Category Archives: Game Review

Game report: Rochester 17 @ Toronto 9

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So, that game sucked.

The first quarter wasn’t bad. Nick Rose was playing pretty well and only allowed one goal, Colin Doyle had a hat-trick, things were looking pretty good. It wasn’t great, in that nobody other than Doyle was able to score, but hey, it’s Matt Vinc so you can’t expect much better. The fact that so many shots were missing the net entirely was a little worrisome, but that’ll get better, right? Well no, not really.

The Knighthawks came out stronger in the second, taking the lead halfway through the quarter. Again, Doyle seems to be the only Rock player who can solve Vinc, but then Steph Leblanc scores a couple and Patrick Merrill pulls a Geoff Snider and scores right off the face-off. The Rock have the lead back again, the Knighthawks momentum has been stopped, and things are looking good again, right? Well no, not really.

Out of nowhere, Rochester scores four within two minutes and while it may not have had an effect on Nick Rose’s confidence, it certainly affected that of all the fans near me. Suddenly the Rock are losing going into halftime, and whatever momentum there is belongs to Rochester. After halftime, that momentum continued for the Knighthawks, as they reeled off another seven in a row, leading many a Rock fan in attendance to wonder “wasn’t it 7-5 for the Rock at one point?” I know I’ve seen the Rock come back to win a game that they were losing by 7 in the fourth quarter, and I think they’ve come back from a deficit of 8 once. But not against Matt Vinc and the Rochester defense. And not the way the Rock were playing on this night.

The Rock D just didn’t have an answer for the Knighthawks offense. Maybe it’s that the Rock defenders aren’t all that big – of the twelve D or T players on the Rock, only AJ Masson and Craig England are over 200 pounds. Compare that with the Knighthawks – of their 12 D or T players, only four are under 200 pounds, and one of those is 197.

The Rock rookies have been playing pretty well this year – mainly O’Connor, England, and Lum-Walker – but O’Connor and England (Lum-Walker was sent to the practice roster when Merrill returned) really did look like rookies in this game, making silly mistakes, getting easily beaten by forwards, and taking dumb penalties; particularly England who after serving a two-minute penalty, left the penalty box, ran across the floor, checked Cody Jamieson across the back, and returned to the penalty box. The two teams played 5-on-5 for seven seconds before Rochester was back on the PP.

But to be fair, some of the Rock veterans played like rookies as well. I’m not sure I’ve ever had occasion to say this before, but Garrett Billings did not have a good night at all. He scored once, near the end of the game, but otherwise he was missing the net (by several feet at times), missing passes, dropping the ball when nobody was around him, all kinds of things. He just didn’t look good.

So the days of the Rock hosting the Knighthawks and expecting to win because they always have are gone, as are the days of the Rock expecting to lose in Rochester. The Rock are no longer undefeated at home, and the Knighthawks are no longer winless on the road. Next week Minnesota comes to town, and then a couple of weeks after that it’s the Knighthawks again.

Other game notes:

  • Patrick Merrill returns and Scott Johnston continues taking face-offs? Well, he took the opening one and then 9 more, while Merrill took 18. AJ Masson and Sandy Chapman took one each as well. As a whole, they won 33% of them. Someone on the IL Indoor message boards talked about acquiring Jordan MacIntosh from Minnesota. This would be an expensive acquisition (at least a first round draft pick, if not two) but how great would it be to have him, Gamble, and Edwards on transition?
  • The Rock announced the game’s three stars after the game – Jamieson, Keogh, and Dawson. What? No Matt Vinc? Have to disagree there. My three would have been Vinc, Keogh, and Jamieson.
  • Nick Rose allowed 14 of the 17 Rochester goals, including 10 of their 11 in a row. They really didn’t think after he’d allowed, say, 6 in a row and the team went from winning by 2 to losing by 4 that maybe it was time for a change? Was it because they are overconfident in Rose’s ability to stop the bleeding or because they lack confidence in Boychuk, who I thought did a fine job in relief?

Game report: Philadelphia 10 @ Toronto 20

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Friday night’s game in Toronto started off looking somewhat similar to the Vancouver Stealth’s visit to the ACC a week ago. The Wings came out fairly strong, scoring two minutes in, and playing a very physical game both on offense and defense. But while Vancouver dominated the first quarter before the Rock got the engine fired up and raced ahead, the Wings never dominated at all, they just happened to score first.

For the first quarter, I thought the Wings played pretty good defense. The Rock weren’t getting many good looks at all though they did pick up 3 goals in the first quarter. But for the rest of the game, the Rock scored almost at will. Inside, outside, bouncers, in close, bad angles, everything was going in. The goals were spread around among the forwards; Garrett Billings led with 6 while Stephen Leblanc and Kasey Beirnes had 4 each. Only three Rock players who hit the floor didn’t record a point, and one of them was Nick Rose. But the oddest stat of the night for the Rock was Josh Sanderson’s line: 0G, 2A. Whaaaa…? The Rock score 20 and one of the best feeders in the history of the league picks up only 2 assists?

On Friday afternoon, I expressed my concern about the Rock’s face-off situation, with Stephen Hoar having been released. In this game, anyway, it wasn’t a huge concern. Scott Johnston was the man, taking 29 face-offs and winning 41% of them. Of the players that might have been chosen for this task, Johnston wasn’t one of the ones I was expecting, considering he’d taken all of one faceoff this year (though he won it), none last year, and three in 2012 (lost ’em all). A 41% face-off percentage isn’t stellar, but it’s better than Hoar’s 35.7%, and not far below the 44.8% that Patrick Merrill pulled in last season.

The Wings obviously didn’t have the greatest night, but your offense is going to suffer when someone like Jordan Hall is out of the lineup. Of course, offense wasn’t their problem so much as defense. Both of the goalies were hot and cold – they obviously let in a good number of goals (20 of them on only 49 shots), but each of them made some pretty impressive stops as well. The Rock defense was strong, and while Kevin Crowley did have one of his standard “dive across the crease” goals, most of the time the Philly forwards couldn’t get in close. Ryan Ward only scored one but it was a beautiful low shot through traffic, and Tracey Kelusky continues his resurgence after two disappointing seasons in Buffalo.

I didn’t actually think the Wings played that badly overall. They obviously weren’t great, and their physical play seemed to diminish over the course of the game, but the Rock won this game because they were firing on all cylinders.

Other game notes:

  • Damn, that Garrett Thul is a big man. It was a little weird to see 6’4″ Thul and 6’4″ Kevin Crowley next to the 5’8″ Tracey Kelusky, 5’8″ Kyle Buchanan, and 5’9″ Ryan Ward.
  • In the 3rd, Ethan O’Connor fell down just outside the crease and Evan Kirk fell over him. CJ Costabile then jumped on O’Connor and started pounding on him. This seemed to me to be a really dumb play – it was quite obvious that Kirk falling over O’Connor was purely an accident, so there was no need for Costabile to “retaliate”. They were already down by 7 and the retaliation put the Rock on another power play. The Wings did score a shorthanded goal during that penalty, which ended up offsetting the Rock PP goal that Kasey Beirnes scored 45 seconds later, but still. Unnecessary penalties are never smart (that’s why they’re called “unnecessary”) but they seem extra dumb when you’re desperately trying to get back into a game.
  • Speaking of the Wings’ shorthanded goal, it was a thing of beauty. Check out the video: Nick Rose sends a pass up to Garrett Billings, who gently tosses it to a teammate (can’t see who on the video), but Pat Saunders just puts his stick in the way and the ball goes into it. He turns around, just as surprised as anyone else, and races back towards the net. He dekes around Billings and then around Marshall and puts one over Nick Rose’s right shoulder. Nice.
  • Funniest moment of the night: Damon Edwards races up on a breakaway chasing the ball, but Evan Kirk, way out of his crease, gets to it first. Edwards hits Kirk though not especially hard, and Kirk passes the ball away. Brodie Merrill doesn’t like the fact that Edwards hit his goalie, so he nails Edwards and drops his gloves. Edwards just calmly walks away, and Brodie gets an unsportsmanlike conduct minor. “You’re gonna hit our goalie, huh? Get over here and I’ll teach you some mann– hey, where you going? Come back here!”
  • The guy beside me wouldn’t shut up all night. Just kept yappin’ and yappin’, Mammoth this and Denver that… I’m totally kidding, Jonathon, it was great to meet you and Annette!

Game report: Toronto 10 @ Buffalo 12

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The Rock playing in Banditland. As a Rock fan, this is almost better than the Bandits playing in Toronto. The two teams are pulling in roughly the same sized crowds this year (13465 average for Buffalo, 11177 for Toronto), but the Buffalo people are way louder. Of course, they all cheer for the wrong team, but nobody’s perfect. Anyway, they love to hate the Rock just as we Rock fans love to hate the Bandits. Saturday night’s game was perfect for fuelling this rivalry, being a very physical game with lots of chirping between the teams. No actual fights, but it got close several times, including in the handshake line. And keeping the Buffalo crowd loud was the fact that the Bandits led for more than half the game and won.

The Rock played the reverse game from Friday night – instead of improving throughout the game, they got worse. We’ve all seen it before, the team that’s losing near the end of the 4th quarter gets frustrated and they start taking dumb penalties. The Bandits have been guilty of that on many occasions, but the Rock have usually been one of those teams that doesn’t succumb to that. On this night they did. Even Colin Doyle got into it, taking what’s called an “Intentional Contact” penalty, described in the rule book as “any player who intentionally makes contact with another player after the whistle has blown and during dead ball situations”. He and John Tavares were jawing at each other a few times in the 4th quarter, and Tavares even held up the handshake line for a minute yelling at some of the Rock players. The ever-classy Shawn Williams actually shoved Tavares out of the way in order to shake hands with the Rock players. This turned into a hug per person as everyone wished Williams well and expressed their hopes and thoughts for his son Tucker.

Both goaltenders were great, particularly Cosmo who is having a great season. Nick Rose must have read my game report from last night where I said he doesn’t make the spectacular saves as much as other goalies, since he had a few more of the big “wow, how did he stop that?” saves than he usually does. Cosmo made lots of those, and on the few occasions where the Rock picked up a big rebound and shot again right away, almost always came up big again. There was one occasion where he didn’t – Cosmo stopped a shot and Kasey Beirnes grabbed the rebound right on the doorstep and scored, but that goal was inexplicably waved off. It may have had something to do with the delayed penalty that was called at the time, but the penalty was being called against Buffalo, which means that the play should continue until Buffalo gains possession, which they didn’t. A shot that Cosmo stops resets the shot clock, but does not count as possession so since the Rock grabbed the rebound, that goal should have counted. (There were more penalties called at the same time, but that was Marshall and Priolo getting into it after play had already stopped.)

This was a very entertaining game, but there were actually some dumb plays on both sides. The Rock allowed a pretty two-on-one with Ryan Benesch and Steve Priolo early in the second, but the Bandits were shorthanded at the time – how do you allow a 2-on-1 for that length of time while on the PP? Later in the second, the Rock got two penalties at the same time but Mark Steenhuis must have said or done something dumb and got himself an Unsportsmanlike Conduct penalty, negating what would have been a two-minute 5-on-3.

I saw a number of comments on Twitter saying that the refs had lost control of the game, but I think the opposite was true – they had complete control of the game. They were calling penalties left and right, slowing down the game and making sure nothing got out of hand. This not to say that I agreed with all of the penalties, but while there was lots of chippiness and it was very physical, there were no actual fights. Things did cool down a little in the second half, with only 3 penalties called in the 3rd quarter and 5 in the 4th (after 9 in the 1st and 15 in the second).

The Rock tied the game in every quarter but only led once, in the third for 10 minutes. In the fourth they were down by 3 with 3½ minutes left, and I don’t want to say they gave up, but that’s when Doyle took his Intentional Contact penalty and some more rough stuff ensued. It certainly looked like one of these “if we’re going to lose, let’s go down swinging” attitudes that the Bandits more than the Rock have been known for. The Bandits took a Too Many Men penalty with <2 minutes left, resulting in an automatic penalty shot. But Kasey Beirnes missed the net entirely. When Josh Sanderson scored less than a minute later, that miss really became costly – “down by one with a minute left” is very different from “down by two with a minute left”. The Bandits were able to run out the clock and that was all she wrote.

Other game notes:

  • Since Tucker Williams couldn’t make the game, the Bandits set up a facetime session with him in his hospital room, and the entire crowd sang Happy Birthday to him while he watched live. That was awesome. Great to see #BraverThanBrave on the ribbon board and T-shirts as well as on all the players’ helmets.
  • People who are homers are partially funny but mostly irritating. There was a guy behind me who stood up and held his arms out on just about every Bandits penalty (which means he was standing a lot) and every time a Bandit player got hit with a legal check that wasn’t penalized. Meanwhile, if a Bandits player had pulled out a knife and stabbed a Rock player in the chest, he’d have been all “Oh come on, you’re calling that?”
  • John Tavares was given a five minute major for high-sticking early in the fourth, but it looked to me like a cross check to the chest that slid up and hit the player in the head, not a cross check to the head. I get that they want to cut down the head shots and so they penalize them hard, but if the head contact was unintentional like in this case, two minutes would have been sufficient. A major penalty seemed unnecessary. Kudos to the Bandits for only allowing a single PP goal in that five minutes.
  • In the second quarter, Andrew Watt scored a beautiful breakaway goal that was immediately waved off. Just about all the Bandits fans near me were up in arms at the obvious injustice (particularly the guy behind me), yelling about how the ref was obviously blind and incompetent – until the replay was shown. Once it became obvious that Watt was indeed in the crease, the shouting stopped. Turns out the ref does occasionally get it right.
  • The Bandits somehow don’t use a computer to display the shots on goal on the video board. At one point, the Bandits shots were 9 in the first quarter, 15 in the second, and none in the third, for a total of 25. Another time, the Rock had 13 in the first and 9 in the second, totaling 23. Ummm… no. Note that the Bandits incorrect total was up for all of half-time, so it’s not a question of my looking just at the wrong second after they’ve updated one but not the other. And if you’re using a computer to do it, they really should be updated at the same time.
  • Steve Priolo scares me. Right at the end of the game, there was some pushing and shoving near the Toronto net, and Priolo went after someone. The ref pulled him off but had to hold him back – he wanted to get right back in there. A couple of years ago I saw Priolo in a game where he was trying to start a fight but nobody would fight him. He literally ran around in circles looking for someone to fight. He’s playing very well this year, but he’s a very big, very strong guy and if he can’t control his temper… Like I said, he scares me.

Game report: Vancouver 12 @ Toronto 17

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Last week, all three games featured comebacks. On Friday night, the Rock continued the trend, coming back from a 6-2 deficit in the first quarter to win 17-12. I mentioned to a friend when coming out of Friday night’s game “That had the makings of a very bad game… until the Stealth decided they were no longer interested.” That’s really what it looked like – that the Stealth simply lost interest in the game and allowed the Rock to get back in it. And once they did, Toronto kept the pressure on and the Stealth collapsed like a house of cards. By the 4th quarter, they seemed to spend less time fighting for possession and loose balls and more time fighting.

The Stealth came out for the first quarter fired up. They had crisp passing, great goaltending, and after one quarter they had six goals from six different people. After their sixth goal, there were people near me calling for Nick Rose to be pulled. Rose just didn’t seem to be seeing the ball well, particularly the low shots. But the Rock stuck with Rose, and it turned out to be a good decision. After allowing six goals in the first quarter, he only allowed six the rest of the game.

It’s harder to tell with Rose than other goalies whether he had a good game or not. He’s less of a reactionary goalie than guys like Tyler Richards, so he gets set up in a position to block shots with his body without moving much, while Richards moves around a lot more. When a ball beats Rose, he barely moves at all so it looks either like an excellent shot or like a complete goalie screw-up. On the other hand, even if Rose has a great night, you still don’t often see the spectacular saves like you’ll see from Richards.

All that said, I think Rose played a really good game after the first quarter. Tyler Richards played a great game except for the 4th quarter, when he seemed to lose confidence and was replaced by Matt Roik. Odd – the three best NLL goalies right now in my opinion would be Vinc, Richards, and Aaron Bold, and all three have been pulled in the last week.

There wasn’t a clear momentum shift, it was rather gradual. But looking back over the game, it was a definite trend – the Stealth started strong and gradually got sloppier as the game progressed, and the Rock didn’t start so strong but their game improved throughout the night. Confidence is such a huge thing in lacrosse, and in sports in general. As the game went on, the Rock’s confidence level kept increasing and it was evident in their play, while the Stealth’s confidence seemed to evaporate.

There were some spectacular plays in this game. Here are links to the YouTube video of the game with time codes:

Other game notes:

  • Tyler Digby is one big dude. I don’t know if he considers himself a lacrosse player who also plays football (he was drafted into the CFL), or a football player who also plays lacrosse, but he plays lacrosse like a football player. Stephen Leblanc tried to set a pick on him at one point – I don’t think Digby even noticed.
  • Nice to see the Rock with BraverThanBrave stickers on their helmets. This will apparently be a league-wide thing, and I’ve also heard that among the myriad other fundraisers going on by various teams and leagues for Tucker Williams, every player in the NLL will be donating their per diem for one week to the Williams family. The lacrosse community is one big family, and you see it the most when someone needs it the most. A couple of years ago it was Sean Pollock, then Chris Sanderson and Kyle Miller, and now Shawn Williams. You know these kind of heartbreaking stories are going to come up from time to time, and some have happier endings than others, but it’s got to be nice for the players knowing that all the other players, coaches, executives, and fans have your back – as hard as they will fight you on the floor, they will support you just as hard off the floor.
  • I’ve written many times before about how I’m not a fan of fighting in lacrosse. I guess it’s rubbed off on my son Ryan, since after the Ethan O’Connor / Nick Weiss fight, the following conversation occurred while O’Connor was being cheered on his way to the penalty box:

Ryan: Why are they cheering him?
Me: He was in a fight.
Ryan: <pause> My question still stands.

  • This was quite the penalty-filled game. Some of the penalties were dumb (Damon Edwards and Sandy Chapman each knocked people down on their way to the bench and were sent off for roughing, though Chapman did it twice and each time took a Stealth player to the box with him), while others were questionable calls (some off-ball pushing that was called roughing). There were eight penalties called in the 1st quarter and nine in the third. Now and again they’d be playing 5 on 5 and I thought “there are a lot of people on the floor” because one or both teams had been down a man so often.

Game report: Toronto 10 @ Buffalo 12

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As an NLL fan, I’m glad I drove to Buffalo Friday night for the Rock/Bandits game. It was an entertaining game, and the atmosphere in Buffalo is always fun and loud. But as a Rock fan, I should have left at halftime. Each team played a very good half and a lousy half. The Rock’s lousy half wasn’t as bad as the Bandits’ lousy half, but their good half wasn’t nearly as good as the Bandits’ good half.

I predicted a Rock victory, as did both of my Addicted to Lacrosse co-hosts, 6 of my 8 colleagues at ILIndoor.com, four out of four guys over at laxallstars.com, and ten out of ten at inlacrossewetrust.com. I kind of doubt the Bandits players knew about all of those predictions, but if they did, they wouldn’t have been happy about it. And after the first half, things were going according to plan. The Rock offense was looking good, Nick Rose was playing very well in net, and the Bandits’ offense was kind of sloppy. Toronto’s fourth goal was a beautiful and perfectly executed give-and-go from Stephen Leblanc to Colin Doyle. The Bandits didn’t score in the first at all and only twice in the second, and both of their goals were followed by Rock goals, dampening any momentum they were trying to gain.

6 on 5

And then came halftime, and everything changed. I don’t know what Troy Cordingley said to his team at halftime, but holy crap. Either he gave a compelling speech for the ages and John Lovell did not, or the two teams just swapped uniforms at the half.

The Bandits came out very strong in the third. They didn’t score until 11 minutes in, but then scored four within three minutes. They kept the Rock scoreless for the entire third. Cosmo played like the Cosmo the Bandits thought they were getting a couple of years ago, and the defense was strong. I particularly remember watching Kevin Brownell covering Colin Doyle and making sure he got nowhere near the net and couldn’t even get a decent pass away. In short, the Bandits played an excellent third quarter – possibly the most complete quarter of lacrosse (in terms of offense, defense, and goaltending) I’ve seen so far this year.

The Rock, on the other hand, didn’t have a great third quarter at all. There were a couple of boneheaded defensive plays and the offense couldn’t solve the Bandits D. A number of Rock passes were intercepted, and even Nick Rose got in on the boneheaded action. After a save, he immediately launched a long pass to Jesse Gamble halfway up the floor. This is usually a good idea, but Gamble was covered and was barely able to catch the pass. Kudos to him for catching it at all, but it was a bit of a dumb pass. A second after he caught it, Gamble got leveled by Billy Dee Smith in the hit of the game and the Bandits recovered the ball.

I have to give props to Steve Priolo. The first time I remember seeing Priolo was in Toronto in 2011, when he got involved in a couple of fights and just played like a complete goon. My first impression stuck with me for a while, so I’ve always thought of him as a big dumb fighter with a lacrosse stick. But even if you don’t count his two goals (on two shots) on Friday, he played a very strong defensive game. It makes me happy when you see players who start off as one-dimensional and gradually expand their skill set until they are much more complete players. Priolo looks like he’s headed that way, and his teammates Billy Dee Smith (who also had a strong game) and Rory Smith are also good examples of this.

In a nutshell, I think coaching was a factor in this game. The Bandits changed their game at halftime and played much stronger in the second half. But not only did the Rock play worse in the second half, they didn’t adjust to the Bandits changes, leading to a 10-4 second half in favour of Buffalo.

Other game notes:

  • Mark Steenhuis’ empty net goal was on a 2-on-1 with brother Billy Dee. BDS carried the ball the length of the floor before passing to Steenhuis who put it away. Smith was being covered by the Rock defender and probably could have scored himself but passed it for the sure thing. Very unselfish play by Smith.
  • Bandits fans: only 11,000 for a game against the Rock? Wow. I was expecting closer to a full house. Haven’t seen this many empty seats at a Bandits game in a long time. (See picture below, taken near the end of the first quarter.) In fact, that was the lowest attendance for a regular season game in Buffalo since 2006. Note that the Bandits went to the Championship in 2006. Probably unrelated.
  • Swennie: “Count it down for me! 1…” Crowd: “2… 3… we want 4!” That’s actually counting up, not down. My son made me add this one.
  • With a minute or so left in the game and the Bandits up by two, the music guy decided to play “We Will Rock You” ironically. Well played.
  • Talking to my son: “Former Rock players on the Bandits: Williams, Benesch, Wilson, Rooney, Bryan, Suddons, Cosmo. They’ve even got our coach from last year.” My son responds “I guess that’s why they’re called the Bandits.” Also well played.

Empty seats

Game review: Calgary 11 @ Toronto 16

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The Toronto Rock and Calgary Roughnecks opened their seasons on Friday night in Toronto, and things couldn’t really have gone much better for the Rock. Captain Colin Doyle scored the first goal of the season four minutes in, and two minutes later, the Rock had a three goal lead. Not only did the Rock keep the lead for the rest of the game, but Calgary only got back within one once, and after the first quarter, the Rock’s lead would never drop below three. The Roughnecks had problems in all areas of the floor – goaltending, defense, taking bad penalties, and particularly the offense, which looked pretty sloppy. Shots were missing the net all night, and other times a Roughnecks player would try to sneak one by Rose through a screen rather than waiting for a  better shot opportunity.

That said, the Riggers did try to make a game of it in the 3rd and 4th, as Jeff Shattler scored four straight Calgary goals and then early in the fourth, Shawn Evans and Curtis Dickson (neither of whom had scored up to this point) each scored to bring the Roughnecks back to within 3 with 10 minutes to play – and of course 10 minutes to score 3 goals is tons of time. But Nick Rose and the Rock D only allowed one more the rest of the way, and the Rock offense never let up the pressure.

Garrett Billings scored one and assisted on nine to lead the game (and now the league) in scoring, and Stephen Leblanc had an excellent game with 5 goals and a couple of helpers. Jesse Gamble is already making me reconsider my Transition Player of the Year prediction (Geoff Snider), and I wondered during the game who would win in a race: Gamble or Steve Toll in his prime. On the Calgary side, Shawn Evans had a goal and seven assists, and Jeff Shattler scored four. I noticed rookies Karsen Leung and Garrett McIntosh a few times but I don’t even remember seeing Tor Reinholdt’s name. He’s on the scoresheet, so he obviously played, but I have no memory of him.

But man, those Roughnecks have some pests, don’t they? Evans, Dobbie, and Snider spent a grand total of 2 minutes in the penalty box, but they were being their usual irritating selves (though if I were an NLL GM, I’d take any one of them on my team in a heartbeat), and Greg (or possibly Jon) Harnett and Andrew McBride also got in on the action. There were no fights but a fair bit of pushing and shoving all night, which is somewhat typical between these teams. However Mike Carnegie was given a 5-minute major for illegal cross-checking which I didn’t think was warranted at all. It looked to me like a good hit – maybe high across the chest, but I didn’t think it was a head hit, and it certainly didn’t look like an intentional head hit.

Next weekend, the Rock travel to Buffalo to see old coach Troy Cordingley, while the Roughnecks host the Mammoth.

Other game notes:

  • Nice to see Ethan O’Connor get his first NLL goal in his first NLL game. Sure it was an empty-netter, but it still counts.
  • Mike Poulin was hot and cold. Mostly cold in the first half and better as the game went on, but he made a few damned impressive saves throughout the game. Nick Rose had a few OMG-worthy saves as well, but let in a couple of softies. Then again, when Jeff Shattler is standing 15 feet from you and winding up like he’s going to put a 100 mph shot through you, you’re getting ready to feel the pain. You’re not looking for a 40 mph change-up that bounces right at your feet.
  • Right at the end of the game, Damon Edwards was running out the last 5 or 10 seconds on the clock, when McBride started hitting him into the boards with some legal but very hard cross-checks – much harder than the situation warranted. When the hits continued after the final buzzer Edwards started shoving back, and a fight almost began. The refs broke it up before anything happened, and a minute later they were shaking hands in the lineup.
  • The Rock cheerleaders had new outfits including denim jackets, but it looked like they decided that each girl would go and buy their own, since none of them matched. Some were longer than others, some were light blue while others were dark, it was weird. Normally their outfits are very co-ordinated.
  • I like the Trainer’s Choice commercial they show on the Jumbotron during Rock games, showing players falling on various parts of their body. The best part is when they show a player falling through the crease. As soon as his elbow hits the ground, the video stops and the word “ANKLE” appears in big letters. This is a sports medicine company.
  • They didn’t show the car rental company commercial that everyone loves. (“A little more to your right, a little back to the left, just an inch more to your right. OK, there. Do it. <BANG>”) I can’t currently remember which car rental company it’s for, so from that point of view it’s a lousy commercial. Makes me laugh every time though.

Preseason game report: Rochester 12 @ Toronto 6

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Both the Toronto Rock and the Rochester Knighthawks are now 1-1 in the preseason after the defending champs defeated the Rock 12-6 at the TRAC on Saturday night. Each team was missing some players who will likely be in their opening-day lineups; Rochester was missing Mike Accursi and Craig Point while the Rock were down Garrett Billings, Stephen Leblanc, Bill Greer, and Sandy Chapman. I didn’t hear any announcement about one of the Knighthawk goalies being scratched, implying that they dressed all three, but Matt Vinc played the whole game and looked really good. Nick Rose played most of the game, though exactly how much I don’t know; I suppose I wasn’t paying enough attention. At one point the Rock switched goalies but Rosey came in while Zak Boychuk went out. I have no idea how long Boychuk had been in there. (According to the game report on torontorock.com, Boychuk was only in for a few seconds.)

The Knighthawks played a strong game, as you might expect from the two-time defending champions. Dan Dawson was his usual dominant self, and Cody Jamieson continues to make his presence felt. Jesse Gamble, for instance, felt his presence pretty well early in the game, as Jamieson simply devastated Gamble with a huge open-ice hit.  The Rock didn’t have a great game offensively, which should be obvious from the fact that they only scored 6 goals. There seemed to be a lot of passes around the perimeter but the whole “one guy draws a double-team allowing someone to get free in front of the net” just didn’t happen (perhaps because Billings is usually the guy who’s double-teamed), and the Knighthawk defense forced the Rock to take lots of low-percentage shots. Vinc was more than up to the task for those.

Nick Rose played well but not great. He made the simple stops, but I still think he gives up too many rebounds. I guess it’s no big deal if the Rock pick it up or Rose makes the second save as well, but when the other team scores on a shot they shouldn’t have had, that’s frustrating.

It was quite a physical game too. No actual fights, but there were the beginning of several and quite a lot of shoving that came to either nothing or coincident roughing minors. Paul Dawson had at least three penalties, and I was convinced that a Dawson / Craig England fight was inevitable. Or possibly Dawson / Damon Edwards. Or  Powless / Edwards. Or even Burton / Doyle. Doyle actually had two penalties in the game; I wonder if he’s changing his game to be more of an Andrew Suitor type: the captain AND the team penalty minute leader. Hmmmm….. Nah.

It’s wasn’t quite the rookie-fest that the last game was, though the Rock had about five in the lineup. Craig England looks like he might battle Scott Johnston for the enforcer role on the team, while Dustin Dunn and Ethan O’Connor played a lot of minutes on defense. The Rock look to be a quick transitioning team this year, with Gamble, Marshall, Edwards, Chapman, Dunn, and O’Connor all able to turn the ball around quickly. They even have a guy named Swift!

Speaking of Swift, he and Eric Law both had pretty solid games on offense, particularly Law. He scored a couple, and looked pretty comfortable as part of the offense. I didn’t think Brendan Thenhaus had a particularly strong game, and wouldn’t be surprised to see him dropped to the practice roster.

Other game notes:

  • In the second quarter, a Rock player took a shot that Ian Llord managed to save while standing in the crease – right in front of Matt Vinc. Nice save for a non-goalie (see below), but why was Llord even there – in the crease, standing directly in front of his own goalie?
  • Near the end of the game, the Rock had pulled Nick Rose for an extra attacker. After a turnover, Rose tried to get back to the net before the Knighthawks transition man but it was immediately clear that he had no chance to make it. Colin Doyle could and did, but did not make the save. You may remember that Doyle played goal for almost ten minutes of a Mann Cup game this past summer, when both Six Nations goalies were tossed from the game for using illegal equipment. From all accounts, he did a decent job.
  • There was a guy with a cowbell who would pound on it every time the Rock gained possession of the ball. (He was there last week too.) My eleven-year-old son looked up the first time he heard it and said “Wow, that’s annoying.” Yup.
  • After a shot hit either Vinc or the crossbar and went high in the air, Paul Dawson reached up and caught it on the way down. Josh Sanderson then smacked the ball out of Dawson’s stick, grabbed it, and took a quick shot. Didn’t score, but the fact that Sanderson, who’s not known for his defensive prowess, stripped the ball away from Paul Dawson, who’s probably ten inches taller, was pretty impressive.
  • Not a single goal from behind the net, though Doyle tried one. Good news for Rosey. Considering the length of Dan Dawson’s arms, that’s a bit surprising.
  • Despite there being a crazy huge snowstorm in southern Ontario, there was a pretty good crowd on hand. I drove in from Waterdown, and the QEW wasn’t great but wasn’t terrible. I don’t really need lane markers anyway.

Pre-season game report: Colorado 12 @ Toronto 13

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Sorry Mammoth fans, I’ve now seen your team twice this weekend, while you won’t get to see them until the 28th. The Mammoth played their second pre-season game in as many nights at the TRAC, a 13-12 loss to the Toronto Rock. Similar to Friday night’s game against the Swarm, the Mammoth dressed a whole bunch of players, some of whom only played one half. The Rock did the same, though despite the Rock tweeting before the game that goalies Nick Rose and Zak Boychuk would play a half each, Boychuk played the whole game. After falling behind 4-1 in the first, the Rock stormed back with a bunch of transition goals to pull ahead, and then it was a tight game after that. In the end, the Rock prevailed 13-12.

If you were looking for hot rookie-on-rookie action, this was the weekend for it as most of the Rock veterans and a couple of Colorado’s were on the sidelines (or not in the building at all). For the Mammoth, Gavin Prout and Casey Powell were both MIA, as they were Friday night. John Grant played the first half only. For the Rock, all kinds of regulars were out, including Colin Doyle, Josh Sanderson, Kasey Beirnes, Sandy Chapman, Chris White, Scott Evans, Bill Greer, and Stephen Hoar. The Rock were looking at the kids and borderline players, checking out who might be included on the newly-reduced-in-size roster, who would end up on the practice roster, and who would be looking for a new team. For example, there was this Billings guy, could he finally get over the hump and realize the potential he’s shown for the past few years? You heard it here first: I think he’ll make it.

Credit where credit is due. I’ve ripped on Scott Johnston in this blog (and on twitter) a few times over the last couple of years for boneheaded plays he’s made. But I thought he played a hell of a game on Saturday. Not only did he score two goals, but he played strong defensively as well. Last year, I thought he looked too much like one of those fighters who happens to own a lacrosse stick, but if he can change his game the way Billy Dee Smith and Rory Smith both have (not that I’d put Johnston in the same category as those guys quite yet), I’d be happy to have him on my team.

Even though I said before that you can’t really do much team analysis in these pre-season games, you could certainly say that the Rock played a great transition game. At least 5 of their goals were directly on transition, and three of those occurred within about a minute and a half in the second quarter. As I mentioned, Zak Boychuk played the entire game, and did a great job. He made the majority of the saves he was expected to make, forcing the Mammoth to work hard for their goals, and made a few spectacular saves as well. He even managed to prevent a goal from behind the net, something Nick Rose hasn’t quite figured out how to do. That said, Drew Westervelt scored Colorado’s first goal of the game on a behind-the-net Air Gait-style shot. But when you have arms that are eight feet long, you can score goals from places most players cannot.

Once again, I have to apologize to the Mammoth fans. I was paying more attention to the Rock in this game and less to the Mammoth, so I can’t really tell you how the Mammoth players did. I couldn’t even pick who the best Mammoth player was. John Grant is usually a good choice, and he did have a goal and a few assists, but he only played half the game. I don’t remember a particular name jumping out at me like “Man, that guy’s everywhere tonight!” like Johnston did for the Rock. I’m going to semi-randomly pick someone as my Colorado player of the game: Cameron Mann, only because Mann is the perfect name for a Canadian box lacrosse player.

Game notes:

  • As I said in my game report, Friday night’s game had no music, no PA, no national anthems, no cheerleaders, and no replay. Saturday night’s game had all of these except the replay – the only one of that list that I really wanted (though the PA announcing of goals and penalties was a welcome addition). Maybe when MLSE decides to buy a new Jumbotron for the ACC (to rival the amazing new scoreboard in Denver), Jamie Dawick can grab the old one and put it up in the TRAC.
  • In the 4th quarter, Tye Belanger made an outstanding save while falling. The rebound went right to Stephen Leblanc, who deposited it over Belanger into the wide open net. I almost felt bad that Belanger got scored on immediately after (and as a result of) making such a great save. Almost.
  • It looked to me like Jesse Gamble might somehow have gotten faster during the off-season. I’m pretty sure that due to relativity, he actually aged less during the game than the other players. That’s science. Look it up.
  • Not trying to get anyone in trouble here, but Mammoth defender Ben McCullogh was wearing Nike shoes and Reebok pads.
  • At one point, someone got a penalty which was announced as “unnecessary roughness”. They moved the ball 15 yards, but nobody could figure out what do to about the first down. 
  • You know what that game needed? Less cowbell. Much, much less.
  • First person in the handshake lineup for the Rock? Nick Rose, who didn’t play.

Preseason game report: Minnesota 14 @ Colorado 10

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Lacrosse season is back! The 2014 NLL pre-season began on Friday night, with the first inter-team scrimmage. The Minnesota Swarm took on the Colorado Mammoth at the Toronto Rock Athletic Centre in Oakville, Ontario. Being the lucky bastard fellow I am, I live about 30 km from the TRAC, so I attended this game with my son and several hundred other lacrosse fans. For an exhibition game in the Toronto area with no Toronto team involved, there was a pretty good turnout; the facility holds about 800 people in the stands, and it was mostly full. Of course, I imagine if they announced “everyone who is a relative or close personal friend of one of the players, please leave”, the place would empty out pretty quickly.

While this was an exhibition game and the final result really didn’t mean anything, most of the players knew they were being evaluated and so they were playing pretty hard. There were hits and penalties but no fights. It did look like a preseason game in some respects, in that we saw more dropped passes, passes made to nobody, passes missed because the receiver wasn’t expecting them, things like that. I even saw John Grant attempt an over-the-shoulder shot from in close and miss the net. (That was during the pre-game warmup; Grant did not play in the game.)

I don’t have a problem with music at lacrosse games, in fact I’ve been a supporter of it through the years. But the more games I see without it, the more I think I prefer the game without the music. As with all games at the TRAC, this was even more bare-bones than that – no music, no PA announcements of goals or penalties, no national anthems, no cheerleaders, no instant replay. Just pure lacrosse. It was great.

The Swarm decided to go with the 18-man lineup, as they will have to in the regular season, while the Mammoth seemingly had bucketloads of people dressed, some of whom only played one half or the other. Both teams swapped goalies – Tyler Carlson and Tye Belanger started and played the first half, and Zach Higgins and Dan Lewis played the second half. A few players on the Mammoth were notably absent: as I said Grant did not play though he was there, while neither Casey Powell nor Gavin Prout were anywhere to be seen. I was specifically looking for Prout, after the rumours of his release by the club. I also don’t remember seeing Jarrett Park or Mat MacLeod, though it’s possible I simply missed them. But just about everyone else on the Mammoth roster (listed here) played.

For the Swarm, it was harder to tell. Not only did they not have names on their (ugly gold practice) jerseys, but at least some of them were wearing the wrong number. I specifically tweeted the Swarm asking about a big impressive-looking guy wearing #19, who I figured was probably a rookie since nobody on the Swarm wore #19 last year. I thought this kid was looking pretty comfortable – was it maybe Logan Schuss? But he’s not that big, is he? Turns out it was Kiel Matisz, just wearing a different number. (Matisz is 6’5″, Schuss is 6’0″.) I didn’t see #98 or #20 out there – did Callum Crawford and Andrew Suitor actually play? I have no idea. Obviously since the Swarm only dressed 18, there were a few people left out, and it’s not like Crawford or Suitor will have trouble making the team. I imagine they’ll be playing tonight in their game against Rochester while others sit out.

It’s hard to talk about how the teams looked as a whole since it was pre-season. Were the Swarm the better team? How did the Mammoth defense look? Who’s going to take over for Ryan Benesch on the Swarm’s left side? Each team was trying out different players and different line pairings and different offensive and defensive strategies, so such an analysis would be meaningless. Both teams were missing some top players (I think that’s true for the Swarm, anyway), so a crippled Swarm team defeated a crippled Mammoth team.

Some other game notes:

  • Mammoth forward (and former Bandit) Carter Bender was wearing a black helmet with orange on it. I imagine they’ll get him a new one if he makes the team.
  • Bob Snider had a few of the signature Snider face-off wins (simply grab the ball with the back of your stick as if the other guy isn’t there), but Jordan MacIntosh certainly gave him some trouble on most of them.
  • Drew Westervelt looked pretty good for the Mammoth, though he only played the first half. It was amusing to see the 6’5″ Westervelt next to the 5’8″ Cody McMahon.
  • Joey Cupido looked pretty quick on transition – he had at least one breakaway chance, and a couple of other times sped up the floor, leaving the Swarm people covering him in the dust.
  • Dan Lewis looks too skinny to play pro lacrosse, let alone be a goalie. But he was pretty effective last night, looking to make the team ahead of draft pick Dillon Ward.
  • All four goalies played very well. Each one of them made some pretty impressive saves, though it was hard to tell if they were close to mid-season form or if the shooters were just not.
  • When there’s no music and the ball hits the goalie in the chest, you can really hear how hard it hits. Props.

Game Report: Minnesota 20 @ Toronto 11

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With no traffic, I can drive from my house to the ACC in about 45 minutes. Because this is Toronto and traffic is unpredictable, I normally leave for a game at least an hour and a half before game time. On Sunday, I left home at 1:10pm for a 3:00pm start. We arrived at our seats just before half-time. The last hour and a half of the drive took place within 5 km of the ACC. By the time we got to the game, it was almost three hours after we left home. But once I got there and started watching the game, I realized that being stuck in traffic wasn’t all that bad compared to what was going on down on the floor.

Anyone who thinks I’m a total Rock homer or that the Rock pay me to write positive Rock articles while pretending to be impartial (hey Jamie, great idea, huh? Whaddaya think?), read on.

I thought about skipping this whole article and just doing my game report as a tweet:

Minnesota @ Toronto game report: Wow, did that ever suck.

That pretty much sums it up. The Rock offense was terrible. It looked like the first game of the season – balls were dropped, passes were missed, shots missed the net by a foot or two or hit the goalie full in the chest, rebounds were given up on, it was bad. Colin Doyle was working his ass off, but nobody else seemed to be. Leblanc was invisible. Manning looked old. I don’t even remember seeing Beirnes, who’s one of my favourite players. I do remember seeing Sanderson digging around in the corners once or twice but other times he was invisible too. Even Billings looked like he didn’t know what to do, so he just kept shooting from bad angles or with a defender right in front of him.

Most of the Swarm defense is freaking huge – and even the ones that aren’t huge seemed to be. They had the Rock completely covered all game long, and I’m sure there were Rock players who didn’t know who was in net for Minnesota since they could never see him, let alone the net itself. To those Rock players: it was Tyler Carlson, who was amazing.

Toronto’s transition has been much better this year than previous years, but they were making some bad decisions as well. The transition player would speed up the floor with the ball, and regardless of whether he had a lane to the net, he’d go in anyway and take a low-percentage shot instead of circling around and waiting for the forwards to come out. If he did wait for the forwards, it took so long to get set up that by the time there were five forwards on the floor, there were only 10 seconds left on the shot clock.

Nick Rose wasn’t terrible, despite what the final score might tell you. He wasn’t great, make no mistake, I wouldn’t even say he was good. But as bad as the Rock offense was, the defense was worse. Swarm forwards seemed able to just run around defenders at will, and get a few seconds all by themselves to decide where to shoot on Rose. Sometimes it almost looked like the Rock defenders got out of the way of the Swarm forwards.

Of course, the fact that they were killing penalties for most of the second half certainly didn’t help. The Rock were so undisciplined out there that I thought we were watching the Bandits. (Too soon, Bandits fans? Sorry.) The worst one came early in the fourth quarter. Someone (don’t know who) hit Patrick Merrill with what seemed to me to be a completely legal, if bone-crunching, hit. Scott Evans took exception to the hit and went after the offender, while Jesse Gamble went after someone else at the same time. Gamble was given two for facemasking (though I think he was just trying to get the guy’s helmet off so he could fight him) and two for roughing. Evans was given two for checking from behind, two for instigating, five for fighting, and a game misconduct. When all was said and done, the Rock were on a nine-minute penalty kill, two minutes of which was 5-on-3. Luckily Minnesota took a penalty shortly afterwards to even it up a little, but still – all four goals the Swarm scored after that were on the power play.

This is the second straight year I’ve had to write about a stupid penalty that handcuffed the Rock during a playoff game. The score at this point was 16-8. The comeback was definitely a long shot, but they had almost an entire quarter to do it. Now we’re down one forward and are killing penalties for 2/3 of the rest of the game. Why? Partially to get revenge for a legal hit, but mainly because the Rock were frustrated. Frustrated that their offense couldn’t get anything going, frustrated that when they did get a decent shot Carlson was there to stop it, and frustrated that the Swarm forwards were running roughshod over the Rock defense.

I don’t want to take anything away from the Swarm by implying that they won because the Rock played badly. Not true – the Swarm won because they played very well. Five different Swarm players had hat-tricks, and Tyler Carlson was almost unbeatable. I’m not a big believer in the whole “they wanted it more” thing, but that’s really what it looked like. In the fourth quarter, the Rock players looked like they just wanted it to be over ASAP. And you can’t really blame them.

So the Rock are done for the year, the Raptors are out of the playoffs, the Blue Jays aren’t nearly what everyone thought they were going to be (though it’s still pretty early in the season), and the Argo season doesn’t start for six weeks. It’s come to this. Toronto sports fans now have to hang their hopes on the Maple Leafs.

God help us.