Welcome Dallas Rattlers

Dallas lacrosse fans now have their own professional team

Hey Rattlers, welcome to Texas.

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The Rochester Rattlers, a professional lacrosse team from New York, will relocate to Texas. As rumored, the team will be rebranded as the Dallas Rattlers for the 2018 MLL season, and will play its home games at Ford Center at The Star in Frisco, the Dallas Cowboys World Headquarters and practice facility, and the site of the 2017 MLL Championship Game.

David Gross, head of Major League Lacrosse (MLL), the outdoor professional lacrosse league, confirmed that they've been interested in North Texas for quite some time. "We believe this relocation will make the franchise stronger than ever and will bring the highest level of lacrosse to a rapidly growing hotbed for the sport," he said in a release.

Longtime sports executive Bill Goren will be president of the team.

Bill Warder will serve as head coach, replacing Tim Soudan, who is stepping down. An assistant coach with the Rattlers since 2007, Warder played in MLL in 2001 and has held coaching roles with the Rattlers and his alma mater of Hobart College. He was an assistant coach when Rochester won the first MLL Championship in franchise history in 2008.

"Bill brings incredible passion and knowledge of MLL and will be a strong asset for the club," Gross said.

Last season, the Rattlers went 8-6 and qualified for the postseason for the eighth time in franchise history. They were eliminated by the Outlaws in the MLL Semi-Finals, 15-8.

New Balance will continue to own the team and the Rattlers will be the first MLL franchise in the state of Texas and the only team to play in the Central Time Zone.

The Rattlers were managed by David and Wendy Dworkin during the 2017 season and returned to play at Capelli Sport Stadium. They are one of the six original franchises that began play in MLL in 2001 and won the Steinfeld Trophy in 2008 with a 16-6 win over the Outlaws for the first Championship in franchise history.

The team relocated to Toronto before the 2009 season, but resumed play under the Rochester Rattlers brand in 2011 when the Chicago Machine relocated to Rochester.

Ford Center is a 12,000-seat indoor facility on the campus of The Star that hosts the Dallas Cowboys World Headquarters and serves as the team's practice facility. It opened in August 2016 and hosted the 2017 MLL Championship Game that saw the Ohio Machine win the first league title in franchise history.

The facility serves as a focal point to the sports and entertainment district with more than 15 restaurants, the Dallas Cowboys Ring of Honor Walk, an Omni Hotel, and the Tostitos Championship Plaza.

The Rattlers will be the seventh professional sports franchise in Frisco, which is home to the Dallas Cowboys World Headquarters, the Dallas Stars corporate headquarters and practice rink, FC Dallas of Major League Soccer, the Texas Rangers Double-A affiliate, the Frisco Roughriders, the Texas Revolution of Champions Indoor Football, and the Texas Legends, the G-League affiliate of the Dallas Mavericks.

Frisco also hosts FBS football’s Frisco Bowl, the FCS Championship Game for Division I college football, and the Conference USA Basketball Championships.

Major League Lacrosse (MLL), the premier professional outdoor lacrosse league, was founded by Jake Steinfeld and is headquartered in Boston. MLL has continued to lead the sport of lacrosse into the mainstream of competitive team sports since 2001. The league is made up of nine teams: The Atlanta Blaze, Boston Cannons, Charlotte Hounds, Chesapeake Bayhawks, Dallas Rattlers, Denver Outlaws, Florida Launch, New York Lizards, and Ohio Machine.

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Movie Review

Andrew Garfield leads peasant rebellion in medieval film The Uprising

Photo by Betina La Plante/Focus Features

Andrew Garfield in The Uprising.

Writer/director Paul Greengrass made his name with a cinéma vérité style of filmmaking that brought immediacy and depth to three Jason Bourne films, United 93, Captain Phillips, and more. In The Uprising, he uses those skills to tell the story of the so-called Peasants’ Revolt in 14th century England.

Greengrass wastes no time starting the main plot as Ploughman (Andrew Garfield) and his fellow villagers object to onerous taxes put on them by the country’s nobility, led by the young King Richard II (Woody Norman), to fund an ongoing war. Ploughman initiates a violent response over the tone-deaf — and unseemly — way the king’s guard go about their business, and the rebellion soon starts to spread across the countryside, with the citizens looking for a degree of autonomy.

The ever-expanding group makes their way toward London to try to make their case to the king himself. Meanwhile, the king’s top advisors, including Archbishop Sudbury (Stephen Dillane) and Treasurer Hales (Tom Hollander), try to usurp power from the inexperienced monarch even as the king’s mother (Katherine Waterston) tries to get him to be more assertive.

The history of the English monarchy is long and lurid, as Shakespeare detailed in multiple plays, including Richard II. Though the events in the film took place almost 650 years ago, it’s easy to see parallels between what the peasants were fighting for and modern-day politics. Greengrass’ storytelling intent is solid, and the righteous anger the citizens feel is initially relatable and palpable.

But the populism theme of the story soon gets bogged down in drudgery and minutiae that is difficult to understand, especially when the details are lost in the thick regional English accents. The leaders of the rebels — including John Ball (Jamie Bell), Wat Tyler (Cosmo Jarvis), and Alyce (Thomasin McKenzie) — are shown doing a lot of planning, but the strong feelings they have about their quest don’t come across well, leaving the audience as passive observers.

When there is action, Greengrass and his team employ a frenetic style that is not great for comprehension. While the gist of what is happening and what side is winning is legible, individual moments go by so quickly so as to be nearly meaningless. Save for Ploughman, any connection that has been made with various characters proves futile, as Greengrass doesn’t seem to have any time for emotion. Scenes that should feel thrilling or heartbreaking instead come off as empty.

Garfield is a two-time Oscar nominee who has done great work across multiple genres. He’s fine in this role, but whether it’s the story, the filmmaking, or something else, he’s not as captivating as usual. The same goes for other strong actors like Bell, McKenzie, Dillane, Hollander, and Waterston, who each seem to be giving their all to their performances but are somehow muted in the process.

Done right, The Uprising could have been a rip-roaring account of people standing up against their oppressors. What Greengrass has made, though, is a film that can’t translate its medieval story for a modern audience and concentrates too much on unexciting elements and too little on thrilling ones.

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The Uprising is now playing in theaters.

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