The Ottawa Black Bears opened their sophomore year in the National Lacrosse League on Saturday with a 16-13 loss to the San Diego Seals at the Canadian Tire Centre.
The New York Riptide relocated to the nation’s capital for the 2024-25 season, rebranding as the Ottawa Black Bears. In their inaugural year, Jeff Teat’s league-leading 56 goals weren’t enough to carry the 8-10 Black Bears to the postseason.
Last year’s only meeting between the two favoured the Seals in a tightly contested affair that ended 6-5.
“We’ve got a great team, but in this league, everyone is a good team. You have to be consistent,” said Reilly O’Connor, a returning attacker from Whitby.
The Seals opened the scoring two minutes into the game after Black Bears goaltender Zach Higgins made a pair of early saves. Corey Small put away the game’s opening goal, hemming the Black Bears in their own end.
Penalties and turnovers haunted the Black Bears as they went down 3-0 just 10 minutes into the game. Small combined with forward Connor Robinson to keep the Seals ahead by three after the first quarter.
“I just thought we were really reactive throughout the process,” Black Bears head coach and general manager Dan MacRae said about the start. “We just put ourselves in the penalty box too much to give us any advantage.”
MacRae took control of the team this past summer after two seasons as defensive coordinator for the Colorado Mammoth. The former New York Riptide captain and NLL champion is familiar with the group, as seven current players were on the 2023-24 roster alongside him.
“It’s great to see them look me in the eye, and I know they mean it, I know they care,” MacRae said.
At 37, he is the youngest in the NLL to hold both roles.
After a faceoff play and a slick pick-and-roll move to the front, San Diego made it 5-0, prompting a goaltending change for the Black Bears. The switch didn’t slow the Seals, who scored a sixth unanswered goal just 35 seconds into Tyler Carlson’s start, sending Higgins back to the crease.
Higgins led the league with 731 saves last year and finished with 40 on Saturday.
Ottawa’s first goal of the season came more than 22 minutes into the game after Reilly O’Connor converted a Rob Hellyer pass from the middle slot.
“We’re a brotherhood out there, and it doesn’t really matter about personal success, it’s about the team,” O’Connor said. “We’ve got a couple new players on the offensive side, so it’s just about building chemistry.”
Before long, nine-year NLL veteran Luc Magnan and San Diego’s Patrick Shoemay squared off toe-to-toe in a fight that shifted the momentum.
“Luke is a winner,” O’Connor said. “He is a leader on this team, and he sacrificed like he always does. You win with guys like him, and we rallied behind that race.”
Ottawa continued their march with three more goals before halftime, with Hellyer, a former Seal and NLL MVP finalist, setting up two of them.
They went into the half trailing 7-4 — already matching their goal total from their first-ever matchup.
Small, along with Tre Leclaire, earned his hat trick while trading blows with Rob Hellyer to make it 9-6. Leclaire finished with five goals, while Small and Hellyer each recorded three.
“It’s always nice to put a few in, but it’s more about the big number on the scoreboard,” said Hellyer.
Teat scored his first and second goals of the season in the fourth quarter while a firefight ensued, with both teams trading goals freely. Although the Seals built a commanding 14-9 lead, the Black Bears kept pressing.
“We rode some great momentum, and we had some good transition contributions there. Gotta be proud of some of those individual efforts,” MacRae added.
Hellyer, Connor Kearnan, Kevin Brownell and Jake Stevens scored consecutively, cutting the deficit to one goal before San Diego sealed the game with an empty-net goal.
“We’ve got an awesome group — and being around here, that’s why you play. We’ll be alright,” Hellyer said.
The Black Bears have a bye next week but return to the Canadian Tire Centre on Dec. 12 to face the Saskatchewan Rush in their only matchup of the season.
“There was a lot of good we showed, a lot of character coming back from a six-goal deficit,” MacRae said. “We were in second gear, and they were in fifth.
“We got to get our boots out of the mud and hit it right off the bat”
Featured image by André Ringuette/Freestyle Photography
