by Saint Paul, Minn. – While it was snowing and the temp was dropping outside, inside Xcel Energy Center fans were keeping it loud and proud during the Minnesota Swarm’s Yellow out The Hive home opener against the Colorado Mammoth. Despite their best efforts the Swarm could not hold off the scoring power of the Mammoth and fell 20-13 in front of a crowd of 8,974 fans.
In the third quarter, the Swarm trailed 7-6 and then went on a four-goal scoring streak to take the lead 10-7. Colorado fought back with a six-goal run of their own to retake the lead 13-10 and outscored the Swarm 10-3 in the fourth quarter. Despite the loss, the Swarm showed promise during the first three quarters of play.
“The play of some of our guys was incredible to watch,” Swarm coach Joe Sullivan said. “For Miles to come out and have the game that he had was impressive our goaltending looked great early on when we were able to limit the shots and dictate where they were coming from so there was a real cohesiveness on both the offense and the defense.”
The story of the game on the Swarm’s end surrounded around the debut of No. 2 Miles Thompson (Onondaga Nation) who scored three goals and had one assist in his first game in the NLL.
“Playing in front of a crowd like that it’s always a good feeling especially coming out and the noise, and you just get those chills and I couldn’t wait to play here,” Thompson said. Miles appeared to have scored his first-goal early in the first to give the Swarm a 1-0 edge, but it was overturned. Fans only had to wait a few minutes later to get it to count on the scoreboard.
“The second one I knew I was going to get it because I was right on the crease,” Thompson said. “Callum fed it to me and most of the time those are the goals I like getting and I worked hard to get that goal.”
The Swarm started the game off well with T David Earl scoring the team’s first goal of the year to put the Swarm up 1-0. Minnesota added one more goal before the end of the quarter and held Colorado scoreless in the first.
The goals started to add up in the second quarter with both sides adding scores one after the other. Swarm goalie Brodie MacDonald started strong in his first game for the Swarm, making 15 first quarter saves, and holding Colorado’s high-powered offense to five first-half goals. In the second half, both penalties and shorthanded goals doomed the Swarm and MacDonald in net.
Third-year forward Shayne Jackson led the Swarm in scoring Saturday night, tallying a hat trick and four assists.
“We came out flying ready to go,” Jackson said. “We had been chomping at the bit since last season ended. Everyone was ready to go and everyone knew what they wanted to do but at the end we just let it slip away but we’ll learn from those mistakes.”
Coach Sullivan also added, “There was a lot of good things that came out that game, it was more of a learning thing, unfortunately in this league there isn’t a lot of time to learn. You got to win to compete to stay on top of this league. We’ll take that one with a grain of salt and get right back at it.”
Also scoring two goals each were Swarm forwards Callum Crawford, Corbyn Tao and Dean Hill. Colorado was led by the duo of forwardsAdam Jones (5g, 4a) and John Grant Jr. (4g, 5a).
The Swarm will head on the road for their next game against Edmonton on Saturday, Jan. 10 for an 8 p.m. CT showdown. The Swarm’s next three games will be on the road, and the team will return home February 6 to face defending champion Rochester Knighthawks for Native American Heritage Night. Call 1-888-MN-SWARM or visit www.mnswarm.com for purchasing information.
