Led by the Great Dane, the Coquitlam Adanacs have surged into second place and are a win away from being two points out of top spot.
Not too shabby for a team that started the Western Lacrosse Association season with just one victory in its first five games. And not bad for a prolific player who stands a mere five-foot-eight but plays six-foot-four.
The diminutive, dynamic Dane Dobbie delivered six- and seven-point outings respectively to rally the A's past the Victoria Shamrocks 10-9 last Friday and the Maple Ridge Burrards 11-8 on Saturday.
The results ran the A's winning streak to three games and boosted their record to 8-6-0 - four points back of the first-place Langley Thunder with a game in hand and heading into two key weekend match-ups - Friday versus the 7-5-2 Lakers in Burnaby and Saturday against the 6-6-1 Nanaimo Timbermen at Poirier Sports Complex, 7 p.m.
"We've been working hard, getting better every game and we just have to keep it going," Dobbie, 25, told The Tri-City News on the phone Wednesday. "These two games [this weekend] are extremely important."
Dobbie is considered fearless in his desire and determination to drive to the net. Despite his rather small height, he weighs a sturdy 180 pounds and owns arguably the quickest first step in the league. In just 11 games since his return from playing winter pro with the National Lacrosse League's Calgary Roughnecks, Dobbie boasts 27 goals and 20 assists for 47 points - good for eighth in the WLA.
"It's the way I've always played the game," Dobbie said of his crease-crashing ways. "I just don't think about it at the time. Maybe I should do that more and pull back sometimes but that's not really my way. I just do what I think needs to be done."
It seems to work just fine. Against Victoria, Dobbie collected four goals -- including the winner with 56 ticks to go -- and two assists, while he bagged three goals and four assists versus Ridge. Remarkably, Dobbie did all this without his main set-up man Daryl Veltman, the A's second-leading scorer who missed both games last weekend because he was attending a wedding back east.
"I feel the same way as anybody does when he gets it going," Dobbie shrugged. "What's helping me is the whole offence is coming together at the same time and our young guys are really stepping up.
"I know I'm going to be watched every game but we have a lot of other guys to watch, too."
A's general manager Randy Delmonico refers to Dobbie as "The Franchise" and is sometimes rendered open-jawed himself at what the player produces on the floor.
"He's a warrior," Delmonico said. "He'll go anywhere to score a goal. That's the leadership in him. Our young guys see that and it rubs off on them."
So how, exactly, did a team that started 1-4 suddenly plant itself in the hunt for first place?
"We always knew we were good, now we say it and believe it," Delmonico said. "The slow start can be attributed to so many of our guys coming right out of junior. It takes some time for those guys to adapt to the higher level of play, and now they are."
One of those guys is Daniel McQuade, a fourth-round pick by the A's at last winter's WLA draft who, like Dobbie, zipped in three goals and added four assists versus the Burrards. Again like Dobbie, Kevin Olson pumped in four goals against the Shamrocks, while A's goalie Nick Rose was outstanding in blocking 48 shots as Coquitlam was out-shot by the islanders, 57-39.
With just seven points separating first from sixth entering this week's action, the WLA is the tightest it's been in years, Delmonico said.
"If we would have lost those two last weekend, we'd be in sixth," he said. "We won them, so instead we're in second. Every game is like a playoff game, it's that tight. It's good for the fans but hard on the coaches."
