The 2025 Lexus Championship Series crowned champions in both the men’s Premier Lacrosse League and the brand-new Women’s Lacrosse League Feb. 17.
It was a Boston sweep as the Boston Cannons of the PLL and the Boston Guard of the WLL brought their respective championships back to Titletown.
For the Cannons, winning is nothing new.
They are by far the oldest team in the PLL, founded as a member of the now-defunct Major League Lacrosse in 2001. In 2004, the team reached the PLL finals hosted at Boston University’s Nickerson Field — the Cannons’ home venue at the time.
Though they lost that year, the Cannons went on to collect two championships in 2011 and 2020.
Following the Cannons’ second title, Major League Lacrosse was merged into the upstart PLL. The Cannons were the only team retained by the PLL as every other MLL franchise was shut down.
The Cannons were originally stripped of their geographic moniker and rebranded as the “Cannons Lacrosse Club,” but they retained their history and would continue to add to it while historically successful MLL teams like the Philadelphia Barrage and Denver Outlaws ceased operations.
The terms of the merger begged the question — why Boston?
According to the PLL itself, league ownership believed in Boston’s unique status as a lacrosse city. In a press release, the organization called Boston a “historic MLL community” and a “priority market,” linking these comments to the PLL’s scheduling of its Opening Weekend at Gillette Stadium.
Even at the high school level, Boston is a hub of the sport.
As of the 2023-24 high school season, Massachusetts had the second-highest number of high schools sponsoring boys’ lacrosse, trailing only California, and the third-highest number of schools sponsoring girls’ lacrosse, behind California and New York.
The PLL reassigned their traveling teams to home cities in 2024 and the Cannons, once again belonging to Boston by name, immediately won back-to-back titles.
The Women’s Lacrosse League, a subsidiary of the PLL, was announced in November of last year.
Breaking from the precedent set by its parent company of using an inaugural draft, and uninfluenced by the proceedings of its more well-known, burgeoning women’s hockey counterpart, the PWHL, the WLL forewent holding its own inaugural draft.
Instead, the WLL simply announced that a series of players had been signed to occupy its teams’ rosters. The founding four teams are the Guard, the New York Charging, the Maryland Charms and the California Palms.
The four teams took advantage of the freedom afforded to them by the lack of a draft structure, and each signed players who had competed close to the new teams’ homes.
The Palms roster featured several former USC Trojans, the Charging a trio from Syracuse and the Charm’s roster consists mainly of Maryland, Loyola Maryland and Virginia alums. Each of these college programs has enjoyed historic and sustained success.
One of the most successful NCAA women’s lacrosse teams over the past decade — and far and away the most successful program in the 2020s — is the Boston College Eagles.
Five Boston College alums, including captain Charlotte North, anchor the Boston Guard’s roster. The Guard are inextricably and intimately connected with Boston-area college sports.
To say North was a standout player during her time at BC is an understatement. During her two seasons in Chestnut Hill, she led the Eagles to the national championship game twice, winning it in 2021.
She was the first player in NCAA Division I lacrosse history to record 100 goals in a single season. She won the Tewaaraton Award, given annually to the most valuable player in college lacrosse, in both years.
North became a celebrity on the Boston sports scene. Her connections to the city were strengthened as she and her team were celebrated at the Massachusetts State Capitol, and North threw out a first pitch at Fenway Park.
Upon signing with the WLL’s Guard, she emphasized her “sense of pride for the city of Boston” and asserted that Bostonians “know how to celebrate a team that wins,” citing the many professional sports titles that have been won by the city’s teams.
The Cannons never forgot their regional identity and fans, the Guard will never forget what their stars did in college and Boston is undoubtedly a lacrosse town — with results to show for it.
