Category Archives: Lacrosse

Graeme the guitar god?

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Not bloody likely, but I did have my first guitar lesson last Thursday. Gail bought me a month of free guitar lessons at the school silent auction back in February (for which we paid full price, so it’s not like we got a deal or anything, but the money went to the school, so that’s fine), and I couldn’t get a convenient time until now. So I get 5 Thursday-at-7:30 lessons before I have to start paying, which I probably will. I’m very glad to be getting back into playing guitar – I’ve picked the thing up probably once or twice a year since Gail and I got married, so it’s kind of too bad. If I had been playing a couple of times a week during those ten years, I might be pretty darn good by now.

Anyway, I’ll get some one-on-one instruction, plus it’ll force me to play more often, so it’s all good. My first couple of songs are “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)” by Green Day and the intro to “Sweet Home Alabama”, both of which use the same chords (G5, C, and D, and Good Riddance has an Em in there too). I played for about a half-hour tonight, and also dug out a couple of other old books as well – I played Stairway to Heaven for the first time in ages. I used to know that one pretty well, but forgot most of it. I did get it back pretty quickly though. My instructor tells me that he’s not a great guitar player, but a good teacher, though he seems like a pretty decent guitarist to my untrained ears.

Edmonton and Portland have already been added to the NLL for next season, but with the good comes the bad. It was announced this weekend that Anaheim has suspended operations for next season, so there will be a dispersal draft as well as an expansion draft. Don’t know when for either one. Man, the GMs in this league must really be getting used to these drafts, with teams coming and going all the time. Most leagues have to deal with one draft per year — the entry draft. NLL GMs have to deal with at least two and sometimes three drafts every year. It was also announced that there will be no more new teams next season, so the teams that will be playing are now set, unless someone pulls a Vancouver and pulls out at the last second.

John and Jackie (Gail’s dad and stepmom) moved this past weekend, up to a house near Sundridge, about 3 1/2 hours north of here, and an hour north of my parents. Nice place – on Hwy 124 about 3km from Hwy 11, lots of land, right next to a farm (kids would probably love a tour – next visit), with a pond in the back, though John says he’s going to have that filled. Not a bad idea – big time mosquito breeding ground. The house itself is a little bigger than their old place in Beachville, with a really nice sun room off the back. We went up on Friday to help move, though the moving part was way less work than the cleaning part – I must have cleaned about 12 windows, inside and out, including three huge picture windows (though Gail’s brother did the outside of those). Plus cleaning light fixtures and other stuff, and occasionally making sure the boys weren’t in the process of killing themselves or each other. Busy weekend – hopefully this coming week isn’t as busy as last week.

With all the cleaning, referreeing, and not sleeping very well, not to mention driving 700 km on Friday and today, I’m bushed. Night all.

Rock are Champions

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It wasn’t pretty, but the Rock are NLL Champions once again. The first half of the game was back and forth, with no team having more than a two-goal lead, and the lead changed hands several times. The Rock went on a four-goal run to lead 10-6 at the half. Arizona, as expected, did not give up, and clawed their way back to 12-11 before the Rock went on a 5 goal run to put the game away. Colin Doyle was named game MVP with 5 goals and 3 assists. I can’t really argue with those numbers, though I think Bob Watson played an awesome game in goal, and made lots of amazing stops. I would have given Whipper the MVP award, but as I said, Doyle was also deserving.

As recently as last year, I was not Colin Doyle’s biggest fan. He’s great offensively, and always works hard, but was a bit of a hot-dogger, and tended to embellish hits a little too often. This year, though, he’s really impressed me. Maybe he’s not getting pounded near the net as much, because the defenders also need to worry about Josh Sanderson now, so he doesn’t get as pissed off as he used to. Anyway, as I said he’s a hard worker, and he’s not selfish – the team means everything to him. He says that all the time in interviews, and you can really tell that he means it by his play on the floor. AND he stands completely still during the national anthem, and actually sings along, which impressed the hell out of me the first time I saw it.

Anyway, nice job boys! Five championships in seven years is damned impressive. This one was for Les.

NLL Awards

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Colin Doyle was named league MVP this year (actually, “Hummer Most Valuable Player”). I would have voted for Josh Sanderson, myself, but I can’t say that Doyle is a bad choice, seeing as how he led the league in scoring. Amazingly, Doyle is the first person not named Gait or Tavares to lead the league in scoring since 1990. Unbelievable.

Steve Dietrich was named goalie of the year (“Acquis Goaltender of the Year”) – another good choice, though I think I would have voted for Whipper.

This Saturday is the “2005 Edge NLL Championship Game”. What’s up with all these corporate sponsors? Part of me doesn’t like the sell-out idea, but mostly, it’s probably a good thing for the league. Brings in money, and more sponsors means more advertising, and more advertising means more potential fans, and more potential fans means a better league.

What’s next? The Toronto “Q107 Toronto’s Best” Rock?

Haaaapy Anniversary

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Today is the 5-year anniversary of my laser eye surgery. It was a lot of money ($1000/eye), but it was definitely worth it. I now have better than 20:20 vision, and have had zero side effects. I’ve heard of people who have problems seeing at night, or other things like that, but I’ve had no problems at all.

You’d think that my insurance company would be willing to pay for at least part of the surgery, since I will no longer be making $200/year claims for new glasses or contacts, but no such luck. Gail’s looked into it, as have my other almost-blind friends Faisal and Jeff, and none of them is a candidate for the surgery. Of course, all of them have far worse eyesight than I did (I was about -4 to -5 in each eye; Gail is -15 in one and -13 in the other). Faisal has talked about corneal replacement, though it’s kind of experimental now. Gail has also been told that this is an option for her, but not until she’s about 50 (though I don’t remember why).

The NLL has announced expansion (yet again) – Edmonton and Portland will have teams next year. The last time the NLL had two consecutive years with exactly the same teams was 1992 and 1993: the list of changes is here. I’m not sure how I feel about this – expansion is good, though I’m not sure that there’s enough NLL-caliber talent out there to fill up two more rosters. The constant changing of teams may also indicate instability in the league, which is the last thing potential investors would want. Then again, the league just got two more investors in the Edmonton and Portland ownership groups, so they’re obviously OK with it. The strange thing is that commissioner Jim Jennings has stated that the league was primarily interested in joint ownership with NHL teams, and then they grant franchises to two non-NHL-related owners. He did say that potential owners must not only pay the franchise fee ($3 million, I think $1.5 million), but must also have about $10 million in cash available, to avoid another Vancouver, so I guess even if the new owners aren’t involved in the NHL, they have buckets of money, so that’s a good thing.

Rock head to the final

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For the 6th time in the past seven years, the Toronto Rock are heading to the NLL finals. The Rock beat Rochester 12-10 last night in the eastern division final. Pretty close game – the Knighthawks were leading 7-6 at halftime, but Whipper shut them down in the second half. John Grant was invisible in the second half, Shawn Williams got a couple, but Mike Accursi was shut down completely. The Rochester offense just didn’t get it done. Pat O’Toole played a really good game, but he was just the difference between a 12-10 loss and a 18-10 loss. Funny stat – O’Toole had 4 points (all assists), which is more than Manning, Doyle, or Williams. In fact, only John Grant had more than 4 points.

Right now I’m watching the Calgary/Arizona game, which Calgary is currently winning 9-7 in the 3rd. I figured at the beginning that the final would be Calgary in Toronto. Lewis Ratcliff just scored to make it 10-7, but 3 goals in lacrosse ain’t much, especially with over a quarter and a half left. Another one for Ratcliff, now 11-7.

Gail was away scrapbooking today, so it was just me and the boys until dinner. The weather sucked so we were stuck in the house all day, but I decided this morning that we wouldn’t just watch TV all day – in fact, the TV went off at 9:30, and didn’t go on again until after dinner. Not sure if this was a good move or not – neither one listened to anything I said all day. Ryan’s goal in life seems to be to annoy Nicholas as much as possible, then laugh at him when he’s upset, and Nicholas just doesn’t give a shit about anything, particularly me asking him not to do something. Now, he’s not even three yet, so that’s to be expected, but Ryan should know better — he sometimes strikes me as the kid who’s bullied at school, so he comes home and bullies his younger siblings. However, I’ve seen him at school when I volunteer there, and I know that if anything, he’s either the bully himself, or he hangs out with the bullies. It’s funny though — he’ll bug the crap out of Nicholas, laughing the whole time, then Nicholas will get tired of it and pound him, and Ryan will start to cry and come and tell me that Nicholas hit him “for no reason”. Our rule has always been “we don’t hit for any reason”, but you can hardly fault Nicholas for getting pissed off.

11-10 now with a minute left in the third. I think the Rock will have an easier time beating Arizona than facing Calgary again (not that Arizona will be a cakewalk either), so GO STING!

Eastern final set

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The NLL Eastern division final is now set – Toronto hosts Rochester at the ACC on Friday, after Rochester held on to beat Buffalo 19-14 on Saturday night. The game was a lot closer than the final score indicates, sort of — Rochester dominated for a while (it was 10-3 at one point), then let Buffalo catch up, getting as close as down by one (12-11). Then Rochester got 4 goals in under 2 minutes and put the game away. Former Bandit Mike Accursi was on fire, scoring 7 goals and adding an assist, while John Grant scored 4 and assisted on 4 others, and Shawn Williams got 3 and 2. Steenhuis scored 5 for Buffalo.

Rochester dominated the face-offs, and Steve Toll was back to his old self on transition – even the speedy Mark Steenhuis couldn’t quite catch up to him. Pat O’Toole wasn’t outstanding in net, but was better than Chugger, though it wasn’t all his fault either. Buffalo swapped between him and Derek General a couple of times, but General was no better, and Buffalo fans weren’t happy with his lack of hustle in getting to the bench on delayed penalties and such.

So Rochester will play Toronto on Friday, which is probably better for the Rock, in that Rochester has only won twice in Toronto – once in a meaningless game last year, and then there was the blowout earlier this year, but we don’t like to talk about that one.

Predictions:
Toronto 17 Rochester 12
Calgary 15 Arizona 13

Toronto 18 Calgary 11

Greatest comeback ever?

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What a freakin’ game! Less than 10 minutes left in the 4th quarter, and the Rock are losing 13-6. People have already left the ACC, figuring the game was pretty much over, when the Rock suddenly decide “Hey, let’s win this game!”. They go out and scored 8 goals in 7 minutes and 12 seconds, keep Philly scoreless in the entire 4th quarter, and win 14-13. Certainly one of the greatest comebacks I’ve ever seen.

Doyle and Manning are now #1 and #2 in the overall scoring race. Josh Sanderson is tied with John Tavares and John Grant Jr. for third place, and everyone has one game left. It’s highly possible that the Rock will have the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place scorers in the league. If they beat Calgary next week, they’ll be 13-3, which is the best winning percentage in team history, and one of the best in league history (Buffalo’s 8-0 season will obviously never be beaten, percentage-wise, but the schedule’s twice as long now. Albany was 14-2 in 2002.). Whipper will probably end up 4th in the league in GAA. Toronto also has the 2nd best power play in the league, the 3rd best penalty killing in the league, and by far, the most shorthanded goals (Toronto has 17, 2nd place is 12). Could this team be the best pro lacrosse team ever?

I know, I know, don’t count your chickens and all that. We were all ready to host Calgary for the NLL final last year, all we had to do was get by Buffalo. No problem, right? WRONG. Buffalo came out and kicked Toronto’s ass all over the floor. So, maybe I’ll hold off on that “best team ever” assessment…. for now.