This article appears in the July/August edition of US Lacrosse Magazine and has been updated.
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Neither Rob Pannell nor Paul Rabil relishes talking about 2014. They’d just as soon forget.
For nine days in Denver, people talked about that U.S. national team being one of the best ever assembled. With Rabil at midfield, Pannell at attack and Tucker Durkin anchoring the defense, Team USA rode its All-World trio to a 10-7 FIL World Championship tournament-opening win over Canada and then crushed its next five opponents by a combined score of 97-19. They were untouchable.
“Going into the championship game, statistically, we were the best team that USA had ever had,” Pannell said. “The differential was insane.”
On the 10th day, it all came crashing down. Kevin Crowley scored five goals as Canada mounted a 7-2 lead, the Canadians went into ball-control mode and goalie Dillon Ward iced the U.S. shooters in an 8-5 win that stunned the home crowd of 11,861 fans at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park.
“I don’t like to look back at 2014,” Pannell said.
Rabil felt the same way. More than a year later, he admitted he still had not watched the game and saw a sports psychologist to better absorb the lessons from the loss.
“It haunts me every day,” he said then. “I was in a dark depression because of it.”
But as 2018 and the prospect of redemption drew nearer, Rabil moved past self-loathing — he was blanked on 0-for-4 shooting in the 2014 final — to acceptance.
“What went wrong? They had a better strategy than us in terms of the way they played the game and we tried to bull our way through it,” Rabil said. “They hit their big shots and we didn’t, myself included.”
The 2018 U.S. team that will compete July 12-21 in the FIL World Championship in Netanya, Israel, includes six other veterans who experienced the same pain as Pannell and Rabil. There’s Durkin, Jesse Bernhardt and Kyle Hartzell on defense, Ned Crotty and Marcus Holman on attack, plus faceoff specialist Greg Gurenlian.
Moreover, goalie John Galloway, defenseman Joe Fletcher and midfielder Drew Snider narrowly missed out on the final roster in 2014. Attackman Matt Danowski made this U.S. team after falling short in 2006, 2010 and 2014.
“Part of the chemistry of this team needs to be some of the guys who were cut. It needs to be some of the guys who have lost in this game, who can stand up in the locker room and say, ‘You know what? I’ve been there and we’ve lost. This is what I think.’ And we need a couple guys [like Rabil and Crotty] that won in 2010,” U.S. coach John Danowski said. “They need to be really honest with each other about what their expectations are for themselves and for one another.”
A labor dispute between Canada’s national team players and the Canadian Lacrosse Association remained unresolved when this edition of US Lacrosse Magazine went to press in early June, creating uncertainty surrounding their status for this summer’s games in Israel.
“If they’re not there, we’ll be stopping in Canada on the way home to play ’em,” Pannell said on Lax Sports Network. “We’re the underdogs going into these world games. … To get that gold medal back to the United States, we want to make sure it’s Canada we’re having to play.”
Pannell and the rest of the U.S. players got their wish June 12 when the CLA and NLTPA agreed to undisclosed terms, assuring the defending world champs will be in Netanya.
Team USA concludes training camp tonight in Boston when it faces the MLL All-Stars at 7 p.m. ET (ESPNEWS). The U.S. will open FIL World Championship play July 12 against the Iroquois Nationals.