Chicago Shamrox Website: www.chicagoshamrox.com CEG will be a minority owner of the new expansion National Lacrosse League franchise in the nation's 3rd largest market, Chicago. The Chicago Shamrox will play their home games at the Sears Centre (www.searscentre.com), a state-of-the-art, 11,000-seat multi-purpose family entertainment, cultural and sports center under construction in Hoffman Estates, one of the upscale, northwest suburbs of Chicago. The team will open play in January 2007. The Chicago Shamrox are not to be confused with the Chicago Machine, a new entry into Major League Lacrosse (MLL). MLL is a professional outdoor/field lacrosse league that plays its season during the summer months, with most teams playing on college lacrosse fields. MLL is owned by fitness guru Jake Steinfeld. While there is no affiliation between the two leagues, there are a handful of players who do play in both. The NLL and MLL seasons are at opposite times of the year and do not overlap. League Overview The National Lacrosse League ("NLL", www.nll.com) is North America's professional indoor lacrosse league, featuring the best lacrosse players in the world. The League was formed in 1987 as the Major Indoor Lacrosse League, making this the NLL's 20th season. However, only the last four years have shown the exponential growth that the original founders hoped for. Today's NLL has eleven teams playing in the major markets of the United States and Canada. NLL teams each play a 16-game regular season schedule (eight home & eight away) that begins in December and runs through April, followed by the Champion's Cup Playoffs. All games are played on the weekends. The teams are: Arizona Sting, Buffalo Bandits, Calgary Roughnecks, Colorado Mammoth, Edmonton Rush, Minnesota Swarm, Portland LumberJax, Philadelphia Wings, Rochester Knighthawks, San Jose Stealth and Toronto Rock. Most of the NLL clubs are owned and/or operated by the National Hockey League (NHL) and/or National Basketball Association (NBA) teams in their respective markets, and play in the same arenas used by those teams. The NLL plays in the premier arenas of North America, including the Wachovia Center in Philadelphia, the Glendale Arena in Arizona, the Pepsi Center in Denver, and the Air Canada Centre in Toronto. For the 2005 regular season, the NLL averaged 10,252 fans per game, with its franchises in Toronto and Denver averaging over 16,000 fans per game. The average league attendance for the 2004 season was 10,089 per game. So far this season, average attendance is over 11,000 per night. The last 3 major NLL events, the 2005 All-Star Game, as well as the 2004 and 2005 Champion's Cup Final games were complete sellouts with over 19,000 fans attending. The NLL is the most watched version of professional lacrosse. Last year's All-Star Game and Champion's Cup Final were each broadcast live on NBC in primetime. The NLL is currently discussing a multi-year broadcasting relationship with ESPN. Additionally, local games will continue to be broadcast all over the U.S. and Canada on major regional sports networks like Fox Sports, Comcast, The Score and Rogers Sportsnet. With the increasing popularity of the sport of lacrosse throughout the country (Sports Illustrated called it "the fasted growing sport in America" in its April 25, 2005 article); major corporations have stepped up to sponsor the League. The NLL recently inked the largest sponsorship deal in professional lacrosse history, a 5 year, multi-million deal with Reebok that includes all merchandise and equipment for the NLL and its franchises. Overview of the Sport Professional indoor lacrosse combines the physical play of hockey with the high scoring, fast pace and play-making style of basketball, along with a hint of action-adventure sports mixed in for good measure. Indoor lacrosse is played inside the confines of an ice hockey rink, with glass and rink boards intact. The playing surface consists of a green dieter turf carpet that is laid down over the hockey ice. The two teams combine to score a total of 25 goals in the average NLL game. Each team has five runners (forwards and defenseman) and a goaltender on the floor during the game. Each team dresses eighteen players (sixteen runners and two goaltenders) per game, and the players rotate on and off the floor in shifts, similar to ice hockey. The game consists of four quarters, each fifteen minutes in length. A game that is tied at the end of regulation is decided in sudden-death overtime. There are no tie games in professional indoor lacrosse.