My first game report of the season! And what a game. A back-and-forth game between the Rock and Bandits where the first and third quarters ended up tied, and the second and fourth ended with different teams having two-goal leads. True to form between these two teams, there was a little bit of chippiness and the beginnings of a fight or two though nothing ever came of them except roughing penalties. But unlike most encounters between these two, there was an unprecedented display of class before the game even started, and I give full credit to the Bandits for that.

As the 2015 Rock team was announced, they came out onto the field and started gathering near centre, rather than their customary place on the far restraining line. (“far” meaning the far end of the floor from where they come out as they are announced.) Once most of the team was there, I realized they were forming a big T and that this was likely in honour of Terry Sanderson, who passed away back in November. The team paid respect to a number of people in the lacrosse community that had passed away over the past few months, including Chris Hall, Jim Jennings, Tucker Williams, and finally Sanderson.

After the Bandits took the floor (to their customary chorus of boos), the Rock moved to the restraining line and a video tribute to Terry Sanderson played on the video board, after which came one of the most classy things I’ve seen at a sporting event. The entire Bandits team left their place on the other restraining line and crossed the floor to shake hands with or hug the Rock players. It wasn’t a full handshake line like you’d see after a game, but each player shook hands with a couple of Rock players. Anthony Cosmo actually did go down the entire team shaking hands with everybody, stopping to give Josh Sanderson a hug. (I originally thought this was because he’s a former Rock player until I realized that that was over ten years ago.) The Bandits then came back to their side of centre for the national anthems and the game began.

The Bandits have been known for years as a physical team, frequently undisciplined, and I’ve even heard them described as a team of thugs. The first two are accurate but even at the height of the “Darris’s Bad Boys of Banditland” days, the third is a stretch. But whatever your feelings on the Bandits as a team, the pregame handshake was a classy show of respect and, dare I say, love for one of the most influential men in NLL history.

Here’s a crappy picture that I took of the T:

And here’s one from the Rock web site. If you look between the two goalies and go straight up, there’s a shadowy circle in the crowd. I’m at the bottom right edge of the circle.

But on to the game, which was exciting and entertaining and featured great goals (some of which actually counted), great saves at both ends, ugly goals, lots of posts, and some very angry Bandits.

The first Rock goal at home this season was scored by Brodie Merrill, his first of two, on a pass from Sandy Chapman. His second goal was unassisted and ended up being the game-winner but those two goals provided the only points from Rock transition players or defenders in this game. Not that the transition was bad, just ineffective against the Buffalo defense. They’d get up the floor quickly, then realize that the Bandits defenders got onto the floor just as quickly, and so their transition chance had gone away. Most of the time they’d turn around and wait for the O guys to get out there rather than try to weave their way through for a low-percentage shot. This was almost always the right call.

The game went back and forth throughout the first half, with the Rock thinking they were going to finish the first quarter with a lead but then Ryan Benesch scored with 0.8 seconds left on the clock to tie it up. In the second, three goals were scored in the first minute but then only three more over the next 14, and Buffalo took a lead into halftime. In the third, Toronto tied it up and took two leads but neither one lasted even a minute. Finally in the 4th Brett Hickey gave the Rock the lead they’d never give up, and though Benesch subsequently scored his 4th and 5th of the game, it wasn’t quite enough.

Nick Rose had seen exactly 0 minutes of action this season prior to this game, but didn’t look rusty at all and had a great game. About 6 minutes into the second quarter, he made three outstanding saves in the span of about five seconds. Anthony Cosmo had a pretty good game but seemed off just a bit. A number of times he moved to make a save only to have the ball deflect off of him into the goal. If he’d moved just a touch faster he would have made the save. In one case he made the save, but the rebound hit Mitch Wilde’s foot and rolled under Cosmo into the net.

Brock Sorensen almost scored his second goal of the season in the 4th. Cosmo had been pulled and Sorensen managed to grab a loose ball and fire it towards the empty net. It landed short and bounced over the net, and the Bandits grabbed it. I could see Sorensen berating himself for not getting closer before shooting. He was even more angry with himself when Benesch scored on the very next play so instead of 12-9 Rock, it was now 11-10.

In the last 30 seconds of the game, the Bandits got possession and started to come up the floor but before they could get their offense set up, the Rock managed to grab the ball and start coming the other way. That’s when I noticed Troy Cordingley making the “time-out” signal towards the ref but of course you can’t call a timeout when the other team has the ball. Cordingley started shouting at the ref so I assumed that he had been calling for a time-out ever since the Bandits got the ball, but the ref didn’t notice. Suddenly something flew from the area of the Bandits bench towards the referee – it looked like a shoe. My first thought was “Troy’s in trouble now”. The ref’s hand immediately went up but the game ended before any penalty was assessed. Troy immediately went over to the ref area to return his challenge flag and have a conversation with the ref, which I’m sure began “Excuse me, my good man, but I was wondering if I might have a word.” But while Cordingley was mad, Anthony Cosmo was LIVID, and I don’t know if it was even about the same thing. It was almost funny – he was at the refs semi-circle yelling and jumping around, then stopped to join the handshake line, then went back to shout at the refs some more. Eventually Troy had to put his arm around Cosmo and lead him away, but he was even yelling at someone on the Bandits bench as he headed to the locker room. Think of how angry you’d have to be for Troy Cordingley to say “OK, let’s just take it easy here.”

In the game sheet, Billy Dee Smith was given an unsportsmanlike conduct minor AND misconduct as well as a game misconduct at 15:00 of the 4th, so perhaps it was Smith and not Troy who threw whatever it was.

Other game notes:

• In addition to the pre-game handshake, there was another thing I had never seen before: Nick Rose made a save in the first and the ball went into his equipment and he couldn’t find it. He tried shaking his leg pads, shoulder pads, jersey, shorts, no ball. He jumped around a bit, trying to dislodge it from wherever it was. Eventually (this whole thing took over a minute) he dropped his gloves, reached up his shorts, and managed to find it, to great applause. There’s an inappropriate joke in there somewhere, but I just… can’t… quite…
• The posts are a goalie’s best friends. Less than ten minutes into the game, the Bandits had already hit both posts and the crossbar. I think they hit at least 7 posts during the game. Ryan Benesch hit three posts on one shot: it hit the right post, then the left post, then the right post again and finally dropped in the net.
• About mid-way through the second, Dhane Smith scored a beautiful goal, jumping to catch a pass and shooting while still in the air. Unfortunately for him, the shot clock buzzer sounded while he was in the air but before he shot so the goal didn’t count. Similarly, Stephen Leblanc scored a nice one later in the game that also went in after the buzzer.
• Toronto fans are generally pretty knowledgeable about the game, but in the 2nd they blew it. Brodie Merrill threw the ball into the corner well after the shot clock buzzer sounded, resulting in a well-deserved Delay of Game penalty. Rock fans booed the call, even though Buffalo had already gotten a similar penalty for a similar infraction, and the Rock had already gotten away with one without a penalty (and got away with another one in the third). When your team does something clearly against the rules (and that the refs are cracking down on) three times and only get called for it once, you should probably not complain about the once.
• The Rock had two short-handed goals while the Bandits had one. But the Rock’s were both in the 4th quarter and included the game-winner.
• I didn’t know this until after the game, but a former NLL player named Joe Hiltz (scored 80 points with the Baltimore Thunder in ’99) was sitting behind us and the guy next to us was a former NLL ref.

Non-game notes:

• Thanks to GO Transit and the Rock for getting us home for free! My son and I took the train in to the game, which was nice and relaxing. Got to read and doze a little on the way in and not worry about traffic or construction, and also knew that the ride home would be free. We went for dinner with a bunch of friends, which was great (other than the wind in the restaurant – see the next note), then walked to the Rock game, which was exciting and they won. A relaxing return trip to Burlington on the train (more reading and dozing), and a short drive home. A lovely evening.
• Note that if you ever go to Fran’s on Front just east of Yonge in Toronto, don’t sit by the door in the winter. The glass in the front vestibule doesn’t go all the way to the wall, and when the outside door is open, cold air comes in through that one-inch gap. This is even worse when the outside door is broken and the wind holds it open until you go and pull it closed, which we must have done twenty times during the meal. We also stuffed a coat into the gap, which made it a little more bearable. The food was good, as it always is, but the draftiness was unpleasant. I tweeted this information to Fran’s twitter account, and they’ve responded saying that maintenance is already scheduled. Good news.

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.

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.

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.