Author Archives: Graeme

Championship pick

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After going 2-2 in the first round, I completely blew the division finals, going 0-2. So it comes down to yet another difficult pick – Edmonton or Rochester.

Edmonton is hot right now, winning two games they weren’t expected to win. Their goalie and defense, which have been great all year, are still great but the offense is the surprising part. It’s only been two games, but after averaging a league-low 10.4 goals per game in the regular season, the Rush are averaging 17 in the playoffs. Can they keep it up for one more game?

Rochester has the best of both worlds – lots of young players like Jamieson, Keogh, and Powless as well as veterans like Vinc (has he really played seven seasons? I still think of him as one of the new goalies on the block), Accursi, McCready, and Cousins. They had an inconsistent season, with two separate three-game losing streaks, but played very well against both Philadelphia and Toronto to earn their way to the Big Game. Can they keep it up for one more game?

Record: 2-4 (.333)

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Comments

Pick
EDM @ ROC

I have to take the hot team here. We’ve known their defense and goaltending was excellent since the beginning of the year, and I had a feeling (and I know others did as well) that their offense was better than they were showing. The Knighthawks have Matt Vinc who can certainly steal a game, and Johnny Powless is quickly turning into one of the most exciting players in the game, but Shawn Williams, Steve Toll, and Aaron Bold are all former Knighthawks, and I’m sure they’d love to win a Championship against their former team. (Scott Evans too, but he’s likely to be on the bench.) This may be Steve Toll’s last NLL season, so his teammates would love to send him off with a Championship.

 Rush

NLL Referees, Part 2: Bias and conspiracies

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This is the second of my two-part series on referees in the NLL. In part one, we talked about how referees have a thankless and difficult job. In addition to that, they have fans constantly complaining about the penalties they call or don’t call. Can they be inconsistent? Absolutely, but who isn’t? Do they make mistakes? Definitely, but who doesn’t? It seems that fans will not accept even the slightest error by an official. When was the last time you heard a fan say “Yeah, that was the wrong call, but hey, he’s only human”?

One of the biggest complaints about refs is that they are inconsistent, and I completely agree that this is a problem. Inconsistency can be a big problem in any sport, but honestly, I’ve never noticed NLL refs being any more inconsistent than officials in other sports. We’ve all seen an umpire that calls a high pitch a strike in the second inning and a ball in the seventh, but nobody pulls the old “All MLB umpires are incompetent and they should all be fired.” You also have to remember that there are two refs, so when they called Mr. Goon on your team for the hit from behind in the first quarter and then didn’t call Mr. 40-goal-scorer on the other team for a similar hit in the third, it may not have been the same ref. The one that called the first penalty may have been fifty feet away from the second, and the one that saw the second hit may not have seen the first and thought the second wasn’t a hit worth penalizing. Two different fans may disagree on what constitutes a clean hit from a dirty one, why wouldn’t two refs?

Another charge leveled at the refs is that they’re biased. Few, if any, refs in lacrosse can be completely unbiased. This is because very few people can be completely unbiased. The only way to make sure you have truly unbiased refs is to have people who DO NOT CARE who wins or loses, which means you need someone who doesn’t know the players or coaches personally, and has no history with any of them or any of the teams. But lacrosse is such a small community that this is pretty much impossible. People can overlook their personal relationships with players and I’m sure most officials in all sports do, but even so, the perception of bias will be there. Say a ref calls a crosschecking penalty against one player and ten minutes later does not call a penalty against another player for a similar hit. But if the ref and one of the players involved know each other from junior lacrosse or come from the same town or something, fans may believe that he has a bias against the first player or is a friend of the second. In actual fact, it could be that the ref just didn’t see the second hit, or from his vantage point the second hit was similar but clean. There’s pretty much no way around this. People are going to believe what they believe, sometimes in spite of the evidence. Refs are just going to have thick skins when it comes to fans accusing them of bias. And considering that in general the fans are actively rooting for one team over the other, having them accuse someone else of bias is just a touch ironic.

C'mon, really?But some people go even further than that, and make accusations that the refs, or the league as a whole, have it out for a particular team or want a particular team to be successful. There is a huge difference between having inconsistent or biased refs and an organized conspiracy. Bias can be explicit – “I don’t like this guy so if he hits someone and and it’s even close to being illegal, I’m going to call a penalty on him” – or implicit, where a ref may call a penalty against a player because he has a history of bad behaviour, and so he’s not given the benefit of the doubt even if this decision isn’t conscious. The former needs to be eliminated, if it can be detected, but there’s not much that can be done about the latter.

A conspiracy, on the other hand, implies knowingly applying the rules and making judgment calls differently based on the team or player that the potential infraction is against. It would also mean that more than one ref must be involved in this, since a single ref consistently calling penalties against one team and not the other would be noticed (and likely questioned) by the other ref if he weren’t in on it. This kind of accusation is serious, and would call into question every game the refs being accused have ever worked. If such an accusation could be proven – that one or more refs conspired to penalize one team more or less heavily than the others – this would be the biggest scandal the league has ever seen. If it could be proven that the league itself was involved, it’s safe to say the NLL would finally be getting the front-page coverage they’ve been seeking for years – right before they fold. Sure, having a Colorado / Toronto final would be better for ratings and publicity than an Edmonton / Rochester final, but the risks to the league of trying to arrange something like this are just too great for such a scheme to even be considered. We have to assume that the league and refs are impartial (or as impartial as possible) and that any claim otherwise is infeasible. You’d need extraordinary evidence in order to make a case for such an extraordinary claim. I’ve heard many such claims but have never seen the slightest shred of actual evidence.

Many people reading these articles will simply brush me off as an NLL ref apologist. Some might wonder if I have a friend or relative who’s a ref. For the record, I don’t. And there is at least one NLL ref who I don’t particularly like. I find he tends to make a big show of some calls, as if he wants it to be about him, making sure everyone knows that he is in charge. As I said before, the best refs are the ones who do their job and fade into the background, not getting in the way unless it’s necessary.

Now I will admit that I may be totally off-base with some of this. Maybe I’ve been lucky and the refs I’ve seen are pretty good while the ones that play Philly and Rochester and out west aren’t as good. It’s possible that never having actually played lacrosse, I just don’t know bad reffing when I see it. Or maybe the overall talent level is not high but is fairly consistent, and I’m confusing that with “they’re all pretty good”.

Yes, there are always going to be bad calls by refs in lacrosse games. But if you don’t give in to confirmation bias, I suspect that in the long run you’ll find that just as many bad calls go against your team as against the other teams. This means that there is indeed a level playing field and so any biases, real or perceived, are eventually cancelled out. NLL games are decided by the players, not the refs.

NLL Referees, Part 1: Judgment calls and consistency

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Over the years, I’ve heard countless complaints about NLL refs. They’re incompetent, they’re inconsistent, they’re biased, and they just plain suck are the most popular. There are always going to be complaints about officials in all sports, but they’re generally about individuals or the reffing in a particular game or even on a particular play. In the NLL, it’s more general – it seems that it’s a generally agreed-upon “fact” that all NLL refs are terrible.

Quite honestly, I’m getting tired of hearing about it. After just about every game, you’ll see complaints on twitter or on various message boards that the refs affected the outcome, because of the one bad call that was made (frequently a judgment call that can’t be proven right or wrong), or because they didn’t just “let them play” (OMG, you mean they actually called penalties when rules were broken? Fire ’em all!), or because they did just “let them play”. Obviously there needs to be a balance between calling every “ticky-tack” rule violation and not calling anything unless limbs are removed, but for every call a ref may let go because it’s too minor, half the fans are going to yell because he let it go. For every call he does make, half the fans are yelling “You called that? He barely touched him!” I imagine that refs learn very early in their career that they simply can’t win so they have to do what they think is right and ignore people who yell at them.

I’m of the opinion that the majority of NLL refs are good at what they do, and that significant biases are few and far between. Mistakes are definitely made: mostly minor, occasionally egregious, sometimes completely baffling. But the number of times I’ve come out of an NLL game thinking that the refs had a significant effect on the outcome is pretty low. However, these complaints come up so often that they’re worth taking a look at.

I’ve broken this discussion up into two parts. The first part deals with the job itself and why fans often manage to convince themselves that the refs are terrible.

Few would argue that being an official in just about any league and in just about any sport is a thankless job. There’s a lot of stress and a lot of pressure, and while the players on each team have their fans, nobody comes to see the ref. Some fans will even applaud for a player on the opposing team if he makes a particularly good play, but regardless of how good a job he does, nobody applauds the ref. If you’re a ref that fades into the background and none of the fans know your name, you’re probably doing a good job.

Face off

In many sports refs have to run around almost as much as the players do, and lacrosse is no exception. In fact, since they don’t get to rest for 30 seconds while the play is at the other end of the floor, your average lacrosse ref may run around more than many of the players do over the course of a game. They have to be on the floor, running with the play, making sure to be in a position to watch everything but also making sure to stay out of the way, and making constant judgment calls for the entire 60 minutes.

I’d be interested to know just how many judgment calls they have to make in a game. Did that 100 mph shot ricochet off the post or the goalie’s shoulder? Was that a moving pick or were his feet planted, or was it incidental contact that should just be ignored? Was that a high hit that should be penalized, or a hit to the shoulder that slid up and accidentally made contact with the guy’s head? If the player wasn’t hurt, does it matter? I saw that same hit earlier in the game and called a penalty, but now it’s overtime, do I call it?

Considering all the hits, shots, changes of possession, shot clock resets, loose balls, face-offs, penalties, and goals, it wouldn’t surprise me if there were a few hundred judgment calls in each and every game. Many of them are minor and many of them are technically judgment calls but there was no real decision to be made. There are a lot of plays, however, where a actual judgment is required. But the fans don’t think about that. You get one of those few hundred judgment calls wrong, and you’re not very good. Two wrong and you’re incompetent. Three or more wrong and you are the worst official ever to set foot on the floor in any sport. Three mistakes out of three hundred judgment calls is a 1% failure rate. How many other industries can you get 99% of your decisions right and still have people booing you and talking about how completely useless you are?

So why is it that fans think the refs are so bad? Could they be hockey or field lacrosse refs who recently started working indoor lacrosse games. Maybe, though the field lacrosse connection is more likely to be a problem with refs from Colorado and Philadelphia, and less so in Edmonton and Toronto. Do they not know the rules? I suppose that’s possible, particularly with the field guys I mentioned. It’s also possible that these refs work the NLL, the MSL or WLA, and any number of junior and minor lacrosse leagues, all of which have slightly different rules. I sometimes run on autopilot and call my younger son by my older son’s name. Nobody thinks I don’t know his name, it’s just a minor “brain fart” which happens to everybody. If it can happen to parents with their children, arguably the most important thing in their lives, it can certainly happen to a ref who works part-time for three different lacrosse leagues.

We also have to consider that the refs are on the floor and see things differently than people in the stands or on TV. They don’t have the benefit of slow motion. They don’t get to watch the Jumbotron. They can’t see the entire floor at once. They may have a player or several players standing in their field of view. They have to move around to make sure they have the best view possible but when the ball moves at 100 mph, that’s not always possible. There are only two of them, watching twelve players. Believe it or not, they’re human and they make mistakes. Sometimes those mistakes are going to come at crucial times and that’s unfortunate. But expecting 100% error-free officiating is simply not realistic.

A lot of fans go into a game already believing that the refs suck, and if they see one bad call (not even necessarily an incorrect call – just one that a fan disagrees with), they’ll call that proof of the ref’s incompetence. The other 299 correct calls go unnoticed. This is what’s called confirmation bias.

Confirmation bias occurs when you have a pre-existing belief (“refs suck”) and ignore evidence that contradicts it (the few hundred correct judgment calls) but remember evidence that confirms it (that one call you didn’t agree with). This is extremely common and happens to everyone, and is almost always unconscious and unintentional. But it happens. Ever get a “reading” done by a psychic? If you have, I guarantee that you remember the three or four guesses “predictions” she made that ended up being correct, but forget the fifty or so she made that were wrong. In this case, you walk into a lacrosse game thinking “So what are these incompetent refs going to screw up today?”, and walk out thinking “See? They called a penalty on Joe Awesomeguy for that crosscheck that was totally legal.” But you forget the challenge that the coach made that was overturned because the original call was correct. You forget the correct penalty call that led to your team’s power play goal. You forget the hundred loose ball calls and shot clock resets and such. And how many times have you heard home team fans yelling at the refs because they called an unfair penalty against the visiting team? Are you really complaining about their incompetence, or only when it disadvantages your team? Who’s really biased here?

In our second installment, we’ll expand on the concept of bias and talk about when fans accuse the refs of being biased – or worse.

Game Report: Rochester 17 @ Toronto 13

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The Toronto Rock 2012 season came to a crashing halt on Saturday while the Rochester Knighthawks will now host the Championship game. Long story short: the Knighthawks came to play, literally bringing busloads of fans with them, and destroyed the Rock 17-13, in a game that wasn’t nearly as close as the final score might indicate.

The early part of the game was back-and-forth, with the Knighthawks taking leads three times before the Rock tied it up again. Rochester managed to grab a two-goal lead by the end of the first half, but the Rock were definitely still in it at that point. The Rock were frustrated by the Knighthawks defense, who just weren’t giving them any shots. Now and again they’d get a look from way outside, and a few times they seemed to get a lane right up the middle, but the only thing to shoot at was Vinc’s chest, which they hit on a number of occasions.

Rock fans were hoping the team would be fired up to start the second half and tie the game up quickly, but it just didn’t happen. Instead the Knighthawks scored three within 4½ minutes to start the third, and then three within 2½ minutes to start the fourth. But by that beginning of the fourth, we knew it was effectively all over but the crying, and the Rochester goal-scoring. The Rock offense just couldn’t solve the Rochester defense and when they did, Matt Vinc was there. Vinc played a great game while at the other end, Nick Rose didn’t have his strongest outing. I didn’t think he was terrible and I wouldn’t pin the loss on him, but he certainly wasn’t as strong as last weekend. The Rock defense hung him out to dry on a number of occasions, and he let in a few softies as well. In the third, Stephen Keogh ran right through a pair of Rock defenders like they weren’t there and scored, and that was the game in a nutshell. The Rock D did pick up in the second half of the third quarter, when the Rock were only down by 4. It looked like they were trying to pull the same comeback thing they pulled last week. But then the Knighthawks had another run and Toronto just couldn’t get back into it.

If I have one complaint about Nick Rose it’s that he allows too many rebounds. Many times he came up big and made a huge save but gave up a huge rebound at the same time, and the Knighthawks would bury the rebound as Rose was recovering. I first noticed that tendency in Rose’s first game in Buffalo, though in that game as well as the one last week, he made a lot of the second saves as well. On Saturday, not so much.

As per usual, Garrett Billings was tops on the Rock scoring list, with Doyle and Sanderson right behind him. Also as per usual (this year), Stephen Leblanc got a few points but was mostly invisible. Toronto’s transition played pretty well – damn, it’s nice to have Rob Marshall back – but the loss of Damon Edwards didn’t help. Something that not only didn’t help but actually made things worse was the addition of rookie goon Scott Johnston. In the fourth quarter, with Pat Campbell in net (he and Rose swapped on almost every shift for a while late in the game), Campbell came way out of his net to grab a loose ball and then started to run up the floor on transition. He got blocked near the centre line (!) and Pat McCready hit him into the boards. This was a weird enough play (one could argue it was a stupid play – what the hell was Campbell trying to accomplish? With his pads on he runs way slower than anyone else), but then Scott Johnston jumped McCready and tried to fight him. Both got fighting majors but Johnston was tossed and given an instigator penalty, so the Knighthawks went on the PP. Just what we needed when trying to get back into the game. And for what – to come to the aid of Pat Campbell? Who on the Rock can stand up for themselves better than Pat Campbell? This is a guy who instigated a fight with Geoff Snider earlier this year. He doesn’t need Scott Johnston to stand up for him, and he certainly doesn’t need Johnston to put his team a man down while desperately trying to come back in the fourth quarter of a playoff game. As I tweeted during the game, that might have been the dumbest play I’ve seen all year. And good god, man, lose the bad Movember ‘stache.

Other game notes:

  • The Harbour Sports Grille is apparently a popular place with lacrosse people. Not only did we see a bunch of other Rock jerseys, but Knighthawks assistant coach Paul Day was sitting with his family at the table next to us, and our waitress told us that both of the refs were there earlier – though sitting separately. They have TVs all over the place, and at one point we were watching baseball, cricket, golf, and two different highlights shows all at the same time. I assume they changed all the TVs to the Rock/Knighthawks game once that began.
  • Cory Vitarelli had a great game. Not only did he score four goals, but at one point in the second he stopped Rob Marshall against the boards and wouldn’t let him go. It would have caused an 8-second violation but instead Marshall dropped the ball and Vitarelli picked it up. An outstanding defensive play.
  • Johnny Powless scored Rochester’s 14th goal (the game winner), and it looked to me like his foot was on the crease line. I went through the TV replay when I got home and it was indeed a good goal, but just barely. It was close enough that I’m surprised Cordingley didn’t challenge it. There was still over 12 minutes to play at that point, so I hope it wasn’t because he figured it just didn’t matter.

Division finals picks

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I was 2-2 in my first week of playoff picks. I felt relatively confident in my western picks, Calgary and Colorado, and not very confident on my eastern picks, Toronto and Rochester. The result: I totally nailed the east and totally pooched the west. But that said, who would have predicted both Edmonton and Minnesota upsets? I said last week that I could see Minnesota pulling off the upset in that game, but went with Colorado anyway. I thought that the chances of Edmonton pulling off such an upset were non-zero, but pretty darned small. Obviously, I did not give Edmonton the credit that they deserved. Apologies and huge kudos to the Rush, and kudos to the Swarm as well for their first-ever playoff win. One of these teams will advance to the Championship game, a place that neither has ever been before. This is fantastic not only for these two franchises and cities, but for the league as well.

Of this weeks picks, I feel relatively confident on one (Rock) and not at all confident on the other (Swarm). If last week is any indication, that means I’ll totally nail the west and totally pooch the east.

Record: 2-2 (.500)

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Comments

Pick
ROC @ TOR The Rock were 3-0 against the Knighthawks this year. They also have an eight game winning streak against Rochester, and have won ten of the last eleven games (we won’t talk about the previous nine, all of which the Knighthawks won) so that means the Rock will win, right? Sure. Just ask the Roughnecks.
The Knighthawks have the firepower, defense, goaltending, and veteran leadership to beat anyone. But the Rock have more of all of those things. Normally I’d rank Matt Vinc above a rookie starter who’s only started 7 games in his career, but Rose is on a roll and the team has a lot of confidence in him. I think the Rock will ride that wave right into their third straight Champion’s Cup game.		 Rock5_thumb
EDM @ MIN Wow, this might be one of the hardest picks all season. Both teams are brimming with confidence right now and both have hot goaltenders. Minnesota has had the better offense all season, but the Rush put up 19 against the Goaltender of the Year (though recovering from concussion) last weekend. But I can’t call a tie – I gotta pick someone. The Rush lost their last two games of the season and then beat the Roughnecks so that could be a fluke, while the Swarm have won five in a row now. I’m going to have to go with the Swarm. Swarm

Game Report: Buffalo 6 @ Toronto 7

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For the third straight year, the Rock have bumped the Bandits out of the playoffs. This game was very similar to the last Bandits game in Toronto, where the first half and the second half seemed like completely different games. In the first half of Saturday’s game, the Rock put forth a pretty uninspiring performance while the Bandits played solid defense and Anthony Cosmo was excellent. In the second half, the Rock finally came alive (if you can call five goals in a half “coming alive”), and the Bandits forwards were shut down by a great goaltending performance by Nick Rose. The final score was 7-6, making this game the second-lowest scoring playoff game in NLL history. The NLL later tweeted that 7 is now the lowest winning score of a playoff game in history, and ties the all-time (i.e. non-playoff) record.

The Rock were shut out entirely in the first quarter, while Buffalo scattered four goals. The second quarter wasn’t much different from the first, though the Rock did get on the scoreboard. But John Tavares scored 30 seconds after the first Rock goal and 3 minutes after the second, each time deflating the crowd and taking the wind out of the Rock’s sails. The Rock offense was starting to get some good looks though, and at one point beat Cosmo but not the posts and crossbar about four times within two minutes including three shots in a row. Cosmo never touched any of them, and may not even have seen them, but according to the rule book he’s credited with a save for each one. In general though, Cosmo played unbelievable in the first half, and only allowed five in the second half as well. Buffalo’s defenders played very well, but Cosmo was easily Buffalo’s game MVP.

At the other end, Nick Rose was good in the first quarter despite the four goals allowed. He was even better in the second – I don’t fault him for the two goals in the second quarter either, since they were both from John Tavares who was left open. No goalie can be faulted for giving up goals to Tavares when he’s open. The Bandits didn’t figure, however, that JT’s goal at 10:57 of the second was the last they’d score in the game. Rose was positively Watson-esque in the second half, and there’s no higher compliment from a Toronto Rock fan. The Bandits were held scoreless for a little over 34 minutes.

The crowd started to get into the game by the end of the third, and even when the Rock were still down by two, the volume was continually growing. Once folks realized that Rose and the defense were playing well enough to keep the Rock in the game and that they really did have a chance to win this, it got even louder. Garrett Billings scored to get the Rock within three, and then Kasey Beirnes (who’d be the Rock game MVP if it weren’t for Rose) scored a few minutes later to get the Rock within two to end the third. Beirnes scored again a couple of minutes into the third, and then completed the natural hat-trick by tying the game three minutes later. But it took until there was only 1:35 left in the game before Brenden Thenhaus scored to give the Rock the lead for the first time in the game. By this point, the crowd was going insane, possibly as loud as I’ve heard the ACC all year.

With less than ten seconds in regulation time, Bill Greer took a penalty for holding the stick, which he vehemently tried to argue but to no avail. His argument was valid… sort of. On watching the replay, Stephen Hoar knocked the stick out of Culp’s hands with a legal check, and then Greer crosschecked Culp in the back of the head. I didn’t see anyone holding anyone else’s stick. Greer certainly could have gotten two, or five, for the crosscheck though. And Stephen Hoar could have gotten two for yanking on Kelusky’s jersey a few seconds before.

At this point, there were 7.5 seconds left on the clock, and my son says “Ha! Only 7.5 seconds left! It doesn’t matter anyway!” I responded “Oh yes it does. This is lacrosse.” And sure enough, John Tavares puts one in just under 7.5 seconds later. The refs began to review the goal, as they always do with under two minutes to play, and they showed the replay on the Jumbotron. Right away Josh Sanderson and a few other Rock players ran over to Nick Rose to give him a celebratory hug. They could see on the replay that the goal wouldn’t count because Tracey Kelusky was standing fully in the crease. I’ve seen a few tweets and articles that say he was pushed in, but first off, it doesn’t matter since pushing someone into the crease isn’t illegal. Secondly, I’ve watched the replay from the TV broadcast a number of times and I see no evidence that he was pushed in. He was behind Chapman who was walking backwards, but so was Kelusky. Maybe Chapman was pushing him and maybe not but it’s impossible to tell from the replay. After a review that only took a few seconds but felt much longer, the crowd erupted as the “no goal” sign was given, thus ending a game that started off fairly boring but then became one of the most exciting lacrosse games in recent memory.

The Bandits are done for the year, and the Rock will host the Knighthawks next weekend for the East division title. Since Edmonton took out Calgary, Toronto will host their second straight Championship game if they beat the Knighthawks.

Other game notes:

  • Kevin Buchanan managed to launch his stick over the glass in the first quarter and was booed when he convinced the fan (a Bandits fan, too) to toss it back to him. I expected to see Buchanan run over with an extra stick or something later on to give the guy as a thank-you, but it didn’t happen.
  • Glen Bryan’s helmet got knocked off in the third, and he made a move towards the bench but then turned around and continued play for a while. The rule book is clear – if your helmet comes off you must either put it back on or leave the floor immediately. Seeing as Bryan was defending the guy with the ball, there was no way the refs just didn’t see it. Easy call, but the refs totally blew it.
  • At the end of the first, Damon Edwards hit Ian Llord into the boards with a crosscheck from behind, and Llord suffered a separated shoulder. No call on that one either. Llord had the ball at the time, so if the refs didn’t see it, I don’t know where they were looking.
  • There were only 9400 people at the game, which I thought was quite disappointing for a playoff game against the Bandits on a Saturday night when the Leafs and Raptors are done.
  • Who was first in line for the handshakes after the game, less than a minute after the no-goal call? Darris Kilgour.

Division semi-final picks

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My overall record during the regular season was 31-41 (0.431). If I only get three of the seven playoff games right, I’m at .428, so I need to finish above .500 in the playoffs to beat my regular season record. Everyone wants to do better in the playoffs than they did in the regular season, right?

Despite what my picks for the first round look like, I did not just go with the higher ranked team. Well, I did, but I actually did think about each game.

Record: 0-0

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Comments

Pick
BUF @ TOR Of the three possible opponents for the Rock in the first round, this was my least favourite option as a Rock fan. I was hoping the Rock would face Rochester while the Wings disposed of the Bandits. Then the Rock could take out the Wings and head to the final again. It doesn’t matter how bad the Bandits were in the early (or even mid) part of this year – they played pretty well at the end, Cosmo seems to have found his stride, and the team is playing with confidence. This could be a really close game, going back and forth all night and finally solved by overtime, or it could be a blowout, one way or the other. None of those options would surprise me. Rock5
PHI @ ROC On March 23, the Wings were 7-4 and in first place in the East. Since then, they’re 0-5 and have scored 10 or fewer goals in 4 of those games. They’re outta time to turn things around – it’s now or never. The Knighthawks aren’t exactly flying into the playoffs either, having lost four of their last six. But one of those wins was against the Wings and the other was against the powerhouse Roughnecks, so things aren’t all bad. Knighthawks5
EDM @ CAL I like the Rush. Aaron Bold is my Goalie of the Year choice, Rubisch (my Defender of the Year choice) and Corbeil are two of the best defenders in the league, and Shawn Williams and Steve Toll are two of my all-time favourite players. Could they beat the Roughnecks? Could their defense and goaltending shut down the potent Calgary offense long enough for their forwards to put a few by Poulin? Sure, it could happen. But it won’t. Roughnecks
MIN @ COL I wanted to pick the Swarm, and I kind of hope I’m wrong. The Swarm have surprised and impressed me (and many others) this year, and I wouldn’t be shocked if they did pull off the upset, though I would be surprised. Sure, they beat the Mammoth last weekend, but Colorado was missing Gavin Prout and had nothing to play for in that game. Prout is back this weekend, and the Mammoth are not going to take this one lightly. Mammoth4

2012 NLL Award winners

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The IL Indoor writing staff submitted their picks this week for the major annual NLL awards. Here are the names I submitted. I also made some predictions at the beginning of the year, so let’s see how I did on those.

Offensive player of the year – John Grant, Jr.

Grant set a new scoring record and did it while playing two fewer games than anyone else. He kept up an average of 8.3 points per game, and never scored less than six points in a game. He had two games all year without a hat-trick.

It’s amazing to me that John Tavares set the scoring record of 115 points in 14 games in 2001, and in ten 16-game seasons, nobody could beat it. Then in 2012 someone finally does beat it – while only playing 14 games.

Runners-up: Garrett Billings, Dan Dawson, John Tavares, Gavin Prout

Prediction: I didn’t make a prediction for offensive player.

Transition player of the year – Geoff Snider

Runners-up: Andrew Suitor, Brodie Merrill, Jordan MacIntosh, Travis Cornwall, Jesse Gamble

Prediction: Paul Rabil. Hahahahahahahaha

Defensive player of the year – Kyle Rubisch

Runners-up: Curtis Manning, Rory Smith, Kyle Sorensen, Sandy Chapman

Prediction: Kyle Rubisch. Yay, I got one right.

Goaltender of the year – Aaron Bold

I was really torn here. My first thought was Bold, but I had trouble giving Goaltender of the Year to a goalie on a 6-10 team so I switched to Mike Poulin. But then I remembered that Bob Watson won it for the Rock in 2008 when they were 7-9 and missed the playoffs. Poulin had a better team in front of him so he got more wins, but that doesn’t help us compare. But while watching games and highlights and looking over game reports over the course of the year, I remember thinking “wow” just a little more often with Bold than with anyone else. So I switched back.

Runners-up: Mike Poulin, Evan Kirk, Chris Levis

Prediction: Mike Thompson. Hey, he played in the All-Star game! But so did the now-unemployed Matt Roik.

Rookie of the year – Jordan MacIntosh

Before the season started, a number of people seemed to have already decided that this award should just be given to Kevin Crowley, and Crowley certainly impressed. But even once the season began, I never had Crowley pegged as the runaway winner of this award, because Adam Jones was always right there with him. They both slowed down a little in the second half, dropping to about 5 points per game. Still excellent debut seasons, to be sure. But MacIntosh quietly amassed 51 points, only 20 less than Crowley and 25 less than Jones, as a transition player. He also played defense and took the majority of the Swarm’s face-offs. Neither Crowley nor Jones were in my Offensive Player of the Year list, but MacIntosh was in my list for Transition, and Kirk was in my list for Goaltender of the Year, so he gets the second place vote.

Runners-up: Evan Kirk, Adam Jones, Kevin Crowley, Johnny Powless, Travis Cornwall

Prediction: Kevin Crowley. Again, not a terrible pick, and I couldn’t really argue with any of my top four.

Coach of the year – Bob Hamley

Hamley took a 5-11 team with a lot of roster changes and rookies and turned them into one of the best teams in the league – second place overall, a 6-game winning streak, and the highest goals/game and PP goals/game averages in the league.

Runners-up: Joe Sullivan (and Mike Lines, if a replaced coach can win such an award), Troy Cordingley, Dave Pym

Prediction: Darris Kilgour. Talk about your polar opposite. Not that his team’s terrible (at times) play was entirely his fault, but I was not impressed with the way he handled it, calling them out (by name in some cases) as publicly as he did. Still, the team did turn it around at the end of the year.

GM of the year – Steve Govett

See the Coach of the year entry – Govett made the roster changes that allowed Hamley to do what he did.

Runner-up: Joe Sullivan John Arlotta. (Update: Sullivan is listed as “Associate GM” on Minnesota’s web site, and nobody is listed as GM. Turns out John Arlotta is the guy who makes the decisions.)

Prediction: Derek Keenan. That was before the whole Iannucci thing happened, though I did think that even without Nooch, the Rush would have been better than they were.

MVP – Garrett Billings

Garrett Billings

With respect to John Grant’s remarkable season, Billings meant more to the Rock than Grant did to the Mammoth. Grant missed two games with an injury and while he was out, the Mammoth went 1-1. When Gavin Prout missed two games near the end of the season, Grant recorded 6 points in each game (obviously not bad, but his lowest tallies of the year) and the Mammoth lost both games. For the Rock, Blaine Manning missed most of the season, Colin Doyle and Josh Sanderson missed games as well, and Stephan Leblanc had a subpar season, but Billings stepped up and became the de facto leader. He outscored everyone else on his team by almost fifty points. The Mammoth had a very good season, but without Grant, they still had two other players (Jones and Prout) who were in the top ten in scoring, and would still have been pretty good. The Rock’s second place scorer (Leblanc) was seventeenth. They did have a pretty good season (can’t argue with first in the division) but without Billings, it would have been much worse.

Runners-up: John Grant, Dan Dawson, John Tavares

Prediction: Dan Dawson.

Confession

I kind of hate the fact that my MVP list is so similar to my offensive player list, because that implies that goals and offense are the most important things. Considering my interest in statistics, it may seem that I look only at the numbers when deciding on a player’s worth: “Obviously Mike Hominuck is way better than Kyle Rubisch because he has way more points!” This is definitely not the case, but I do have to admit that it’s more difficult to evaluate defensive players when you’re not watching them all the time – and sometimes, even when you are.

I saw every Rock home game live (plus one in Buffalo), and almost all the road ones on TV or the internet. Overall, did Cam Woods play better or worse than Glen Bryan this year? I honestly couldn’t tell you. I could write a huge post on why the numbers by themselves don’t give you anywhere near the whole story when it comes to determining how important a player is to his team, but oh look, Marty O’Neill has already done that.

Anyway, there were certainly some big goaltending and defensive performances this year, but with both Grant and Billings breaking offensive records, offense was the big story.

Week 17 picks

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So this is it, the last week. I’m way under .500; best I can do is 32-40, but I could also end up 28-44. Yet another .500 week would put me at 30-42. Still, that’s not too much worse than some of the IL Indoor guys, and depending on this week’s games, it might even be better than some of them. But remember when we start the playoffs, we’re all tied at 0-0…

Record: 28-40 (.412)

Game

Comments

Pick
TOR @ EDM Toronto is playing for home floor advantage while Edmonton can’t change their playoff position. Nick Rose had a bad outing against the Mammoth but rebounded and played pretty well against the Stealth last weekend. Edmonton has the lowest-scoring offense in the league, so this might be another opportunity for Rose to bump his confidence going into the playoffs. That said, the Rush beat the Mammoth last weekend so maybe let’s not count our chickens and all that. Rock
COL @ MIN Apparently Gavin Prout will miss this weekend, although the Mammoth said that about John Grant after the weekend he missed and he played anyway. The biggest question of this game is: will it be Evan Kirk or Tyler Carlson that gives up John Grant’s 116th point of the year? Or will they say “Sorry, Mr. Grant, not on my watch”? Given the season Grant’s had, that would be rather surprising, but surprising things just keep happening in the NLL this season. Mammoth
PHI @ ROC I really wanted to pick Philly just because I can’t imagine them going into the playoffs on a five-game losing streak. But I couldn’t imagine the Bandits going on a six-game losing streak, or the Stealth missing the playoffs, or the Mammoth going from 5-11 to 11-4 in one year, or… The Knighthawks have owned the Wings this year, going 2-0 with a combined score of 33-20. Knighthawks
BUF @ WAS I know, I know, I said I was done with the Bandits, but holy crap, Anthony Cosmo was great last weekend. And the one before. The Stealth are playing for exactly nothing while the Bandits are shaping up for the playoffs. Bandits

Previous weeks:

Week 1 – 0-1
Week 2 – 2-2
Week 3 – 2-2
Week 4 – 2-4
Week 5 – 2-2
Week 6 – 1-3
Week 7 – 2-2
Week 8 – 1-3
Week 9 – 2-2
Week 10 – 2-4
Week 11 – 1-2
Week 12 – 1-5
Week 13 – 5-0
Week 14 – 2-2
Week 15 – 0-4
Week 16 – 3-2

Interview: Steve Toll

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Toll as a KnighthawkSpeedin’ Stevie Toll is currently playing in his fifteenth season in the NLL. Toll has seen it all, through five teams, five NLL Championships, and one Transition Player of the Year award. It was thought that he retired after the 2011 season, though that was never made official, and it was assumed that his involvement in the Canadian Lacrosse League (as Director of Operations of both the Durham Turfdogs and the Oshawa Machine) was the reason. But a little over halfway through the 2012 season, Toll decided he couldn’t stay away any longer, and signed with the Edmonton Rush.

It has been argued by some that Toll deserves to be in the NLL Hall of Fame, but we’ll have to wait until his real retirement to see if that happens.

I recently had the honour of talking to Steve about Edmonton’s upcoming playoff game, his return to the NLL, memories of his time with the Toronto Rock, and his involvement with CLax and the NALL. Many thanks to Steve for taking the time to talk with me.

Graeme Perrow: Let’s start with the upcoming NLL playoffs. Edmonton hasn’t had much success against the Roughnecks over the years, but you will be playing them in the first round of the playoffs. Will the history between the teams come into play at all?
Steve Toll: It’ll come into play a little bit, their confidence maybe. But every year’s a new year, and obviously there’s a lot of different guys on the team so I think we’ve just got to go with a positive attitude and stick to the game plan. Really, the big thing about going into Calgary, they’re such a good team, is not letting them go on the three or four-goal runs runs that they can go on in a hurry. If we can contain those, we should be in good shape.

GP: The Rush defense is one of the strongest in the league, but the offense has struggled this year. Calgary’s defense is also very strong – do you plan on making any changes to the offensive strategies against the Roughnecks?
ST: It’s just trying to get better looks. Like you said, their defense is very good and their goaltending is playing very good right now too. To score in this league, you have to get quality looks, goalies aren’t going to let in bad goals very often. Our offense is doing whatever it takes to get a good shot away, not just throwing it at the net hoping it will go in and being happy with that. You gotta make it a quality shot.

GP: You are playing the Rock this weekend, but the game means nothing to your playoff position. Is it more difficult to get pumped up for a so-called “meaningless” game?
ST: I think we want to go out on a positive note for us. It means a lot to Toronto, I do believe that they could still finish first. We really don’t want to go into Calgary losing our last two games, so that’s one thing, and someone said that they’re one of the only teams we’ve played this year that we haven’t beaten, so hopefully we can deny them. Plus we could meet them down the road in the playoffs hopefully, and we’d rather not be going into Toronto if we ever do get that far.

 

GP: A few questions about your NLL career. When you retired after the 2011 season, did you have any plans of coming back to the NLL as a player?
ST: I never really announced my retirement. A lot of other people said it, but I never officially retired. The league sends you retirement papers when they hear things like that, and if you’re gonna retire you sign them, but I always felt that I had a little more to give, and we’ll see what happens.

GP: When did you first entertain the idea of returning to the floor?
ST: I actually thought about it from the start of the year that I was going to come back. Actually, Edmonton had approached me at the start but at that time I thought I was going back to Colorado so I actually told Edmonton no. Then Colorado made some trades for some D guys, and said they were going in a different direction, which is understandable. I know Derek Keenan very well and we kinda talked about it, and I said I think I can help out in a couple of different ways, and it kind of went from there.

GP: Shawn Williams is a friend of yours – was he involved in the decision?
ST: No, it wasn’t really Willy, it was more Derek Keenan.

GP: Is this season your swan song in the NLL, or could you see yourself coming back again in 2013?
ST: I’m not sure. At times I’ve felt like it would probably be my final season because I wanted to go out on my terms, and thanks to Edmonton I can go out on those terms. But it’s weird, you get that feeling where you want to go back for more, like when we played that game in Colorado [GP: Edmonton beat Colorado 14-11 last weekend; Toll scored 3 goals], it just felt good, seeing that I could still play the game. Obviously I’m not the player I used to be, but we’ve got 7 O guys and 11 D guys, so on most teams I like to think I’m the best 11th D guy you could have around, because I can do the penalty kill, and bring some leadership and all that too. We’ll have to see though, my kids are getting older, it would have to be a family decision.

GP: The game has changed over the course of your career. What rule changes have had the most impact in that time? What strategies did you use in the past that aren’t as effective anymore, and are there new strategies that you’re using now that you wouldn’t have ten years ago?
ST: I can’t think of any drastic rule changes. I think a big difference from my point of view is going from 15 to 18 guys dressed for a game. Back when we had 15 guys, we had role players, all the guys did something really well. Nowadays, if the league is 15 guys, I’m not playing right now, plain and simple. That’s one rule – if there’s 9 teams in the league and 15 guys on a team, I’m not playing. That’s one rule that’s helped my career!

One rule I do hate is the scoring from behind the net. That bothers me.

With the Mammoth, 2011

GP: How has your game changed as your career has progressed?
ST: I think I’ve just matured as a player, and realized what I can and can’t do, and the things I can still do I try to do exceptionally well. Obviously I’ve been known to do the penalty kill and can pick off passes and start the fast break, so I think I can still do that. Anyone who plays the game knows their role and obviously I can’t take off up the floor like I used to, taking five breakaway passes a game from Jim Veltman like I used to. I can still run the floor, maybe not as fast, but just try to help out any way possible.

GP: It’s been a couple of years since you wore a Rock jersey, I guess it would be seven or eight years now?
ST: Yeah, I got traded in the summer of 2004 or 2005. [GP: It was July of 2004.]

GP: You saw a lot of success with the Rock. Was there one moment or event that stood out as your favourite memory of your time with the Rock?
ST: I would have to say probably the win in Rochester. I remember the pre-game speech by Les Bartley saying how we’d never won in that building but the best line I’ve ever heard him say was “We’ve never won in this building, but we’ve never had to win in this building.” That line sticks out in my mind so much. We played there during the season, but we didn’t have to win during the season. We’ve been here a lot and we didn’t have to win but now we need to win. I think that would probably be one of my best memories of being there. Plus I got two short-handed goals in the first quarter. That helps a little.

GP: Who are some of the first- or second-year players in the NLL today that you think could be stars for many years to come?
ST: Well, I’m playing with one in Kyle Rubisch. I mean, he’s already a star, and in my mind he is the best defensive player in the league. That kid has it all. He’s like a younger version of Brodie Merrill. He definitely has all the tools, I mean he can do whatever you ask, he can score, he can do it all.

Offensively, hmmm. Well, he’s still young in some ways, but little Evy [GP: Shawn Evans] has been around forever too, but he’s not that old, you know what I mean? I liked what I saw of Johnny Powless who I watched in a few games. I like Keogh as well, and obviously the big Crowley kid in Philadelphia. They have a lot of potential. A lot of potential.

GP: Have you played much field lacrosse, or are you strictly an indoor guy?
ST: Nope, the only time I ever played field lacrosse was ’98, ’02, and ’06 for Team Canada. Those are my only field lacrosse memories. Too much running in field lacrosse.

GP: There was talk at one point that you were going to play in the NALL before their legal troubles began. Is that possibility still out there for next year?
ST: I’m not sure, I just read one article saying they’re coming back with a new name…
GP: The PLL – Professional Lacrosse League.
ST: Yeah. I’m still actually in touch with Jacksonville but Paul Stewart has a different role now, he’s actually gone to the league side of things. I’m not sure if I’ll be playing or maybe even coaching in the league. To me, it’s just guys wanting a place to play lacrosse, and that’s what I’m all about. That’s one of the reasons I joined CLax. Paul St. John and Jim Veltman invented a spot for 120 kids to play lacrosse. When I was that young, I’d have loved that opportunity too, so for me to give back is an easy decision, and it’s the same with this league. Yeah, most of them are going to be American, but I want the NLL to grow and grow, and these guys are going to be moving on to the NLL. Whatever helps the game, and as long as the family agrees, I’m in.

GP: A few questions about the Canadian Lacrosse League. How did you first get involved with CLax?
ST: It’s funny, they actually talked to Shawn Williams initially about coming on but obviously he was already playing so he mentioned it to me, and I met with Jim and Paul St. John and it kinda went from there. Obviously those guys did a tremendous amount of work and to me, yeah the league might have lost a little bit of money, but it was successful in a lot of ways. For the Championship game they had over a thousand people, and our last game in Oshawa we had over seven hundred people. It was an easy decision, I mean there were two teams here in Oshawa for guys that would just be sitting around partying all winter long, and now they’re playing lacrosse and staying in shape. It’s good for the game.

GP: How difficult was it to be so closely involved with lacrosse but not playing? Did you ever consider putting the equipment on and getting out there on the floor?
ST: It was actually, and I did actually! Paul and I had talked right around the time that Edmonton called, and I was even thinking about it. I’m not saying it might have helped or drew a few more people in, but I tell ya, that’s when I knew that I either had to come back there or go to the NLL because watching those games, I still had the itch. I saw the guys making mistakes, I wished I could be out there helping ’em. It definitely gave me the itch to get out there and play again.

Toll the executiveGP: Will you be back in the same position with the Turfdogs and Machine next year?
ST: Yeah, we just gotta get things finalized. It’s hard when one guy owns all six teams when he’d like to just worry about his two teams. It’s a process, and it’s an uphill battle for those boys, they’re willing to keep fighting and fighting. Find a guy with some deep pockets, maybe willing to lose a couple in the first couple of years and make it at the end, that’s what you gotta hope for. I hope it succeeds, and I hope the NLL jumps on board too. I don’t understand, it should be an automatic AHL-type affiliate. Automatic, in my opinion. Have a couple of NLL teams have a couple of affiliates and you can send guys there. Why have guys sitting in Denver to be on a practice roster practicing once a week and not playing a game. It makes no sense. Zero.

GP: That kinda what I assumed CLax was going to turn into. It hasn’t happened yet, though it’s only been a year, but it seemed to me to be the most obvious route to go.
ST: I agree with you 100%. But now it’s down to “You should be paying us” “Well, you should be paying us”. Why don’t we just talk about the situation, do what’s best for the guys, and worry about the money situation later. It could be an affiliate where you could move guys, send them down, call them back up. I think it’d be ideal for both leagues.

GP: The season is barely over, but do you know of any major changes planned for the next season, either in in your teams or with the league as a whole?
ST: No, from what I’ve heard from a lot of the General Managers, we all like the rules. Everyone seems to be a big fan of that front door rule, which I was a fan of too. That game was fast at times. It was funny because the very first game I went to, they pulled their goalie and they shot too early, then tried to get their goalie out the back door and it ended up being a penalty shot because you’ve got to go out the front door. They weren’t used to it yet, so he went out the wrong door. I was a big fan of that rule for sure.

GP: I was just about to ask about that rule. So do you think it did have the desired effect, forcing players to play at both ends rather than having your strict offensive guys and your strict defensive guys?
ST: Yeah, but the part I worry about is that the NLL is obviously not going to adopt that rule and you’re making those players do that. But if you have a two-way guy in CLax, and maybe he’s always been on offense but now he’s playing defense, well you know what? If he’s just working on offense the whole time he’d be getting better, but now he’s playing defense and when he goes to the NLL he’s still not going to be playing defense against Colin Doyle. So realistically, why not just go offense / defense? But there were some guys that you could get off the floor, but you had to make sure they were off the floor. It was hard, but it could be done, but just the one door definitely made it tough.

GP: OK, a few quick ones before I let you go. Toughest goalie to score on?
ST: Toughest goalie for me personally was Patty O’Toole. I liked shooting on smaller goalies. Like, even though Eliuk was real good, and Disher and all those guys. I just liked smaller goalies. I don’t know why. Probably because I didn’t shoot hard.

GP: Toughest forward to defend against?
ST: Definitely John Grant Jr. because he’s big, strong, and he could bulldoze ya, he could dodge ya, he could roll around ya, and if you came to double him, he’s throw a backhand reverse pass to the guy next to you anyway. I never got to cover those guys anyway. I’d always go on the floor, and they’d say “Toll, we all have matchups, you’ve got the fifth guy”. I never really had a guy anyways cause I was in the middle getting ready to cheat and weave anyway so I never really watched anybody.

GP: You were getting ready for the breakaway in the other direction.
ST: Yeah, I was already gone.

GP: Favourite arena to play in as a visitor?
ST: Definitely Denver. Well, you know what? I initially came right away with Denver but then I’m thinking of some of those Buffalo Bandits fans. But I’d have to say Denver was my favourite.

GP: I’ve never seen a game in Denver, but I’ve been to Buffalo a few times and they can be pretty darn loud in Buffalo.
ST: They can be really loud there, yeah. Both places are excellent. But I tell ya, there’s just something about Denver. You gotta go to Denver. It’s just the city there, everything. It’s one of the most beautiful places – if I had to pick a place to live, that’s where I would live. That’s the spot.

GP: Teammate you learned the most from as a young player?
ST: Playing in the NLL, definitely it would be Jim Veltman. He did so many things on the floor, off the floor, he was a pure team leader. It’s little things, like a little story: we lost a game in Philadelphia, I think it was in overtime, and then we flew back again at 10:30 in the morning. Obviously the boys were all sad that we lost, and still a little hung over, and all of a sudden the flight attendant comes out with like 30 beers and she goes “These are from the captain, get your heads up”. Just little things like that that no other guys would do. Just getting the boys back on track, like “Don’t worry about it, boys, it’s a loss. No big deal.”

GP: Well, that’s all the questions I have. Thanks a lot for doing this, Steve, I really appreciate it.
ST: Hey, no problem, anytime!