. There are guys from UNC, from Division I programs, myself as a Bentley guy. There’s a lot of colleges. How competitive the league is, it’s based on the type of players there. It’s guys who are young and have high skills.”

With more college players spending their offseasons developing their box skills, there are less field players completely green to the box style than the past few decades, meaning the experience level is higher than it’s ever been for potential new members of the national team or NLL hopefuls. 

For a program in a drought, and an environment seemingly unable to create a civil professional league for talent to bud, Boston has done the U.S. men’s national team a favor.

The essence of the league, despite the star power shining, isn’t just about national success, though.

Other names in the lacrosse world have their impact, with John Piatelli preparing for his first season at Cornell, or elite prospects like Jett Dzima and Jack Loring anticipating collegiate careers. 

For others, it’s simply a way to stay in the game.

With the Boston Cannons so close by, the hometown MLL squad has hosted various alum of the league. Surviving the pace of, especially the winter rendition, one of the toughest amateur leagues in the world is worthy of getting a look, especially if local.

“A lot of guys, when I was playing in MLL, those guys were playing and talked about how much it helped their stick skills,” said Maggio. “It’s like being in a phone booth for space and having to make quick decisions. Experiencing that and seeing the transition from indoor to outdoor and how much it slows everything down was huge. When you combine the training component for MLL guys, it’s a good changeup to what everyone is experiencing.”

The NLL taking notice, and in turn, the national program, is eye-opening when no one has been able to solve the riddle of producing consistent American talent.

When the title game came to an end in mid-August, the Boston box world is put on hold until the fall session starts up, when MLL and other pro players will take the floor.

Babson College player Owen Allen tallied the game-winner with three seconds left, capping off a three-goal come-from-behind win for the Boston Box Lacrosse League title.

While the names in the Canadian junior circuits will get attention and be scouted for pro careers, nearly silently, Boston has taken some of its own and turned them into potential indoor stars in their own right.

The lacrosse world is starting to notice.

“The exposure is limited,” said Maggio. “It blew up talent-wise the last two or three years. It’s been intense. You go to every game and it doesn’t matter if it’s the best team playing the worst team. The competition is still there. You’re getting a big, big support from those guys. They bring other players in and try to work with building it up through word of mouth, and that’s the biggest way it’s grown.”

Team USA is looking to get out of bronze for the first time in the World Championships history. They’ve been close, and the talent has been of a high caliber before.

But with 2019 looming, there’s new blood.

Anyone who wants to see what the future has in store needs not look further than a couple of Tuesday night contests on the south shore of Massachusetts.