Category Archives: Game Review

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times

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After the All-Star game in Calgary in 2005, there was some talk about it on the Toronto all-sports radio station by none other than Bob McCown. I believe the lacrosse conversation lasted a couple of minutes tops, but one of the things they mentioned was that the NLL All-Star game was closer to a “normal” game than All-Star games in any other sport. And if you’ve ever watched a 170-165 NBA All-Star game, or an 11-10 NHL All-Star game, you know that All-Star games are rarely similar to typical games. This is true in lacrosse as well, but as Mr. McCown said, maybe less so, at least judging by the score.

The West All-Stars came back from a 9-2 deficit in the second quarter to defeat the East All-Stars 20-18 in the first NLL All-Star game held in Buffalo. Despite the fact that the score wasn’t outrageous – 20-18 is definitely a high-scoring lacrosse game, but not crazy high – the game was not a typical lacrosse game by any stretch of the imagination.

The Best of Times

Obviously the game featured the best indoor lacrosse players in the world. That in itself is reason enough to go. There were some very nice goals, some great saves, at least one great defensive play (maybe two), and some pretty slick passing. Getting to watch passing plays like “Tavares to Sanderson to Dawson to Wiles, he scores!” were amazing. There was lots of ball movement on transition (but I’ll get to why later), and many more behind-the-back or over-the-shoulder passes than in a typical game. Other than a few “Too many men” bench minors there were no penalties called, though this is fairly typical for All-Star games. But most of all, it was obvious that the players were having fun.

The Worst of Times

There was no real defense to speak of. There were no 8-second violations and only a handful of shot-clock violations or moving picks. There were almost no big hits (with one notable exception); in fact there was minimal physical contact of any kind. The reason there was so much transition was because half the time, an offensive player would hang back after a change of possession and not bother running down the floor to play defense or even head to the bench; then when his goalie grabbed the ball, he was able to rainbow a long pass up to him. There were a lot of missed passes (again, not surprising considering these are players who don’t normally play together).

In short, they just weren’t trying like they normally do. Again, this is not unusual or unexpected – first off, the game doesn’t count for anything, and nobody wants to lose the second half of the season because they got injured (or injure someone else) in a meaningless game. Plus everyone except the Bandits played the night before and everyone except the Rock, Knighthawks, and Bandits had to travel from the west either overnight or earlier that day.

I saw at least one tweet asking the Commissioner:

How can you possibly think forcing season ticket holders to watch such a “game” is good for the #nll

First off, he should have been asking the Bandits, not the commissioner. I agree that forcing season ticket holders to pay for a ticket to this game is unfair; the same arguments were made when the game was in Toronto in 2006. I don’t know if the Bandits allowed STH to opt out of that game. The same guy later said that it was a boring game, and I can’t really argue with that; the game didn’t have the electricity or intensity that most NLL games have. But he really should have known that going in and taken it for what it was – a fun game played by the best players in the world.

Some game notes:

  • John Grant shot the ball so hard it went by Aaron Bold and through the net. No goal was called so Troy Cordingley threw the challenge flag and the replay determined that the ball did go in.
  • Jeff Shattler scored a goal in the third and waved it off himself. When the refs said it was a good goal, Shattler shook his head and motioned to East coach Troy Cordingley to throw the challenge flag. No flag was thrown and the goal counted.
  • The one big hit was Luke Wiles on Aaron Bold. Bold had left the crease to corral the ball and Wiles nailed him into the boards. Not the biggest hit ever but certainly the biggest of the night, and since Wiles is a Buffalo Bandit, the home town crowd loved it.
  • Josh Sanderson seemed to be shooting all night but did not score. The scoresheet said he only took six shots, but that seems low to me.
  • After Shawn Williams first goal, the Buffalo announcer (who I’m a big fan of) announced the assists as “from Derek Suddons and #4. Not sure who #4 is, we’ll give it to Gavin Prout.” Both Geoff Snider (who got the assist) and Kyle Rubisch were wearing #4. Prout wears #9.
  • In a normal game, each coach will designate one player to serve all bench minors for that game. When the West got a “too many men” penalty in the first, John Grant served it. I was stunned that Grant was the guy that Chris Hall chose to serve the penalties, but then the other bench minors were served by different people, so obviously that rule was not in effect.

Other notes unrelated to the game itself:

  • There was a wide variety of music played, but I was surprised when I heard Billy Joel’s Piano Man. It’s a great song, but hardly the “let’s get this crowd pumped!” type of music they’d been playing the rest of the night. But then my friend noticed that the first lyric they played was “It’s 9:00 on a Saturday”. We checked our watches and sure enough, it was 9:00.
  • I brought my kids, and bought them a massive tub of popcorn – easily twice the size of the similarly-priced bags at the ACC. Note to First Niagara Center staff: the popcorn was really salty. You might want to tone the salt down a little, because it made me have to go back and buy another drink…. oh.
  • “The wave” started in the fourth quarter, but went the opposite direction (clockwise) to the direction it usually goes at the ACC. My son suggested that maybe this was because we’re in the US and they do things differently south of the border.
  • I love the atmosphere at Bandits games, and this was not much different. My kids noticed right away that the crowd was louder than that at the ACC, as always. But before the game, the PA announcer asked for a moment of silence to honour someone in the Buffalo lacrosse community who had passed away the day before. The silence in the arena during those 15-20 seconds was absolute.

Game Report: Rochester 12 at Toronto 16

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It was a historic night in Toronto, for a number of reasons. The Toronto Rock honoured Bob Watson, one of the best goaltenders in lacrosse history, by retiring his number – the first such retirement in team history. It was historic for rookie Jesse Gamble, as he scored the first goal of his career. And history repeated itself, as this game was oddly reminiscent of a game from earlier this year:

  • both were played in Toronto on a Friday night against the Rochester Knighthawks
  • both saw the Rock win
  • both saw Colin Doyle leave the game in the second quarter and not return

The first time it was a “lower body injury” which turned out to be a hamstring problem. The Rock were without Doyle for two games – winning them both – and then lost the game in which he returned. Now they lose Doyle again, this time to an “upper body injury”. Doyle fell awkwardly into the crease and immediately grabbed his shoulder. He left the floor and his night was over. The Rock are now 0-3 in games where Doyle plays more than half the game, and 4-0 in games where he plays less than half. Obviously he’s a liability and the Rock need to ditch him, right? Hey, I wonder if Paul Rabil would… nah.

But after losing Doyle, the Rock lost someone else and immediately replaced him with someone much better. The Stephan Leblanc who’s struggled most of this season also struggled in the first half of this game, scoring zero points on roughly a million shots. A few minutes into the third quarter, he looked quite frustrated. But shortly after that, he was replaced by the Stephan Leblanc who we saw last year, and that Leblanc went on to score four goals and two assists within ten minutes of play in the third and fourth quarters.

The game was very streaky. Only three of the 28 goals scored were singletons, all in the fourth quarter. The Rock scored five, then Rochester four, then Toronto four, then Rochester four, then Toronto two, then Rochester two,… I won’t have much to say about this game in my Money Ballers column this week; not a single point was scored by any Knighthawks, and only two Rock goals qualified for Money Baller points.

The Rochester offense was spread out – only one player had more than 5 points and nobody scored more than two, but nine different people scored goals. Cody Jamieson was the top scorer, not surprisingly, and Jordan Hall had a strong game as well. Craig Point didn’t score but had four helpers, and Brad Self scored a couple of nice goals. However, their shooting accuracy was terrible. The Knighthawks were missing the net all night long, and not just by a little. Shots were soaring several feed wide at times – and I’m not talking about behind-the-back desperation shots or shots taken while running sideways or backwards, though there were plenty of those as well. No, many times a Knighthawk forward had time to plant his feet and fire  with nobody around him and still managed to miss the net by three feet. I just checked the game sheet to see if this impression was correct – the Knighthawks took 67 shots but only 37 hit the net, for a measly 55% shooting accuracy. The Rock took eight more shots than the Stealth, but had twenty-three more shots on goal, for an accuracy of 80%. The Rock also won 2/3 of the face-offs.

It seems odd to say that Rochester’s defense was pretty solid when the Rock scored 16, but the Rock had two different stretches of 10+ minutes without a goal; one of those was almost 15 minutes. Matt Vinc didn’t have his best game ever. Matt Roik played very well for the most part, though he did give up a couple of softies, and even allowed one over his right shoulder, presumably as an homage to Bob Watson.

But back to the Watson ceremony for a minute. I am a huge Watson fan, and I don’t deny for one second that Watson is deserving of having his number retired. But that said, I do have to wonder why he was the first Rock player to be so honoured. Both he and Jim Veltman are legends, both had long careers, both spent most of their careers with the Rock, both won several championships with the Rock, and both are in the NLL Hall of Fame. But Veltman went into the HoF a couple of years ago, while Watson has been retired for less than a year. The only explanation I can think of is that Veltman was an assistant coach with the Rock during the Kloepfer years. When that era ended, Glenn Clark and the rest of the coaching staff except Veltman were fired. Veltman was apparently given some sort of vague front office advisory position, but his employment with the Rock was never mentioned by the team again. Maybe there was some bad blood between the team and Veltman because of that, or for some other reason. But surely with new ownership, a new GM, and new coaches, the team can put all that behind them and retire #32.

Other notes:

  • Jesse Gamble had a great game, and not just because he had his first career goal and assist.
  • At one point in the second, the Rock had a shot clock violation, so the Rock player put the ball down. Knowing that the Rock were unable to touch the ball, the nearest Knighthawk defender made a move to pick it up, but ran by it without touching it and headed to the bench. The Rochester offense came out, and one of them grabbed the ball. Smart play by the Rochester defender to allow his team to get the offense set up.
  • Matt Roik picked up the ball in his crease, then went to pass to a Rock defender, but the ball fell out of his stick and rolled behind him. Lucky for him, he wasn’t standing directly in front of the net, so the ball didn’t roll into the net. And yes, if it had gone in, the goal would have counted. We’d have called that “pulling a Cosmo” since it happened to Cosmo when he was playing for the Rock in the early 2000’s.
  • The announced attendance was 10,274. Not a chance. I’d say there were no more than 7 or 8 thousand people in the ACC.
  • Did Jamie Dawick really say “Let’s win one for the Whipper?” Yes. Yes he did.

Game report: Philadelphia 14 @ Toronto 8

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Sorry for the delay on the game report, dear reader, I know you have been on the edge of your seat since Saturday night thinking “For the love of Jim Veltman, when will he post it?!” You can blame my sister for having a baby yesterday. I tried to get her to reschedule so I could get this article done, but nooooooo. Some people think of nobody but themselves. Though I have to say that my brand new niece is pretty darned adorable.

Anyway, as you probably already know, the Philly Wings got redemption on Saturday for the beat-down the Rock gave them two weeks ago by beating the Toronto Rock 14-8. The game was pretty close for the first half, tied at 1, 2, 3, and 4 before Kevin Crowley scored twice within a minute to put the Wings up by 2 at the half. Johnny Mouradian’s halftime pep talk must have been more effective than Troy Cordingley’s, since Brendan Mundorf and Dan Dawson scored two more in the first two minutes of the second half to put the Wings up 8-4. The Rock scored a couple to get as close as 8-6, but then it was all Wings, as they scored two more in the third, and both times the Rock scored in the fourth, the Wings answered back a minute later. Another goal by Dawson chased Matt Roik for the first time in his Rock career, and then Drew Westervelt beat Pat Campbell to end the scoring.

Matt Roik was just as solid in the first half as in his previous games this year, but started to lose it in the third as the game got more and more out of hand. A couple of the later goals were a little softer than the ones we’ve seen him give up so far this year, but I certainly wouldn’t pin the loss squarely on him. The Rock offense looked similar to the offense in the first couple of games, i.e. mostly not there. Garrett Billings and the new guys (Rooney, Thenhaus, and Carey) definitely showed up to play, but Sanderson and Leblanc looked frustrated, and Colin Doyle was pretty much a non-factor in his return from injury.

As an aside and to take a page from Dave Barry’s book, Billings and the New Guys would be a good name for a rock band.

The Rock with Colin Doyle in the lineup are 1-3 with an average of 10 goals per game (and in the one win, Doyle got 0 points in less than two quarters before getting injured). The Rock without Doyle are 2-0 with an average of 14.5 goals per game. If you count the game where he got injured (and wasn’t a factor) as a game without him, it changes to 0-3 and 9 goals with Doyle, 3-0 and 14 goals without. Of course, that’s not to say “Doyle makes the team worse” – it’s not that simple – but it does make you wonder if Troy and the boys will be looking at other differences in how the offense was run before the next game.

The Rock took a  lot of shots that hit Wings goalie Brandon Miller square in the chest or missed the net completely; in fact the Rock had three different breakaways (two from Mike Hobbins and one from Brendan Thenhaus) where the shooter missed the net. But in saying that the Rock took lousy shots, I don’t want to take anything away from the play of Brandon Miller, who was very solid in the Wings net. The Wings defense was absolutely stellar, especially in the second half. There was one play where Garrett Billings had the ball right in front of the Wings net for at least 15 seconds, and in that time he was covered so well that he had no opportunity to either shoot or pass and ended up having to just drop the ball when the shot clock ran out.

The Wings offense was pretty impressive. Brendan Mundorf scored five, including two on the power play, and Dan Dawson scored three and added seven assists. Kevin Crowley added another hattrick, and now has four in his six career games. But take a look at this comparison between the Wings offense and the Rock defense:

Rock defenders:

  • Codd, 5’8″
  • Bryan, Chapman, Sanderson, 5’9″
  • Merrill, 6’0″

Wings forwards:

  • Dawson, Westervelt, 6’5″
  • Crowley, Merrill (yes, mostly transition but he played up front a lot) 6’4″
  • Crotty, 6’2″

At one point, Dan Dawson ran by a Rock defender and I think he pulled the ol’ swim move, but it could be that his arm went over the head of the defender while he was running. It was hard to tell. Given that size difference, the fact that the Rock managed to hold the Wings to only 6 goals two weeks ago is doubly amazing.

The Rock host Rochester this Friday while the Wings play in Edmonton before the All-Star game on Saturday.

Other notes:

  • The Rock brought Jesse Gamble back from the practice roster when Marshall got hurt, and then didn’t play him.
  • I’ve said before that I am impressed at how Colin Doyle stands still during the anthems and even sings along to O Canada. As the camera panned down the Rock players during the anthem, I saw at least two others (one was Patrick Merrill, don’t remember who the other was) who were also singing along. Kudos to them.
  • For a while, I thought “Man, Dan Dawson is everywhere tonight!”, then realized that sometimes he wore a different number. Duh. Both he and his brother Paul Dawson just have “Dawson” on their jerseys, with no first initial.
  • I got a few looks from my fellow Rock fans when I actually applauded a goal by the Wings. Drew Westervelt scored a kind of “backwards Air Gait” in the second, where he dove out from behind the net and backhanded it in on the far side of Matt Roik. Outstanding goal. Of course, that kind of goal is a little easier when your arms are eight feet long.
  • On one play in the first, Billings grabbed the ball to try and avoid an over-and-back violation but stepped over the line. The ref blew the whistle and Billings put the ball down, but I guess he rolled it and as Brodie Merrill ran by and tried to pick it up on the fast break, he missed it because it was rolling. He stopped running and literally jumped up and down twice. The ref did give Billings a delay of game minor, and I agree that it was deserved given the new rule, but I was less than impressed with Merrill’s display. I’ve seen that kind of behaviour in my nine-year-old son sometimes, but he’s nine. There were a few other occasions where Merrill complained loudly to the refs, sometimes quite animatedly. I have heard other (non-Edmonton) fans in the past talk about Brodie Merrill’s antics and call him a whiner, but I’d never really noticed it myself. On Saturday I got to see it first-hand.
  • The Wings had at least three or four broken sticks. To the Philly Wings equipment manager: I’m pretty sure balsa wood sticks are not allowed in the NLL.

Game Review: Toronto 14 at Calgary 13

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Let’s say you were going to write a movie that included a lacrosse game, and it was important to the plot that the game be close. How would you write it? It would have to include overtime. You could have the score tied nine different times. All four quarters end in a tie. Both teams have the same number of power play goals on the same number of power play opportunities. No team would lead by more than two at any time. Both teams have the same number of shots in two of the four quarters. Both backup goaltenders enter the game and play for significant periods of time. And then you’d have the unsung hero, the hard worker that doesn’t get all the accolades, score the OT winner, his first goal in two years. Well, you couldn’t put all those elements in, that would be too unrealistic.

And yet that’s what happened in the Rock’s second win of the weekend and Calgary’s second straight overtime loss. Rock defender Cam Woods scored on a pass from Mike Hobbins just over a minute into overtime, in a game that featured all of the above elements and more. There was even a fight, but I’ve never seen a fight involving a goalie that didn’t involve a second goalie. I’ve seen goalies shoving other players and even throwing the odd punch, but never a drop-the-gloves-take-the-jersey-and-pads-off kind of fight. I’ll get back to that later, but back to the game review for now.

This was the first game the Rock had played without either Blaine Manning or Colin Doyle in the lineup since the first game of the 2000 season. The question of who would step up in their absence was answered by another veteran, Josh Sanderson, who had nine points including a hat-trick. Garrett Billings continued where he left off last night, with 3 goals and 4 assists, giving him 14 points over the weekend. Not John Grant numbers, but not bad. Brendan Thenhaus made his Rock debut and scored a goal and two helpers. Pat Campbell started but only played 3 1/2 minutes, allowing 2 goals on 5 shots before he… but more on that later. Matt Roik finished the game from there, allowing 11 goals on 43 shots and for the fourth straight game, keeping his team in it. Three of the Rock’s goals, including the winner, were scored by defenders – Woods, Drew Petkoff, and Mike Hobbins all scored, and Hobbins also added three assists.

At the other end of the floor, Mike Poulin started but after allowing 5 goals, was pulled early in the second for Nick Rose. I didn’t think Poulin was playing that badly, but Rose ended up playing 25 minutes before Poulin came back in. Rose wasn’t bad either, but Poulin really played well  in the fourth. Offensively, the Roughnecks were led by Curtis Dickson with 3 goals and 3 assists, and Shawn Evans, with 2 and 3. Four other Roughnecks had 4 or more points, so it was a well-balanced attack.

After a tough back-and-forth game with goals scattered throughout and ten goals in the third quarter alone, both defenses were very strong in the fourth quarter. This resulted in a ten-minute span with no goals scored and Calgary nursing a two-goal lead. But with less than two minutes left and Roik on the bench, Kasey Beirnes scored to cut the lead to one. Toronto kept the pressure on and when Mike Poulin left the crease to try to grab a loose ball behind the net, he was hit by two Rock players. When he rushed to get back in front of the net, he didn’t have time to get properly set up, and was a step or two in front of the goal as Garrett Billings blew a shot by him to tie the game with eleven seconds left. Geoff Snider won the resulting faceoff (Snider was 24-4 on faceoffs on the night) and Calgary managed to get a decent shot on Roik, who made the biggest stop of his season to send the game to OT.

If you were to poll every Rock fan watching that game and ask which Rock player was going to score the winner, Cam Woods would not likely make the top 10. I doubt Cam Woods himself would list Cam Woods in the top ten. But on a quick transition, Woods scored from Mike Hobbins to end the game and put the Rock at 2-2 on the season.

OK, I said I’d get back to the Campbell thing later, but that may be long so I think I will save it for a separate article. I know, dear reader, that you are shaken and upset by having to wait, so I will leave you with some more notes about this game, and then a video of the event in question. Check back in a couple of days or watch my twitter feed for the announcement.

Other game notes:

  • Drew Petkoff scored a nice goal in the second as he got a breakaway and ran from Rose’s left to his right looking for an opening. I thought (and Brian Shanahan said the same thing on the telecast) that he’d run too far and taken too long, but he managed to pull Rose off to the right just far enough to open a hole on the left side and scored there. Don’t know if that’s what he meant to do, but it was beautiful.
  • I’m not one to complain about officiating in general, but there were a number of questionable calls here. Two of the most blatant went against the Roughnecks: Scott Ranger got a “hitting from behind” penalty for giving Bruce Codd a little shove on the back – with his hand. Then near the end of the fourth, Cam Woods grabbed Curtis Dickson’s jersey and yanked him down. The Roughnecks got a penalty on the first one (and the Rock scored on the PP) and Toronto did not get a penalty on the second. That’s exactly backwards.
  • Questionable officiating notwithstanding, Ryan Sharp deserved every penalty he took in this game, and in the Rochester game as well. If he’s going to remain with the team, he’ll have to play smarter.

Game Review: Rochester 11 at Toronto 13

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The Toronto Rock won last night, and they also lost. The win was big, but the loss might have been bigger.

The win was, of course, the game, a 13-11 come-from-behind victory over the new-look Knighthawks. The first half was a see-saw battle, with the score tied at 1, 2, 3, 4, and at half-time, 5. Rochester had yet another one-goal lead at the end of the third, then a three-goal lead in the fourth before Toronto decided that they should just win the damn game and reeled off six straight goals in eight minutes to take a 12-9 lead. Rochester refused to go quietly, scoring two more in the last minute and a half around an empty-net goal by Patrick Merrill but it wasn’t quite enough.

The loss was Colin Doyle, who hobbled off the floor in the second quarter and was not seen again. The word from the Rock is a “lower body injury” and TSN later reported a pulled hamstring and that he will not play tonight in Calgary. This will be the first NLL game Doyle has missed since the 2000 season, a streak of 188 consecutive games. This ties him with former teammate Steve Toll for the NLL “iron man” record. Part of me is hoping the Rock put him out there tomorrow, even if it’s just for one shift, so he can set the record. They likely won’t and I can’t say I blame them; playing around with your captain’s health (not to mention scratching someone healthy so Doyle can play for 30 seconds) for the sake of a record is a bit silly. If Doyle’s injury is serious and he does miss a number of games, that will be a huge loss for the Rock who are already without Blaine Manning.

Rochester scored the first goal of the game on the first shot of the game, a minute and a half in. Cody Jamieson’s first of four on the night was a relatively weak shot from a mile away that beat Roik. After ten minutes, Roik had been beaten four times, though had only allowed that one goal – two shots hit posts (a trend that would continue all night for the Knighthawks) and one got through and trickled towards the net but Sandy Chapman managed to stop it before it went in. That was a weird play, actually – it happened with 9:00 left in the first, and Rochester coach Mike Hasen threw the challenge flag with 8:31 left. By my count, that’s 29 seconds. According to the 2012 rule book:

The challenging club must throw the flag within twenty seconds of the play being challenged. 

Despite Troy Cordingley gently reminding the ref of this rule, the play was reviewed but it wasn’t even close so the no-goal call stood. This ended up working in the Rock’s favour, since the KHawks almost scored a goal early in the second on a play that was closer, but Hasen had already wasted his first-half challenge. (After watching the replay on TV, that goal wasn’t all that close either.)

Only three goals were scored in the third, as the Knighthawks took a 7-5 lead before Ryan Sharp scored a shorthanded goal to bring the Rock within one. The first two goals of the fourth put the Knighthawks up by 3 before the Rock’s third power play goal began the six-goal run. The run also included the Rock’s fourth power play goal – the Rock were 4 for 6 on the power play, while the Knighthawks were only 1 for 5.

Both defenses were pretty solid on the night, though the Rock had some trouble with Cody Jamieson. Jamieson ended up with 4 goals, 4 assists, and 20 shots to lead all players. Stephen Keogh played pretty well but Johnny Powless was great, including a highlight-reel goal in the third. Matt Vinc was not outstanding but made a number of great saves. He did look pretty rattled when the Rock scored six in a row in the fourth. At the other end, Roik made his share of great stops as well, though as I said the first goal was a softie. “He’d like to have that one back” says Mr. Cliché Commentator – luckily Dave Randorf is not Mr. Cliché Commentator and correctly said that Roik really should have make that stop. That was the only real softie though. As he did in the first two games, Roik played well enough to keep the team in it, only this time the offense decided to show up. Drew Petkoff missed part of last year because of injury, and had a strong game in his return.

It was very nice to see the Rock bump their intensity level to come back in the fourth despite missing the leadership of Doyle and Manning. But there is a lot of veteran leadership on this team, so while losing Doyle will definitely hurt, it’s not devastating from a leadership point of view.

Other notes:

  • We almost had one of each type of goal: even strength (most of them), 5 power play goals, two short-handed, one empty net, Cody Jamieson hit the post on a penalty shot, and Matt Roik tried a long shot on an empty net that, I believe, would have made him the first goalie to score a goal in Rock history. That penalty shot happened because the Rock were hit with a too-many-men penalty in the last two minutes of the game, though the reason wasn’t announced (just “The Knighthawks have been awarded a penalty shot”) and a number of people at the game were confused, myself included.
  • The costume budget for the Toronto Rock Cheerleaders must have been drastically cut, though they kept the same number of people on the squad.
  • Toronto’s eighth goal was a weird one: Play in the Toronto end, Toronto defender forward Dan Carey knocked a pass out of the air, grabbed the loose ball and ran up the floor, then passed to forward defender Stephen Hoar who shot it by Vinc. Why Carey was back on D, I’m not sure, (who ever heard of an offensive player playing defense?) but it worked out rather well. Stephen Leblanc was also playing defense on that shift.
  • Stephen Leblanc’s goal in the second (his first of the year) was almost identical to Cody Jamieson’s second of the game in the first. Both cut inside from the goalie’s left and dove across the crease, scoring on the far side.
  • Garrett Billings did his best Blaine Manning impression (he’s already got the hair nailed) in the third, when he cut across the front of the crease, in traffic, and switched hands to shoot left-handed. Didn’t score, but a nice play.
  • The Rock took a too-many-men penalty with a minute left in the third, when Brad Self had a breakaway. It’s not unusual for a team to send a defender out early to try to prevent the breakaway – if the guy scores anyway, the penalty is negated and you lose nothing. If he doesn’t score, you count your blessings and take the two minute penalty. But in this case, Self was already beyond the bench when they sent the defenders out, so there was no point.
  • If the nets were an inch wider and an inch taller, the Knighthawks might have scored 20 goals. We counted ten posts hit by the ‘Hawks and around five by the Rock. Brad Self hit at least four.
  • Jamie Rooney made his Rock debut, and after a go-ahead goal in the first and a beautiful game-tying goal in the fourth, Rock fans have decided that he can stay.

Game report: Toronto 10 @ Buffalo 14

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I learned something about myself tonight while watching the Rock-Bandits game (in hi-def on TV, thanks TSN). I learned that I pay far too much attention to my twitter feed when watching lacrosse on TV. I missed more than one goal while reading or composing tweets so perhaps in future I might decide to shut down the ole Twitter app during the game. Apparently the Rock won, or maybe lost, I dunno. Luckily, I PVR’ed the game, so I can go back and watch the whole thing again. Hang on.

OK, so the Rock lost, in a couple of ways. Not only did they lose the game, 14-10 to the Buffalo Bandits, but they lost Blaine Manning early in the game to a broken collarbone. Post-game reports say that he’ll be out 6-8 weeks. Manning is the current Rock “iron man”, not having missed a single game since becoming a member of the Rock in 2002. This means that the next Rock game will be the first the Rock have played without Manning since the Championship game in 2001. Colin Doyle is the league’s Iron Man at 180-something games (and will tie Steve Toll for the all-time NLL record in the next game) but he played three years with San Jose.

Once again, the Rock offense was stagnant. Doyle scored 3 with singles scored by Carey, Billings, and Beirnes, but once again Stephan Leblanc, who has been amazing in his first two years in the league, was nowhere to be found. After two games, he has still yet to score. Dan Carey’s goal in the second came after a very nice behind-the-back pass from Josh Sanderson, but I think Sanderson got it in his head that he’s really good at that, and he attempted a number of behind-the-back passes and shots over the rest of the game. He finished with no goals and 3 assists, so I’ll let you be the judge of how well that turned out. Carey looked a little lost in his first game, but looked pretty good in this one. One of my concerns with Carey because of his concussion history was that he’d be reluctant to get into the corners, digging for loose balls. You can hardly blame him after what’s happened to people like Ken Montour and Merrick Thomson and Sidney Crosby, so it was nice to see him in there working hard for the loosies.

The defense fared almost as well as the offense in terms of goal-scoring. The Rock had four goals from defenders – two from newcomer Bill Greer, and one each from Sandy Chapman and Glen Bryan. Chapman, Stephen Hoar, and Phil Sanderson scored in the first game, so right now Chapman has as many goals (2) as Josh Sanderson (1), Blaine Manning (1), and Stephen Leblanc (0) combined.

I tweeted during the game that the Rock’s practice nets must be a touch bigger than the ones they were using in Buffalo. Shots on net were going high all night long. Maybe there was a scouting report that going high was the way to beat Mike Thompson. Actually, in the game against Calgary, that looked like the way to beat Matt Roik. It didn’t work against Thompson, but then again, not much did. Thompson was outstanding, and stopped more than one shot from point-blank range. In at least one case, the Rock forward was standing just behind the crease line, all by himself, for at least three seconds, trying to decide where to shoot. Three seconds may not seem like much, but when you’re a goalie about to face a shot from that close, three seconds is an eternity. The Rock shooter feinted shooting low, waited for Thompson to drop, and then shot high but Thompson waited him out and make an amazing stop.

In my picks for last week, I called a close game won by the Rock, and I was mostly right. Except that the Rock lost. And it wasn’t all that close at the end. I also said that I didn’t know who was going to score for the Mammoth, who scored 20, though I got the outcome right. And I said that Brodie Merrill and the Wings defense wouldn’t let the Rochester forwards get that many shots on Brandon Miller. I was kind of right there in that they only got 32 shots on Miller, but there was also the 26 shots on Wagar. I got the Calgary game right as well, making me 2-2 on the weekend and 2-3 overall.

Game report: Calgary 12 at Toronto 9

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All summer long, Rock fans have been looking forward to seeing the boys back in action, watching for (a) some solid defence in front of (b) new goaltender Matt Roik, and (c) one of the most potent offenses in the league. In the wise words of the sage known as Mr. Loaf, two outta three ain’t bad. The defense was indeed solid and Roik played very well, but after  the first quarter the offense struggled mightily, as the Rock blew 5-0 and 6-1 leads losing to the Calgary Roughnecks 12-9.

The first quarter was all Rock, as Garrett Billings scored the first goal of the 2012 NLL season 2:24 into the first and Josh Sanderson scored less than a minute later. Two goals, two points for Josh Sanderson. A couple of transition goals by Chapman and Hoar and a power play goal from Beirnes with 5 seconds left, combined with a shutout at the other end, and the Rock were up 5-0 after one. Life is good for Rock fans. Calgary seemed disorganized and were dropping passes left and right (my friend Mike said it looked like they had “the yips”), and Mike Poulin was not sharp at all. Matt Roik wasn’t really tested until about ten minutes in (most of the saves he made before that were fairly routine), but made some pretty nice stops after that. I think Calgary also hit three posts and a crossbar in the first quarter alone.

When the second quarter started, Cory Conway finally got things going for the Roughnecks less than 30 seconds in, but shortly after that Blaine Manning answered and the five-goal lead was restored. Nine scoreless minutes followed before the Roughnecks got a couple to drop the margin to three, and the first half ended with a 6-3 Rock lead.

Just as the first quarter was all Rock, the second half was all Roughnecks. They certainly got rid of the yips – actually, I believe they had them sent down the hall to the other dressing room at halftime. By 3½ minutes into the third quarter, the Rock lead had vanished, and three minutes after that, the Roughnecks scored their first go-ahead goal of the night. Toronto didn’t score their seventh goal until 8½ minutes into the third, over 22 minutes after their sixth goal. Phil Sanderson scored to put the Rock ahead again, but Curtis Dickson scored a couple of minutes later to knot it up yet again and the teams finished the third quarter tied at 8.

Calgary broke the tie soon into the fourth as Scott Ranger scored what proved to be the game-winner. Ranger scored another to extend the ‘Necks lead to 2 goals before Dan Carey scored his first as a Rock to get back within one. But the Rock comeback was not to be, as Dane Dobbie scored both his second and third of the night with less than three minutes left. The last was a breakaway on an empty net with twelve seconds left. He was hauled down by a Toronto defender (Bryan?), and immediately awarded an automatic goal.

For the Roughnecks, Dane Dobbie was the top scorer but to me, Shawn Evans was Calgary’s best player. He was his usual self (i.e. a pest), and had a couple of goals and an assist, but he was all over the floor and just making his presence felt by everyone. Evans continues to be the player that other players hate to play against but love to have as a teammate. Mike Poulin wasn’t great in the first quarter at all, but was better in the second quarter and outstanding in the third and fourth. That said, the Rock had less than 40 shots on net.

As for the Rock, the offense struggled from the second quarter on. Leblanc and Carey were invisible most of the night, and Blaine Manning continued his tradition from last year of missing the net seemingly more often than he hit it. Colin Doyle, who has had more assists than goals every season of his career except 2002 and 1998, looked like your stereotypical ball hog, sometimes holding the ball for the majority of the 30 second possession, and then taking a weak or low-percentage shot at the last second. Maybe that’s the fault of his teammates for not getting open and available to pass to, or maybe we should credit the strong Calgary defense for not making such passes available. Regardless, the Rock’s offense just couldn’t get it done.

Matt Roik’s Rock debut didn’t end the way he wanted it to, I’m sure, but that wasn’t his fault. He faced 50+ shots, allowed only 11 goals, and made some excellent stops that kept the Rock in the game. I don’t remember seeing a Calgary goal and thinking “Oh, he really should have had that one”. Andrew McKay of Yahoo! Sports nicely summed it up this way: “Here’s who hated Roik’s opening game: The Minnesota Swarm.” And likely Anthony Cosmo as well.

As I always do in my game reports, I’ve added in some random notes from the game:

  • Dear Roughnecks players: please stand still during the national anthem. This has been one of my pet peeves for years – athletes who walk or bounce around during the anthems. Two or three Roughnecks hadn’t even arrived on the floor until after the anthem had started (Dobbie and Ranger, maybe others). Dobbie didn’t seem to respect the anthem at all; he did the fist bumps down the line, then  bumped into the far boards, walked around a bit, jumped up and down a bit, he never stopped moving once. Now, I get that these guys are pumped and ready to play and there’s lots of adrenaline flowing and all that, but the rest of the players were able to control themselves. Lots of players were stepping from foot to foot, but Dobbie was the only one who left the line.
  • Newcomers Bill Greer and Bruce Codd were both scratches, while Jesse Gamble (who Troy Cordingley had previously said was not going to play) was in the lineup.
  • The “Toronto Rock Cheerleaders” went with much skimpier outfits than previous years, and now have a much shorter name. I believe they used to be known as the “Molson Canadian Bud Light Toronto Rock Dance Pack of Anaheim brought to you by Labatts Blue”.
  • In the second quarter, both goaltenders were called to the ref’s booth to have their pads measured. Never seen that mid-game before. I didn’t notice if any players had their sticks measured during the game.
  • The announcer should be shot for calling some saves as “Denial, Matty style”. The “denial” thing should have been exclusively for Whipper.
  • Another thing I’d never seen before – a shot went over the net, bounced off the boards, and ended up right behind the net. No, that wasn’t the thing I’d never seen before. This was: Roik dove on top of the net, scooped up the ball, and then just lay there as the net fell forwards (i.e. towards centre). Roik rode it backwards back to his feet, then turned around and continued play. Smooooooth.
  • There were two goal reviews called by coaches (the maximum now allowed), and both involved goals by Phil Sanderson. One he got, one he didn’t. The one he didn’t should have been a no-brainer – he shot the ball and then fell into the crease. From the replay it looked like he landed a good two or three seconds before the ball went in. I don’t know why the challenge took so long.
  • For the first time that I can remember, the Rock left the floor after the handshakes without doing their lap around the floor acknowledging the fans.