We have a game between last year’s Champion’s Cup finalist and last year’s first-overall team. We’re expecting a hard-fought close game right? Yes, that’s what we’re expecting but no, that’s not what we got. Instead the powerhouse Albany FireWolves came into Toronto Hamilton Mississauga and destroyed the Rock.

After getting embarrassed last week, it wouldn’t be surprising to see the Rock angry and ready to take out their frustrations on their next opponent. As for the FireWolves, they also lost in week 1 to a team that didn’t make the playoffs last season, so it wouldn’t be surprising to see those guys angry as well. Well, the anger was certainly there on both sides, but more on that later. The Rock were only 75% of the Rock from last season, given that Challen Rogers, Tom Schreiber, Brad Kri, TD Ierlan, and Latrell Harris (though he missed all of last season) were all out with injuries. Those are some pretty significant missing pieces.

But even the remaining Rock players didn’t look like themselves. The offense looked lost and frustrated all night. Similar to last week, passes were made to nobody and the passes that did reach a teammate were dropped or just missed. Shots were missing the net entirely, even in the few cases where the shooter was one-on-one with Doug Jamieson. One cross-floor pass sailed ten feet over Mark Matthews’s head and landed in the crowd a couple of rows from me. There were times where it looked like these guys hadn’t picked up a lacrosse stick for six months and had skipped training camp. Yes, they were missing some significant pieces and yes, they were facing one of the best goalies in the league in Jamieson, but we’re still talking about Mark Matthews, Corey Small, and Chris Boushy combining for no goals and four assists. The team has a total of one first-half goal in two games. Josh Dawick is leading the team in points, after two games, with four. Injured teammates or not, that can’t fly.

The FireWolves, on the other hand, looked like they were having a lot of fun. Sam Firth scored five, Travis Longboat scored once and assisted on six others, and ten different players had at least two points. Oddly, Dyson Williams was not one of them; he also looked a bit lost and only had a single assist, but nobody’s calling the 2023 first-overall draft pick a bust quite yet. There’s no doubt that he’ll get things figured out pretty quickly.

On to the anger bit. There were a number of penalties called early in the game against the Rock (4 of the first 5 were Rock minors), but by the end of the third quarter, the penalties were about even. In the fourth, there were some almost-fights and we had four roughing minors called at the same time. While the refs were handling that, there was a lot of yelling back and forth between the benches. Glenn Clark was very angry and screaming at the Rock bench, and I think it was Nick Rose who was responding. I couldn’t actually hear what they were saying but it was easy to read Clark’s lips, and he said “Josh f**king Dawick” two or three times.

With under two minutes left, Billy Hostrawser and Patrick Kaschalk had words and were each given “Unnecessary Roughness” majors. This was a bit weird for two reasons. First off, fighting would have been the logical call though watching the replay (thanks NLL+!), there weren’t any actual punches thrown. Hostrawser basically tackled Colton Watkinson, and Kaschalk grabbed Hostrawser, then they tried to fight but the refs prevented it. So it wasn’t technically a fight. But secondly, the “Unnecessary Roughness” penalty doesn’t exist. Neither the word “unnecessary” or the word “roughness” appears anywhere in the 2025 rule book. But five for Roughing does exist and would have been a reasonable call too. Strange.

Then at the end of the game, as the benches emptied to go congratulate / commiserate with their goalies, Nick Rose walked by the Albany bench and then took a right turn and walked straight to them. I don’t remember who he was talking to but Rose gave him a shove, and then Doug Jamieson came flying in to protect his teammate. Everyone was pulled apart and no actual punches were thrown, but the standard handshake line was wisely cancelled.

We might have another rivalry brewing here – I’ve seen less anger at Rock/Bandits games. Or we might not, considering the Rock and FireWolves don’t play again this season, except possibly in the playoffs. It’s way too early in the season to start talking about making or missing playoffs, but the Rock do have a hill to climb.

Other game notes:

• The new arena was great. The stands were pretty much full, though the place only holds around 5000, and they were loud – well, once the game was out of hand it got kinda quiet. With the same PA announcer, host, and anthem guy, it wasn’t much different from the last couple of years. The parking situation wasn’t great but that’s to be expected. I’ll just have to remember to get there earlier for the next game.
• Another factor in this new arena (that directly affects the game play more than the fan experience) is that because there’s no upper bowl, the ceiling is a lot lower than First Ontario Centre (or Scotiabank Arena / Air Canada Centre). This means that a long pass or high bounce could hit the scoreboard or one of the Rock banners hanging at one end or the Raptors 905 banners hanging at the other end. The play is called dead at that point, and this did happen at least once in the game.
• Another first for me at an NLL game: the power went out entirely near the end of the second quarter. The entire building went dark but the lights came back on after maybe two seconds. Play stopped as the refs tried to figure out what to do. The scoreboard immediately said the correct score and time remaining (39 seconds), but it took a couple of minutes before the Jumbotron came back on. It took maybe five minutes before play resumed.