I’m going to miss my first Toronto Rock home game in over six years this weekend. Gail’s dad turns 65 on Saturday, and so we’re going up for a visit. Since I got Rock season tickets in 2000, the only home game I’ve missed was one game in December of 2002. We were on a Carribbean cruise at the time, and had scheduled it in December because we knew the lacrosse season started in late December. That was the one year that the league decided to start the season early.

And so I will miss the Rock debut of Lewis Ratcliff, who was traded from Calgary at the trading deadline for Josh Sanderson (some draft picks were thrown in there too). For the most part, I will miss watching Josh on the offense — he’s one of the best playmakers in the game, and holds the league record for assists in a season. In fact, I believe he holds second place on that list as well. He can score some pretty goals as well, make no mistake, but he is known for setting up players, and is was kind of the point guard of the Rock. However, he’s not a great defender at all, so if he gets caught on a fast break and can’t get off the floor, he’s a liability. I did get quite frustrated with his lack of hustle as well — you almost never see him running full out, and on the transition to defense, he’s almost always the last guy off the floor. He’s probably the smallest guy in the league (5’7″, 160 lbs), making him pretty useless at setting picks; big defenders just run over him without noticing that he was even there.

Ratcliff, on the other hand, is 6’1″ and 200 pounds and is a pure scorer. He might give back to the Rock what we lost in Colin Doyle, and that’s someone who can power through the defense instead of trying to finesse around them. People have called Ratcliff a selfish player who would rather take a low-percentage shot himself than pass, but he’s got more assists than Sanderson this year, and that’s without Tracey Kelusky playing.

I see this as a fairly even trade that might be good for both teams.

The NLL has lifted the suspension of Rock coach Glenn Clark after charges were dropped by Toronto Police last week. I wrote about this issue last month; the Rock got beaten by Minnesota in overtime, and after the game, Rock head coach Clark punched a Minnesota player in the hallway near the Rock dressing room. Charges of assault were filed against Clark, and the NLL suspended him indefinitely, which was their way of saying “We’ll let the legal system do our work for us, so that we don’t have to bother investigating anything.” Three weeks later, the charges were dropped, and today the NLL decided that if it’s good enough for Toronto Police, it’s good enough for them. Clark’s suspension lasted all of four games.

If the league is trying to shake of its “bush league” reputation, this isn’t going to help. A coach hit an opposing player here — I don’t care how much he was provoked, he just can’t do that. Another article quotes Clark: “…you’ve gotta be very careful because you can’t put yourself in harms way. You have to be very careful to avoid these types of situations. …the game is performed by passionate people and sometimes those passions get the better of us. The lesson I learned is that you really have to be careful not to put yourself in that position.” (emphasis added) Nowhere does Clark take responsibility for his actions. Nowhere does he apologize. The most important thing is not to get into that situation? How about not to lose your mind when you’re supposed to be in charge?

I still don’t think the police needed to be involved, but I think Clark should have been suspended by the NLL for the remainder of the season and fired by the Rock. I’m disappointed with both the league and the Rock for giving Clark what amounts to a slap on the wrist. He’ll be back behind the bench this Friday when the Rock take on the Buffalo Bandits at the ACC, but I will not be among those cheering his return.

So there will be pro indoor lacrosse this winter. As I mentioned before, the CBA expired during the off-season, and the league set a deadline date of October 15, by which time a new CBA would have to be reached in order to avoid complete cancellation of the season. The players called the owners’ bluff, and it turned out that it was no bluff, and the season was officially cancelled. That’s when the players union collectively said “oh shit, they weren’t kidding”, and the real negotiations started. A week later, the league announced that they had reached agreement with the PLPA on a new seven-year contract, and that the season was saved. Good thing too — I’m not sure the league could have survived a complete year-long shutdown.

After the original cancellation, the press asked NLL commissioner Jim Jennings if the season could be salvaged if an agreement was reached, and he said no. He said that the arena dates had been released, and he actually used the word “impossibility”. Apparently the Boston Blazers’ management took him seriously, because shortly before the agreement was reached, they told the league that they would not be playing in 2008 even if a deal was reached. There’s been no official announcement on this yet, but it’s been mentioned in a couple of interviews with people in the know. I’m not entirely sure what Boston could have done in the week between the cancellation and the agreement that couldn’t be undone — the season doesn’t start for another two months — but in so doing, the Blazers will lose all the players they drafted in the dispersal and expansion drafts, and will have to start again from scratch next year, if the team doesn’t fold completely.

When the season was reinstated, my first thoughts were words to the effect of “Woo hoo!”. Right after that, I started to wonder how we can ever trust Mr. Jennings again, after he said it was impossible to restart the season, and yet he did a week later. Jennings is known for missing his own deadlines for announcements; the league will say that there will be an announcement on league expansion (usually a team moving or an expansion franchise being awarded) on whatever date, and a few days or even weeks will go by before the announcement is made, with no explanation for the delay. Given that history, plus the season cancellation / reinstatement thing, my respect for Jennings started to drop. But then Jennings did something very few people in leadership positions generally do — he said he was wrong. He said the cancellation of the season wasn’t a negotiation ploy, he really believed the season was done, and that he’s happy to have been wrong. Perhaps it was a ploy and perhaps it wasn’t (though if it was a ploy, he probably should have notified the Blazers of that), but it took stones for him to admit he was wrong. Jennings has done great things for the NLL, and this admission increased my respect for him.

My respect for the PLPA, however, didn’t fare so well. It’s not because the players were asking for outrageous salaries — I don’t know the details of the CBA well enough to have an opinion on that. I know they don’t make a ton of money compared to the other pro sports — the highest salaries in the league are about $25k/year — and that they weren’t asking for huge increases. But after years of telling people “lacrosse players aren’t in it for the money, they truly play for the love of the game”, having the season cancelled because of a labour dispute (the third such dispute in the last four years) made me feel like a liar. If they were truly playing for the love of the game, there would be no need for the PLPA at all. I don’t like unions at the best of times, so maybe my judgement is a little clouded here. Note that I have no problems with the players themselves, it’s just the union I don’t like.

Anyway, the long and the short of it is that there will be lacrosse this year, and so, dear reader, you can look forward to game highlights and lacrosse commentary from yours truly throughout the season, which will begin in late December or early January. If you’re not into lacrosse but are looking for something just as insightful as my commentary will likely be, here you go.

Aside: Yes, the title of this post is a small Halloween reference.

Here we go again. For the third time since 2004, the NLL is trying to negotiate a new CBA with its players. The first time, talks broke down but they decided to extend the existing contract by a year. The next year, just before the 2005 season, the league gave a deadline of October 1 and said that if an agreement wasn’t reached by then, the season would be cancelled. They reached an agreement on a new 3-year contract a few hours after the deadline passed, and the season went on.

That contract expired at the end of last season, and now we’re down to the wire yet again, with today being the deadline. According to the NLL website, talks broke off early this morning with no more scheduled.

I know that the owners have offered about a 3% pay increase, and the players want more, but I’m sure there’s a lot more to it than that. I don’t know any more details, so I don’t have enough information to have an opinion on which side is right or wrong. But I think the players are in a tough bargaining position here. Many of the NLL franchise owners also own NHL teams, and they lost an entire season a couple of years ago. The NLL has even said that those owners would “not think twice about losing a lacrosse season”. If they’re that willing to lose a season, the players have no strength. What can they threaten the owners with?

At the same time, the owners have got to know that losing an NLL season likely means the end of the league, and whatever investment they’ve made would be gone. Lacrosse is still too much of a fringe sport at this point, and the NLL simply cannot afford to lose an entire season. If it vanished because of a labour dispute, many people would leave and not bother coming back. MLB is still recovering from the baseball strike, and that was thirteen years ago. Blue Jays attendance isn’t anywhere near what it was before the strike, though the team won the two World Series immediately before the strike, and has been mediocre at best since then, so I’m sure that’s part of it. Sure there are the die-hard lacrosse fans, but a lot of the fans enjoy watching the games, but if the league vanished, they’d just think “Oh well, that was fun while it lasted” and move on, more than likely not looking back.

Knowing the NLL’s tendency to completely ignore deadlines (especially the ones they set themselves), it wouldn’t surprise me for the deadline to come and go, and the season not get cancelled, or even get cancelled and then get “un-cancelled” a couple of days later, once an agreement is reached. If it really does get cancelled though, bye bye NLL.

Update: According to both Sportsnet and TSN, the season has officially been cancelled. No word from nll.com.

Another update: It’s official.

The Rock have now gone a full season without Colin Doyle. Are they a better
team without him? Well, no, but that may not be all his doing; they also lost
Brad MacDonald and Brian Biesel, and then traded away Rusty Kruger and Phil
Sanderson halfway through the season, and they also had a rookie coach. Benesch,
Fines, and Thompson tallied more points in total than Doyle did, but does that
mean the Rock really won the trade? Hard to say. Doyle played very well with San
Jose, who kind of pulled a Raptors — they were really bad last year (5-11
and a distant 5th in the west), and worse the year before, but this year they’re
9-7 and they made the playoffs for the first time in 3 years — and they didn’t just squeak into the playoffs like the Rock did.

Ryan Benesch looks like the “real deal”, winning Rookie of the Month for
February, Rookie of the Week a couple of times, and is a serious contender for
Rookie of the Year. He will be a great player in the NLL for years to come.
But then again so will Doyle, who already is a great player in the NLL,
and has been for years. Josh Sanderson’s point total dropped by about 15 this
year — he seemed to enjoy passing to Doyle who would just power through
the middle of the defense. Blaine Manning doesn’t do that as much (Manning is
still a very good player, but he’s just not the player he was a couple of
years ago), and Benesch doesn’t either, but man, does that kid have some moves.
Aaron Wilson also continues to improve, and no longer just waits around the left
side of the net for someone to pass it to him; he can score from anywhere.

So with all of these kids doing well, plus veterans like Veltman and Driscoll
(one of the best all-round players on the team, IMHO) around, and the ultimate
clutch goalie Bob Watson in net, do the Rock stand a chance against the 14-2
Rochester Knighthawks this weekend? Nope. I really hope I’m wrong, but I think
they’re gonna get smoked.

Philadelphia is in a rebuilding phase right now — just look at the kids
they have on their roster: Athan Ianucci, Geoff Snider (holy crap, is he ever
good at faceoffs), Kyle Wailes, Ian Llord, Sean Greenhalgh, and Rob Van Beek
— and their goalie Matt Roik is almost 10 years younger than Watson. They
might have sucked just as much as Toronto this year (they ended up with
the same record of 6-10), but let’s see how the Wings are doing, say, two or three
years from now, once all those kids have a few years under their belt. Compare
that to the aging Rock, who will have to deal with the inevitable retirement (or
at least decline) of Veltman, Watson, Ladouceur, and Driscoll. Wilson and
Benesch have many great years ahead of them, and I believe the Rock got a first
rounder for Phil Sanderson, but that’s a lot of people (and talent) to
replace.

Went to the third Toronto Rock home game of the season tonight. They played pretty sloppy, and Watson was kind of shaky in the first half. They were down 8-3 at one point and went into halftime losing 8-4, but rookie coach Glenn Clark must have given them some kind of pep talk at halftime. They didn’t exactly come out in the 3rd quarter guns-a-blazin’, but they did score 4 goals in the third to tie it up. Whipper, and the defense in general, was much better in the second half, only allowing two goals, and the Rock won it 11-10. I love those Rock comeback wins — they had a couple of games last year, both against Philadelphia if I’m not mistaken, where they came back from 8-goal deficits to win the game.

One thing you see (well, hear) at lacrosse games that you don’t hear anywhere else (at least, I never have) is the “Sucks” cheer. When the opposing goalie allows a goal, a bunch of people stand up, point to the goalie, chant his name three times, and then yell “YOU SUCK!”. The Chicago goalie was Brandon Miller, so tonight’s chant went “MILL-er, MILL-er, MILL-er, YOU SUCK!” I suppose it’s a little juvenile, but it’s all in good fun (otherwise you wouldn’t yell it when a goalie allows his fourth goal while your own team’s goalie has already allowed eight).

The fans in Philadelphia go one better — in Philly, everyone on the opposing team sucks. Before the game starts, they announce the starting line-ups for each team (don’t know why they don’t announce the starting lineup for the opponents in Toronto), and after every opposing player’s name, the fans yell “SUCKS!” Some players, notably Portland goaltender Dallas Eliuk who played 15 seasons in Philadelphia, hear the “SUCKS!” cheer following their name, immediately followed by applause.

Note: I created all of the Wikipedia pages I linked to above.

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.

I’m watching the first NLL game of the season, broadcast live over the intertubes. Mike Accursi just scored for Rochester, and the Knighthawks now lead the reigning NLL champion Colorado Mammoth 11-10 in the second quarter.

My friend Mike has a nephew, Shawn Williams, who is a great lacrosse player. He was signed by the Toronto Rock in 1999, and Mike got Rock season tickets to watch Shawn. He brought some other friends to a couple of games, and they started to really enjoy the game. In early 2000, they decided to head to a Buffalo-Philadelphia game in Buffalo, and Mike asked if I wanted to go and check it out. I tagged along, though I knew nothing about lacrosse. I was instantly hooked, and when Mike said they were considering expanding their four season tickets to eight for the next season, I told them to count me in. Since then:

• I have missed only one Toronto home game (because I was on a Caribbean cruise at the time)
• I’ve also seen a number of games in Buffalo and a couple in Rochester
• I run a lacrosse pool for my friends
• I’ve edited hundreds of pages on lacrosse (and created about 50) on Wikipedia

I don’t think you could say I’m obsessed with lacrosse, but I’m certainly a fan.

Colin Doyle was traded from the Toronto Rock to San Jose the other day, which took the lacrosse world by storm, since Doyle has been one of the top scorers in the league over the last few years, has been named championship game MVP three times, and was league MVP in 2005. (Incidentally, Doyle’s page on Wikipedia was one of the ones that I created.) Doyle was traded with another guy (who the Rock acquired in a trade last month) and a draft pick for three young players and a couple of draft picks. One of the players the Rock got was Ryan Benesch, who was the first overall draft pick last year, so the Rock have essentially traded a proven scorer (who’s only 29 — likely lots of good years left in his career) for an unproven rookie, though one with lots of potential. I didn’t care much for Doyle for the first few years, because he was a bit of a hothead, and tended to dive now and again. Over the last two years or so, however, he’s calmed down a lot, and my respect for him has really grown. He also stands perfectly still for the national anthems, and even sings along with O Canada, which impressed the hell out of me the first time I saw it. Long story short, I’m not really sure how I feel about this trade. It’s nice to bring some young blood into the team, and the draft picks in 2008 and 2009 may set the Rock up nicely for the next decade. But Colin Doyle was the anchor of the Rock’s offense and a bona fide superstar player. If Benesch’s potential doesn’t pan out (does the name Nik Antropov ring any bells?) this could be the beginning of a number of “rebuilding” years for the Rock.