The Rock have traditionally played well in Buffalo; they were 13-6 in Banditland (including one playoff game) before Saturday night’s game. Given that, plus the fact that the Rock beat the Knighthawks convincingly last week and the Bandits lost even more convincingly in Calgary before coach Darris Kilgour questioned the heart of “everybody but about four people” on his team, it seemed inevitable that the Rock would prevail in this game. But this year, the inevitable may not happen, and what “can’t possibly happen” does. That’s why they play the games.

In this case the inevitable did indeed happen, as the Rock beat the Bandits 15-9 in a game the Bandits were only in for the first quarter and a half. Toronto took a couple of early leads, but never led by more than two. The Bandits tied it up early in the second before Garrett Billings’ second goal put the Rock up 5-4. The Toronto defense really stepped up their game at that point, and the Bandits offense didn’t get much in the way of good looks after that. Luke Wiles was shut down entirely (one assist) and Tavares was kept to 4+1. This year if you can shut down Wiles and JT, you’ve got yourself a win against the Bandits (and keeping JT to only 5 points is shutting him down). The Rock led 7-5 at the half, having already scored 4 power play goals. They would score another three in the fourth quarter.

Nick Rose had another solid outing for the Rock. In his second career start, Rose gave up 9 goals on 44 shots. He didn’t have to stand on his head, but was tested more than he was in Rochester last week, and made a number of very nice saves. The defense played very well in front of him once again, and a couple of people on the Wingzone message boards commented that Troy Cordingley was quite calm, cool, and collected behind the Rock bench because of it. (I was sitting up in the 300 level – best two seats I could get together on Thursday – so I could barely see Troy, let alone judge his mood.)

Late in the first, I wrote in my handy-dandy notebook that the Rock were passing very well, looking like a well-oiled machine. I then realized that this is a little easier to do when there’s five of you and only four of them. The Bandits were in penalty trouble much of the night, leading to the aforementioned 7 PP goals. It’s not even that the Bandits did dumb things and took penalties, they did dumb things at dumb times. Case in point: Doyle was given an “unsportsmanlike conduct” penalty (which should really have been a delay of game) at 14:59 of the first, I believe for taking a shot after the shot clock had run out. Troy Cordingley must have disagreed with that rather vehemently, as the Rock were also given a bench minor for unsportsmanlike conduct (which was likely not really a delay of game). So the Bandits would have started the second quarter with a power play (they already had a man in the box) for 1:17, and then a two-man power play for 43 seconds after that. But what happens? Tom Montour takes a penalty 3 seconds into the second, and we play 3-on-3 lacrosse instead.

The biggest story of the game was the play of Garrett Billings. The man was everywhere. Four goals, eleven assists, fifteen points. He was involved in every goal scored by the Rock, and the NLL has said that this is the first time that’s ever happened. Seems weird that Stephan Leblanc can put up 4+5 and Doyle 2+6 and they barely get mentioned. Brendan Thenhaus also scored two, and it must have been nice for him to score a couple against the team that cut him earlier this year.

Other than the penalty thing, the Bandits didn’t really play all that badly. Thompson wasn’t at his best but wasn’t terrible, and did make a number of really good saves. Cosmo, on the other hand, was terrible. The Rock had 60 shots on net, but you have to wonder how many of those were on the PP. Take away the 7 PP goals for the Rock, and this is a 9-8 game with the Bandits winning. But you can’t just dismiss “the penalty thing” saying “if we just fix that, we’ll win more games”. Taking undisciplined penalties against a team with such a potent power-play unit is a recipe for disaster, and taking undisciplined penalties is fairly standard for Banditball. Whether it’s this year or not, the Darris Kilgour era in Buffalo will end at some point, and it will be very interesting to see the evolution of Banditball in the years following.

Other game notes:

• Mark Steenhuis looks terrible in the picture they put up on the Jumbotron when he scores. His curly hair hangs down to his right shoulder in what looks like the weirdest comb-over you’ll ever see. Good God, man.
• Just to continue the Bandits reputation as fighters and goons, there were two trivia questions asked by the in-game people at this game, and both involved penalty minutes. One was “who currently leads the Bandits in penalty minutes?” (answer: Travis Irving), and the other was “what is the Bandits record for most penalty minutes in a game?” (answer: 70).
• Tom Montour scored a goal early in the fourth and then turned around and started stomping his foot and raising his arm in the air. I’m sure it was an inside joke of some kind, but that might have been the weirdest goal celebration dance I’ve ever seen.
• My season tickets for the Rock are right at centre, seventeen rows up behind the player benches, and I love those seats. But at this game, my son and I were sitting (waaaaaay up in the 300 level) in a corner to the left of (and behind) the goalie at one end. In the first, Colin Doyle picked up a loose ball and ran behind the net and I could see, just as Doyle could, that Thompson was standing a little to the left and looking over his left shoulder. I thought to myself “there’s a hole on the right side! Jump and tuck it in!” just a split second before Doyle did just that. It was very cool to see the entire play develop, and I wouldn’t have been able to do that from the centre.
• I have heard stories about fans wearing jerseys of the opposing team being taunted, harassed, or even physically attacked at sporting events, but I haven’t heard any such stories from Buffalo. I have never had an issue there in the ten years I’ve been going to Rock games there, and this time was no different. I even had a nice conversation with the Bandit fan whose young son was sitting next to me. I’m sure there are Bandits fans who are jerks (just like there are Rock fans and Wings fans and Stealth fans who are jerks), but I’ve never met one. I remember going to a Bandits game shortly after the 2002 Olympics, and a group of Bandits fans who saw our Rock jerseys stopped us and shook our hands, congratulating us on Canada’s double-gold performances in hockey.

The Bandits and the Rock played a rare lacrosse doubleheader on Friday night. In the first game, the Rock played smart and the offense was clicking, while the Bandits were undisciplined and had lousy goaltending. Toronto won the opener 11-8. In the second game, it was just the reverse. The Rock couldn’t score to save their lives because of the great Bandits defense and they took the stupid penalties while the Bandits got their offense going, and Buffalo won the second game 13-3. Unfortunately, each of these games was only 30 minutes long, and their aggregate score was what really mattered.

The final score was actually Buffalo 21 @ Toronto 14, not A MILLION like in the title of this article but as a Rock fan, that’s what it felt like. Some of the numbers in this game are staggering – Toronto had 11 goals in the first half and 3 in the second. Buffalo had 8 (eight!) power play goals and four shorthanded goals. In contrast, Dan Carey’s beautiful behind-the-back goal in the second was Toronto’s second shorthanded goal of the season. The Rock had a run of five goals to take an early 5-1 lead, but in the second half Bandits had runs of 5 and 6 goals. Five different Bandits had 6 or more points.

Mark Steenhuis wasn’t having the greatest season of his career, but he was everywhere on Friday night. Near the end of the game when it was obvious that the Bandits were just killing time whenever they had possession, they’d just send Steenhuis out there by himself to run around and get pounded for 30 seconds. He didn’t even have anyone to pass to half the time – there were no other Bandits anywhere near him. One of those times, the Rock were on the power play but managed to allow Steenhuis to run around without really hitting him at all. After about 20 seconds of this he scored. A few Toronto fans actually started to boo the Rock defenders.

The Rock were much more undisciplined in the second half than the first. Toronto had four penalties in the first half, but only one that wasn’t coincidental with a Buffalo penalty. Buffalo had five, including two at the same time. In the second half, Toronto had six non-coincidental penalties. Matt Roik even got a penalty when he cross checked Luke Wiles in the head, though I did not see what Wiles had done. Wiles got a minor while Roik got a double minor. Toronto fans started booing when the penalties were announced, but Roik deserved it and was lucky he didn’t get five. There were two fights: Stephen Hoar and Travis Irving in the second, and then Patrick Merrill and Irving again in the fourth. I didn’t see the beginning of the second fight, and all I saw was Merrill on the floor with Irving pounding on him. My son asked if the guy who didn’t throw any punches could be given a fighting penalty; I said that in that case Merrill wouldn’t be given anything and Irving would just get two for roughing. But both got game misconducts and Merrill was also given an instigator penalty, so it sounds like Merrill picked a fight with the wrong guy and got his butt kicked.

On the plus side for the Rock, Garrett Billings continues his strong season picking up 9 points (3+6) and Colin Doyle had another good game with 5 goals and an assist. The Rock had four power play goals of their own and a shorthanded goal. Let’s see… other positives for the Rock… I’ll have to get back to you on that.

For the Bandits, Cosmo did not look sharp. He made a few pretty good saves, but the Rock seemed to have him figured out. He was pulled for Mike Thompson, who played very well. That is the Mike Thompson that I picked to win goaltender of the year. Mat Giles had 6 points (2+4), Steenhuis and John Tavares both had 4 goals and 3 assists, Luke Wiles had 5 goals and 2 assists, and new daddy Chad Culp had a pair of goals and six assists for eight points. I mentioned in the pre-season that if all the Bandits offensive guys could get it together, they could have a scary good offense, and we saw that on Friday.

I don’t really have a lot else to say about this game. It started off well for the Rock and it looked like the Bandits would continue on their losing skid. But then Toronto came out flat in the second half while Darris Kilgour must have given one hell of a halftime speech in the Bandits dressing room. The Rock have now lost four of the past five, while the Bandits season might have just turned around.

Other notes:

• The singing of the National anthems was a study in contrasts. There were two singers, one for the American anthem and one for O Canada. The guy that sang the American anthem had a deep country-and-western sort of voice, and did a very good job. The woman that sang the Canadian anthem was local radio personality Josie Dye. She started off with the wrong words “O Canada, we stand on guard for thee”, and things got worse from there. After a few more lines it was obvious she was so nervous or flustered that she had totally lost track of the words and she actually stopped and started over. Then she got them wrong the second time as well and the crowd started singing very loudly – whether that was to drown her out or to help her remember, I can’t say. She seemed to remember the words after that and ended up finishing the song. She was actually a decent singer but the performance was shameful. I haven’t seen an anthem that badly butchered since Roseanne.
• There was one unusual play in the first half – a shot clock violation was called on the Rock, and the Rock player (I think it was Doyle) immediately put the ball down, and then stood there waiting for the Bandits to grab it. The Bandits defense raced to the bench to get the forwards out, but a few seconds later the ref blew the whistle and Doyle picked up the ball again. He ran in and got a shot on net, though it was stopped. It was not clear why he was allowed to pick up the ball in the first place. My only guess was that the ref decided that the Bandits took too long on the line change.
• Jesse Gamble had yet another nice game, scoring a goal and adding two assists. He’s impressed the hell out of me this season.
• Ryan Sharp announced on Friday that he has retired from the NLL. He missed most of last season with knee injuries and I guess he aggravated it enough in the last game (or gradually over the season) that his doctor told him he had to stop. I can’t say I’ve been a huge fan of Sharp this season; while he was a big tough defender, of which the Rock have precious few, I felt he took too many unnecessary penalties. That said, it sucks when a player has to end their career early because of injuries.