The Toronto Rock played their first home game of the season on Friday night,
a 19-15 loss to Rochester. It was a pretty entertaining game, though the Rock
took a lot of undisciplined penalties (and the officiating was pretty inconsistent
all night). Rochester scored an unbelievable ten power play goals —
the Rock offense wasn’t bad (hey, they scored 15), but they just couldn’t stay
out of the box, so it seemed like they were a man down for two thirds of the game.
You just can’t win doing that. Hopefully new coach Clark can settle them down
a bit for next week’s game in Philadelphia, and if Jim Veltman is healthy
enough to play, that will certainly help.

The loss of Colin Doyle wasn’t a huge factor in this game. All three guys they
got for him played — Benesch scored four goals and looked pretty good.
Thompson wasn’t much of a factor, and Fines scored a goal, though I didn’t think
he played very well. Despite getting pounded for 19 goals, Watson played pretty
well — as my buddy Steve said, he was the reason the Rock didn’t lose by
10 or more. Funniest moment of the game: the Knighthawks gain possession of the
ball, and their coach immediately signals the ref for a time-out. The ref blows
the whistle and a second or two later, the Knighthawk players, who don’t know
about the time-out request, score. The goal is waved off.

Finally winter’s here! Normally, I’d complain about that, but I’m going
skiing this Friday, and I was worried that there wouldn’t be enough snow to
actually go. But it’s been cold enough to make snow for a week now, and
Collingwood’s gotten some real snow as well, so the conditions should be
pretty good. The forecast calls for a high on Friday of -13 — my ideal
temperature for skiing is about -6, so it’ll be cold, but for my one ski day
per year, I can handle it.