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urt Styres, Mike Hasen and the rest of the Rochester Knighthawks staff built an incredible culture of winning. You don’t bring home three straight National Lacrosse League championships without doing something right.

But the fruits of their labor packed their bags and moved to Canada this offseason, with a promising core of veteran and young players following ... only to be replaced by an entirely new expansion squad.

Well, sort of.

The colors and logos are different with this new team, but the name is the same. So is the coach, after Mike Hasen opted to stick around in Rochester instead of following the original franchise to Halifax. As fans walk into Blue Cross Arena, the same place the Rochester Knighthawks have always played, there’s a palpable sense of familiarity.

“When we’re having the meet-and-greets, it’s kind of those staple fans that are still coming,” said Knighthawks captain Paul Dawson, who spent parts of seven years with the original Knighthawks. “As far as gameday stuff like that, it doesn’t feel a lot different.”

That put Hasen in an interesting spot. Sure, his job title had not technically changed, but as he walked into training camp this fall, he met a whole new team. Would he stick with the same strategy, or start anew?

“I tried to keep things how it’s been in the past,” Hasen said. “My outlook has always been one game at a time. We just kind of build. You take the 18 regular season games and learn, and hopefully you learn enough where you’re playing your best lacrosse come playoffs.”

At the same time, he isn’t exactly referencing results of the past like he would if he were coaching the same Knighthawks. There is a cleaning of the slate, so to speak.

“We touch briefly on the history of the organization, the Knighthawks organization from past, but the biggest message when we started the year was it is not the same,” Hasen said. “We get to write our own history.”

So is the conundrum of Hasen’s bizarre situation, caused by the departure of the Rochester franchise being alleviated by a brand new team immediately. Franchises coming back from the grave isn’t a new concept. We even saw it in the NLL recently with the Philadelphia Wings. There’s just usually a few years inbetween.

Looking to replicate the culture of the previous franchise is only natural. It clearly worked early in the last decade, and a new era of success seemed to be on its way after a trip to the NLL Finals in 2018. Hasen points to the core of the last group, built around family, as something the current team is striving for.

An indication of this was the signing of Dawson and the ensuing announcement of his captaincy. He embodied the characteristics that helped the last franchise succeed while having the mindset of not getting bogged down in the past.

“With just the amount of rookies and guys that haven’t played for the team, it’s kind of a little easier to establish kind of a brand new identity, brand new culture,” Dawson said. “It kind of helps to start brand new and not look at what the old team used to do.”

While Hasen’s approach is similar, his situation with this Knighthawks team is very different than when he first walked in the door in 2011. Then, he inherited a team with pieces in place to win, allowing him to quickly improve the K-Hawks from a 9-7 team to a champion in just two seasons.

The San Diego Seals showed last season that expansion teams can have success right away, and Philadelphia has now taken major steps in its sophomore campaign as well, but there’s likely a longer path to a title with most new squads in the league. For Hasen, there’s some fun to building from the ground up.

That road back seemed very long after the Knighthawks’ debut on Nov. 30, when Georgia rolled over the new franchise for a 14-4 season-opening victory. It was a shock to the system considering the forward group the K-Hawks had built was applauded by many in the offseason.

Since, the team has been far more competitive, leading up to the franchise’s first-ever victory this weekend against the defending champion Calgary Roughnecks. Holden Cattoni and Curtis Knight, two players who have really stepped into larger roles than they were accustomed to playing in the past, each had six points in a 13-12 home upset Saturday.

It ended some frustration after three straight losses of three or fewer goals.

“It’s about time,” Ryland Rees, the Knighthawks’ promising second-overall pick, said after the game.

Rochester left the weekend with a bad taste in its mouth after a 12-4 loss to the Wings the following day, but that was probably expected from a squad featuring a bevy of rookies. Everything isn’t going to click overnight.

“We have 10 rookies on this team right now that are playing substantial minutes for us,” Hasen said. “It’s a learning process to play in this league. It’s such a huge step from any lacrosse that they’ve played.”

It’s a similar process off the floor as the Knighthawks look to extend a hand to fans of the former franchise and get them excited about this new team. People like Hasen and Dawson serve as a bridge between the two squads, giving the long-time supporters familiar faces to latch onto.

And if a rough-and-tumble matchup with the Wings that featured over 100 minutes in penalties is any indication, the hard-nosed action and thrilling rivalries that helped intrigue fans in the first place is still there.

“I think the organization itself is trying to resell itself in the market,” Hasen said. “We’re trying to sell every seat in that building and it’s been a process trying to do that again as well.”