If you’re a Bandits fan, a Rock fan, or just a fan of the game, this was a great weekend to watch the NLL. The Bandits and Rock played back to back games on Friday and Saturday nights, and as expected, both games were close, exciting, chippy, and very entertaining. I got to both of these games but didn’t do a separate game report for Friday night’s matchup for reasons I’ll get to. This article will serve as a game report for both.

I decided to bring my kids to Friday’s game in Buffalo so I messaged my buddy Steve Bermel to see if he could get me tickets. He’s done this for me in the past and gave me hell once because I bought tickets through the box office (and therefore paid full price plus fees rather than Steve’s season ticket holder discount price). Steve called me back and said that Kevin Kennedy, the Bandits anthem singer, wasn’t using his tickets for that game and had donated them to me and my boys. These tickets were “row 3, behind the Rock bench” as Steve put it, so I was excited about sitting only a few rows back from the bench. It turns out that row 3 is the row directly behind the Rock bench, so we we right in the action. This was as close as I’ve ever been to a sporting event (except a spring training Blue Jays game where I was sitting behind home plate, next to the guy with the radar gun) so that was very cool, and my boys really enjoyed it as well.  We were close enough to see that Blaine Manning has a mole on the back of his head. The more you know.

Sitting so close had some advantages: we could see that the Rock have a special stick they use for face-offs. Whenever a player went to take a face-off or came off the floor after one, they’d swap their regular stick with the face-off one. Nicky got high-fives from most of the Rock players as they came out for the second half, and one of the Rock employees gave them each a ball after the pre-game shoot-around. I could hear Brett Hickey trying to get the team fired up (“Come on guys, let’s do this. Let’s go”) as they took the floor before the game and after halftime, as well as when they left the floor just before halftime. I’m more impressed with that guy after every game and thanks again to the Vancouver Stealth for releasing him.

But sitting so close has some drawbacks too, the main one being that we couldn’t see the game. The players and coaches never sit down during the game (and I wouldn’t expect them to), so we ended up watching play at the far end on the Jumbotron (see the picture above for our actual view of the far end) and play at the near end through a maze of players. During the 1st and 3rd quarters, we were staring at Dan Ladouceur’s back (picture at right) and during the 2nd and 4th it was Blaine Manning’s.

As for the game itself, I honestly couldn’t see enough of it to have a good opinion on how the teams played. I thought the Rock offense looked kind of haphazard in the first. They didn’t seem to be getting many good looks and their ball movement wasn’t great. It was better in the second half. Cosmo played well and Rose was pretty good with flashes of greatness here and there.

Hey, remember that game where Mark Steenhuis didn’t play very well and didn’t seem to be trying very hard? No, me neither. That man’s only playing styles are HARD and HARDER.

The end of game 1 was beyond chippy. At one point, Troy Cordingley was yelling at John Lovell and had to be physically restrained from leaving the Bandits bench. Brodie Merrill came back to the Rock bench near the end of the 4th and literally punched the wall in front of the bench three times. Good hard punches too. I don’t know what he was so pissed about, but on his next shift, he fought Steve Priolo and was tossed from the game. Then a couple of other fights started as well, and it looked like it was going to get out of hand, but it stopped just short of that. The game eventually ended and the players lined up for the handshakes. Brodie’s brother Patrick Merrill led the line for the Rock, and the teams went through the line just fine until the Rock got to Cordingley who immediately started yelling at Merrill (“F**K YOU” was clearly the take-home message for Merrill here) and once again had to be pulled away by his team. It seemed like a typical Bandits “We’re losing so let’s start some fights” move, except that the Bandits weren’t losing. Again, I couldn’t really see much so I don’t know how the fights started or what Cordingley was so mad about.

Fast-forward almost 24 hours, and both teams are at the ACC in Toronto for the rematch. I was in my regular seats for this one, so I have a better idea of who played well and who didn’t. Answer: the goalies played well, the offenses not so much.

This started off looking like it was going to be a repeat of the previous night’s game. There were penalties all over the place including a fight. I imagine the refs were just waiting for Priolo and Hostrawser to go at it so when each gave the other a couple of shoves, the refs sent them off for roughing. I didn’t think penalties were warranted here and I guess Priolo wondered the same thing out loud since he got an extra 2 for unsportsmanlike conduct.

There were a few other incidents where players were almost looking for penalties. Hostrawser hit a Bandit with a full crosscheck right across the back, knocking him down, in full view of the ref with no call. Mark Steenhuis got a penalty early in the second but when they showed the replay of why he got the penalty, you got a good view of a Rock player punching Ryan Benesch in the side of the head. Someone slashed Kedoh Hill who waited a second before falling down. My son said it looked like a soccer play but the slash was called and not the dive.

One of the best plays of the game (and penalties were neither called nor deserved on this one) was Billy Dee Smith racing down on an almost-breakaway and then deciding that rather than trying to deke or shoot around Rob Marshall he’d just go straight through him. Both players are 6’3″ but Smith has 35 pounds on Marshall. But Marshall lowered his shoulder at just the right time and while he did get knocked over, Smith went down too and the Rock recovered the loosie.

I don’t know if the coaches were warned by the refs at halftime or if they both decided to just drop all that revenge crap and play lacrosse instead, but the second half wasn’t chippy at all and it turned into a great game. The Rock were up by 3 going into halftime but Toronto’s offense came out flat in the third for their first scoreless quarter of the season. Just like part of the previous night, the Rock couldn’t seem to get their offense going and couldn’t get in close. They took a lot of shots from way out and with lots of time left on the shot clock, and many of those shots hit Cosmo square in the chest. After the Bandits took the lead midway through the third, both goalies stepped up their games but the Rock managed to tie it twice in the 4th before we headed to OT.

OT only lasted a couple of minutes, but both teams had some good chances to end it. Brandon Miller and Anthony Cosmo both stood tall, as they had all game. But Brett Hickey managed to get one past Cosmo a couple of minutes in to send the crowd home happy. The Rock and fans celebrated the goal while the refs went to review it and we thought about how deflated the crowd would be if they came out and waved it off. There was even a Bandits player who got himself set up at the restraining line. He looked like he was getting ready for the ensuing face-off – which was weird because if the goal didn’t count, there wouldn’t have been a face-off anyway.

I really don’t know if there was bad blood during the handshakes on this night too but the refs were ready for it. The teams went through the line and I paid special attention to Troy Cordingley, who simply shook everyone’s hand. When he got to the Rock coaches, it looked like he gave Lovell a sincere handshake and even patted Dan Ladouceur on the chest. But then the refs came running over. I don’t know if words were said that made them think something was going to happen, or if they just saw the coaches together and thought something might happen, but nothing did.

As I said, we had two entertaining games between these two teams, as we frequently do. I like a chippy game with lots of hitting as much as anyone, but the second half of Saturday’s game was great because it had none of that. There was the potential for it to turn into a bench-clearing brawl, but instead we had some great goaltending, solid defense, and some nice goals (and some ugly ones too).

Next weekend: the Edmonton Rush are in town. This will be another great game.

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.