From Press Releases

The Minnesota Swarm has announced the hiring of Mike Lines to fill the vacant head coaching position for the upcoming 2010 season. Lines, 38, spent the last three seasons with the Swarm as an assistant coach under former head coach Duane Jacobs, who resigned earlier this off-season.

“Mike’s a familiar face in our organization, so he was a real popular choice with our players and myself,” Swarm General Manager Marty O’Neill said.

The St. Catharines, Ont. native will take over a Swarm team that went 6-10 last season.

“He has a real connection with the players, and they really stepped up and voiced their opinion and said we would like to see him as the head coach,” O’Neill said. “We wanted to keep the positive feeling that we had in the past with Mike and try to build off that moving forward.”

Before joining the Swarm, Lines spent three years coaching the Ontario Lacrosse Association's Niagara Thunderhawks Junior 'B' team. During that time, he served as the General Manager for a season and was named the league’s Coach of the Year in 2006. 

“It’s exciting,” Lines said. “I’m really looking forward to getting the season started. It’s going to be good. We don’t have a lot to change actually. We’re just going to try to bring in a little more size and a little more speed defensively and work to be more consistent on offense. We’ll be better next year.”