I travelled to Halifax this past weekend with my wife and a couple of friends to see game two of the Finals. This was my third time in Halifax in the past three years, but my first Thunderbirds game there. Seeing a game there became a bucket-list thing for me not long after the team arrived there; the atmosphere inside the Nest always looked really exciting and loud, so I was looking forward to seeing just how exciting and loud it could be. I’ve heard many people say that the experience in the Nest was really great, and even “unmatched” in the NLL, but most of those people worked for the T-Birds, played for the T-Birds, or were fans of the T-Birds. I’m none of those three, so let me give you my unbiased opinion: all of those people were absolutely right.
2026 NLL Finals game two
The books are closed on the 2026 NLL season, as the Toronto Rock defeated the Halifax Thunderbirds in the Nest to take game two. The Rock won their seventh Championship, but first since 2011. Challen Rogers was 17 when the Rock last won it all. CJ Kirst was eight. The Thunderbirds lost their first trip to the Finals since 2018 when they were the old Rochester Knighthawks. Of course that predates their move to Halifax, so the vast majority of Thunderbirds fans will consider that their first trip to the dance.
2026 NLL Finals, game one
Game one of the finals was close, back-and-forth, and exciting with some great goaltending, exceptional defense, and a big comeback. But unlike the quarterfinals, it wasn’t the Halifax Thunderbirds staging the big comeback.
NLL Experience of GMs & Coaches
During the semi-finals, I noticed that all of the people listed on San Diego’s “Coaching staff” web page were very high NLL draft picks. I posted that to X and someone suggested that I do that for all the teams. I decided to add some additional information – when they played in the NLL if at all, whether they are in the Hall of Fame, and what awards they had won.
Continue reading2026 NLL Semi-Finals, week 2
Good news: The Finals are here! We’re this close to determining the 2026 NLL Champion!
Bad news: There are at most three games left in the NLL season.
NLL One-Hit Wonders
This might be a strange article. One of my favourite podcasts, which is about music and completely unrelated to sports, recently did a series that was really interesting, and I thought that I might be able to apply similar logic to NLL players. I did that and got quite unexpected results.
2026 NLL Semi-Finals – Week 1
The unexpected results from round one continued this weekend. The higher-seeded Rock won game one of their battle with the Seals on Friday night, but Sunday saw the Seals battle back to tie the series – with their backup goalie in net, a man who’s seen less than 180 minutes of action this entire season, and only 38 minutes (all last weekend) since early January. Meanwhile, the eight-seed Halifax Thunderbirds dominated their game against the Swarm and now have two chances at home to clinch their first-ever trip to the NLL Finals.
Game report: Semi finals game 1, San Diego @ Toronto
The Rock played their first home playoff game in just over two years on Friday night, and what a game it was. It started off looking like it would be very physical, but that sort of calmed down a bit. But the end-to-end action never did, and literally right to the end of regulation time, it was anybody’s game.
Not Awesome: the overtime goal
I’m sure that by now you’ve heard about the controversial goal scored in overtime in the San Diego / Colorado game from this past weekend. A minute into the overtime period, Tre Leclaire took a shot, Ward stopped it, Wes Berg picked up the rebound, and passed it to Leclaire who scored. Or did he?
2026 NLL Quarterfinals
It’s the playoffs! We had four exciting games this past weekend, and of the eight teams who made the playoffs, four of them are out. The crazy thing is that the #1, #2, and #3 seeded teams are all out thanks to getting beat by the #6, #7, and #8 teams. There are an awful lotta brackets that have been destroyed.
For the playoffs, I will skip the Awesome / Not Awesome format and just look at the games that happened. With one exception.
NLL Chatter 