Rob "Blazer" Blasdell (born May 15, 1970) is a lacrosse goaltender who plays for the

Edmonton Rush The Edmonton Rush were a professional lacrosse team in the National Lacrosse League (NLL) that played from 2006 NLL season to 2015. The team announced on July 20, 2015, that they would be relocating to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, for the 2016 s ...

in the

National Lacrosse League The National Lacrosse League (NLL) is a men's professional box lacrosse league in North America. The league is headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The NLL currently has fifteen teams: ten in the United States and five in Canada. The N ...

Professional career

Blasdell began his career with the Ontario Raiders in

1998 1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''. Events January * January 6 – The ''Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for frozen water, in soil in permanently s ...

, moving with them to

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most pop ...

the next year. After being left unprotected by the Rock, Blasdell was selected by the expansion Albany Attack in the 1999

expansion draft An expansion draft, in professional sports, occurs when a sports league decides to create one or more new expansion teams or franchises. This occurs mainly in North American sports. One of the ways of stocking the new team or teams is an expansio ...

. Blasdell played four seasons in Albany, and was named NLL Goaltender of the Year in

2002 File:2002 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 2002 Winter Olympics are held in Salt Lake City; Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother and her daughter Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon die; East Timor gains independence from Indonesia and ...

when he led the Attack to the NLL finals. The Attack moved to San Jose before the 2004 season and Blasdell played in all 16 games that season, but after a blockbuster trade brought goaltender Anthony Cosmo to San Jose in the summer of 2004, Blasdell served as a backup for Cosmo for the 2005 season. He was then dealt to the Arizona Sting, where he earned the starting role and returned to the championship game in

2007 File:2007 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Steve Jobs unveils Apple's first iPhone; TAM Airlines Flight 3054 overruns a runway and crashes into a gas station, killing almost 200 people; Former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto ...

. After the cancellation and subsequent reinstatement of the 2008 season, the Arizona Sting and

Boston Blazers The Boston Blazers were an indoor lacrosse team in the National Lacrosse League (NLL). The Blazers were based in Boston, Massachusetts, and began play in the 2009 NLL season. The team was owned by Tim Armstrong, the former President of Adverti ...

announced that they would not be playing in 2008. A

dispersal draft A dispersal draft is a process in professional sports for assigning players to a new team when their current team ceases to exist or is merged with another team. Like most other sports drafts, most dispersal drafts are conducted in North America. ...

was held, and Blasdell was selected third overall by the

Philadelphia Wings Philadelphia Wings may refer to any of three distinct professional lacrosse teams: * Philadelphia Wings (1974–1975), a member of the original National Lacrosse League * Philadelphia Wings (1987–2014), a founding member of the National Lacrosse ...

. When the Arizona Sting ceased operations prior to the

2009 NLL season The 2009 National Lacrosse League season, the 23rd in the history of the NLL, began January 3, 2009 in Buffalo, Portland, and Sunrise, Florida, and concluded with the Calgary Roughnecks defeating the New York Titans 12—10 in the Champion's Cu ...

, another

was held, and Blasdell was again selected by the Philadelphia Wings.

Statistics

NLL

Awards

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Blasdell, Rob 1970 births Living people Lacrosse goaltenders Arizona Sting players Canadian expatriate lacrosse people in the United States Canadian lacrosse players Edmonton Rush players Lacrosse people from Ontario National Lacrosse League All-Stars National Lacrosse League major award winners Sportspeople from Brantford Philadelphia Wings players San Jose Stealth players Toronto Rock players