Tonight was the worst. The absolute worst. I’ve been going to Rock games since 2001 and it’s never been as bad as it was tonight. Oh, the game was fine; in fact it was pretty good. I’m talking about the traffic into Toronto from Waterloo. Took me over three hours. Three freakin’ hours. I could have been most of the way to Detroit or over halfway to Ottawa in that time. I left work a little after 4:30, and I think it was quarter to six before I hit 60 km/h. I arrived at the parking lot near the ACC around 7:45.

Anyway, I suppose it’s possible that you, dear reader, are not interested in the fact that it took me three hours to drive to this game, so on to the game report. The Rochester Knighthawks have been an enigma to me for years. They’ve had a ton of offensive talent – Grant, Williams, the Evans boys (who I don’t like, but can’t deny their talent), Gait, Point, Bomberry, Accursi, and now Jamieson, and sometimes they gel and are unstoppable. For example, the entire 2007 season. Other times, this same group of players just can’t seem to put the biscuit in the basket, to quote Bob McCown. For example, tonight’s game against the Toronto Rock. OK, Grant, Gait, one of the Evanses, and Bomberry are no longer there, but the Knighthawks still have a bunch of offensive talent and yet cannot score. I don’t want to take anything away from either the Rock defense or Bob Watson, but the Hawks just couldn’t get anything going at all. Five goals total? Only one in the second half? What are you, the Colorado Mammoth? I’m sorry, Rochester fans, that wasn’t nice.

Watson continues his unbelievable last season in the NLL, winning his 100th career game. Not only is he still a better-than-average goalie at age 40, he’s the best in the league. Nobody has a higher save percentage, and the only goalie with a lower GAA is Angus Goodleaf, who’s only played one game. Watson was his usual outstanding self on this night and his defense was solid as well. The Rock’s transition wasn’t as good as last game, as shown by the fact that there were no goals and only two assists by defensemen. As for the offense, the best word for that would be inconsistent. 80% of the Rock’s goals were scored by Kasey Biernes (5) or Garrett Billings (3). Manning had one accidental goal, and in the first quarter, rookie Aaron Pascas snuck around a couple of defenders and scored his tenth of the year. Manning’s goal was an attempted pass to Kasey Biernes (he already had five at this point, why not pass to him?) but Biernes was covered and couldn’t catch the pass. I saw that Biernes wasn’t going to catch the pass and was in the process of asking Manning “What are you doing?” when the ball trickled by Vinc and into the net. Captain Colin Doyle was kept off the scoreboard entirely, and I have to wonder if that has ever happened to him in his fourteen year career. Stephan Leblanc’s scoring streak was stopped at 23 games, as Leblanc finally experienced a game without scoring for the first time in his career. It’s too bad, since he only had 30-odd more games to go to catch John Grant, whose streak ended tonight at 55 games. Apparently Leblanc was injured during the shoot-around before the game and was given stitches at the bench just before the game, so this might have put him off a bit. I had to be told about this rather than see it because I missed the first eight minutes of the game because it took me three hours to… oh right, sorry.

The Knighthawks really did resemble this year’s Colorado Mammoth, as they had no offense but their defense was strong. Vinc did not look like last year’s Goalie of the Year but did make some pretty amazing saves here and there. Vinc did do one thing that I had never seen before. One Rock player and one KHawk fell into the crease and after Vinc picked up the ball and tossed it to another Hawk, he reached down towards the Rock player lying down – I thought he was going to pound him one, as goaltenders are sometimes wont to do when someone is in their crease, but no. He grabbed the Rock player’s stick out of his hands and made like he was going to toss it away. I think the ref was looking right at him, because he suddenly stopped and gave the stick back. He looked like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

Other notes:

• Patrick Merrill made a great play to strip the ball from a Knighthawks attacker at the centre line, then ran in on a breakaway… and missed the net entirely.
• Quote from the guy sitting behind me: “My grandmother didn’t like to watch hockey cause she couldn’t follow the puck. Can you imagine her watching this? We need Foxtrax for this! It’s too fast!”
• Professional athletes are a superstitious lot, and goaltenders seem to be the most superstitious of the bunch. They all have their little quirks and foibles. Whenever Anthony Cosmo goes out to his net, he faces it and smacks his stick against the posts and crossbar a bunch of times, then turns around and does it some more with his back to the net. Matt Vinc went out to his net, made sure it was in the right position, turned around, and that was it. The fact that he didn’t do anything weird was weird.

These teams meet again tomorrow night in Rochester, so we’ll see how much difference the home field advantage makes to the Knighthawks, who have dominated the Rock in their own barn over the years. The Rock’s victory a month ago and the Championship game in 2003 are the only games Toronto has ever won in Rochester.

As a Christmas present, I bought my sister The Book of Awesome. A couple of weeks ago, I wrote up my own list of awesome things and then started thinking about some lacrosse-related ones, so I decided to put them all together. These aren’t necessarily the best plays or even the most awesome moments in a lacrosse game – obviously your team winning a Championship or an overtime game is awesome, but that’s true in any sport. These are things that make lacrosse unique and make fans sit back, smile, and say “I love this game.”

A John Grant-style over the shoulder goal when you know it was not a fluky “let’s see what happens if I do this” type of play. It’s hard to believe that people like Grant, Doyle, Kelusky, and Tavares can actually aim while doing this, but some people are successful at it too often for it to be pure luck.

When the goalie grabs the ball and launches it most of the length of the floor to a teammate who catches it and scores. Some call it cherry-picking, others call it transition. Bob Watson used to do this to Jim Veltman all the time.

Getting a hug from the ACC usher at the first home game of the season. The same lady (Arlene) has worked our section for most of the last ten years.

Scoring a goal on a breakaway – when your team is shorthanded.

When a non-offensive defender scores on a breakaway. Not talking about guys like Steve Toll, Brodie Merrill, or Mark Steenhuis here, just talking about pure defenders who almost never see the other side of centre. We used to joke about big Dan Ladouceur scoring one goal every other year this way – he’d somehow end up on a breakaway, desperately look around to see who he can pass to and seeing nobody, shoot it himself. Sometimes he’d bury it, but even if he missed the net completely he’d get huge applause.

When a player turns his stick around and scores shooting the “wrong” way. Blaine Manning does this all the time.

When the “hidden ball trick” actually works. I’ve seen players try it many times, and the defenders always see it and point at the guy with the ball. But at the 2002 Heritage Cup game, Gary Gait and John Tavares did it to perfection, and the goalie and all the defenders followed Tavares who ran way off to the right side. Gait was all alone up the middle and just tossed it into the net.

Diving across the crease then shooting behind the goalie while still in the air.

When a defender intercepts a pass. Intercepting passes in hockey is no big deal but it’s way harder in lacrosse. Jim Veltman was a master at this. Actually, Veltman was a master at a lot of things. I miss him.

When a team honours a player on the opposing team. This isn’t unique to lacrosse, but it’s awesome anyway. Teams honouring former players that now play on the opposing team is classy. Toronto did this with all of their former players during their tenth anniversary season, Calgary did it with Tracy Kelusky this year, the Leafs have done it with Mats Sundin on his return, and I’m sure many other teams have done the same. But it’s even more awesome when the player has never played for the home team and is being honoured for a particular achievement or an outstanding career. I was at the first game Cal Ripken played after ending his seventeen-year streak, which happened to be in Toronto, and the Blue Jays honoured him. The Jays players all came out of the dugout to show their respect and Ripken got thunderous applause. A couple of years ago the Rock honoured Tom Marechek after he announced his retirement and the crowd gave him a well-deserved standing ovation. And let me tell you, Rock fans don’t stand and applaud Wings players all that often. I love seeing players show their respect by banging their sticks on the floor or the boards.

When your team scores and before the arena announcer has a chance to announce the goal, your team scores again.

The handshake line-up at the end of the game. Hockey players do it at the end of a playoff series. Lacrosse players do it after every single game. That’s awesome.

They called it The Battle of the Best. NLL fans had been looking forward to this game for weeks, it was covered by all the major networks, and the rest of the season will be a bit of a downer in comparison. OK, so hyperbole is kind of fun, but this was indeed a battle of the two first place teams. It was expected to be a hard fought game, and nobody who saw the game was disappointed. Well, Calgary fans were likely disappointed with the outcome, that being a 9-8 Rock overtime victory, but nobody can say it was a boring game.

The scoring started just 45 seconds into the game (a strange goal by Rock newcomer Ryan Sharp that, according to the scoreboard in the ACC, didn’t even count as a shot on goal), but anyone who thought that a goal that early meant that this was going to be a high-scoring affair was incorrect, as the Rock didn’t score again for almost thirteen minutes. The Roughnecks however, didn’t get that memo and scored four times in between the two Rock goals. You can’t blame Watson entirely for those goals – the Rock defense was a little shaky in the first, but they did settle down after that. At the end of one period, Calgary had 4 goals on 11 shots while the Rock had fired 18 shots at Mike Poulin and only scored twice. The defensive battle continued in the second, as the Rock scored only once and Calgary twice. The first Calgary goal was a nice transition goal from Peter McFetridge – the transition games for both teams were working pretty well all night. The Rock must have read my review of the game against Buffalo last week and worked on their transition game, because I think they had more transition chances in this game than in the past two years. Combined.

An occurrence unique to lacrosse came up in the second period – a goalie in the penalty box. Bob Watson took issue with some pushing and shoving around the Toronto net and crosschecked Scott Ranger across the back. Whipper was given a five minute major for checking from behind. In lacrosse, a goalie must serve his own major penalties, so Watson wedged himself and his equipment into the already-crowded penalty box (Colin Doyle was already there serving a holding penalty, Mike Hobbins was given a roughing penalty on the same play, and another player went to the box so that he could come out when Watson’s penalty was over, since you can’t have two goalies on the floor at once. This is my twelfth season watching Rock lacrosse, and in all that time I’ve only seen a goalie in the penalty box one other time. That was Buffalo’s Corey Quinn back in 2003. Rock defender Glenn Clark was just catching a pass that would have given him a clear breakaway but the pass was lobbed high in the air, giving Quinn enough time to come running out of the Buffalo net and absolutely level Clark. They called it a hit from behind because Clark hadn’t turned around to face the net yet (though in retrospect that call was arguable), and Quinn went to the box.

The third quarter saw a complete turnaround in scoring chances, as Calgary was shut out entirely while the Rock took the lead by scoring four. In fact, Calgary went from 11:01 in the second to 11:38 in the fourth without scoring, a span of over 30 minutes. This is the fourth Rock game this year (out of seven) where Whipper has shut out the opponent in the third quarter, and the second home game in a row where the opponent went over 30 minutes without scoring. The Rock went up by two as Colin Doyle scored his second of the night – a beautiful behind-the-back bouncer that went in under Poulin. But the Roughnecks never gave up and with less than four minutes left, Jeff Shattler scored a power-play goal that would have fired up his team had they not already been fired up. In a successful bid to silence the home crowd, strong Rookie of the Year candidate Curtis Dickson tied it with less than a minute left on the clock and the Calgary net empty.

The crowd really got into the game in the fourth, and during overtime, I think it was the loudest I’ve heard the Toronto crowd since… um, the last overtime game a couple of weeks ago. OK, never mind. But when Jeff Shattler dove across the crease a couple of minutes into OT and shot at a wide open net only to have Bob Watson dive with him and stop it, the crowd noise jumped another level – only to jump again a minute after that when Aaron Pascas picked up a dropped Calgary pass and buried it behind Mike Poulin.

Despite only allowing nine goals in over 60 minutes while facing 60 shots, I wouldn’t say Mike Poulin was outstanding in the Calgary goal. In all honesty, neither was Bob Watson. Both were solid and had very good games, and both made some key saves (especially Watson’s stop on Shattler in OT), but neither stood on their head. But the game was low-scoring because both defenses were excellent. The Rock had a ton of shots, but it seemed that most of them were either desperation shots from far away because they couldn’t get close to the net and the shot clock was at 2, or they managed to get a shot through but hit Poulin square in the chest. And Calgary frequently didn’t even get the chance to take desperation shots, only managing 36 shots all night. The Toronto defense was doing a lot of pass interception and knocking the ball out of sticks all night starting in the second quarter.

As if a goalie in the penalty box wasn’t enough, overtime had another incident I’ve certainly never seen before, in lacrosse or any other sport. My season tickets are row 17 behind the benches and during overtime, we saw Colin Doyle being sent to the bench by the ref. Doyle was livid (though Troy Cordingley was unusually calm) but we didn’t know why. It wasn’t until I got home and read some of the reports online that I found out why – he wasn’t wearing Reebok shoes, and the NLL has a contract with Reebok. I guess one of the Calgary players or coaches noticed and told the ref, who told Doyle to go and change shoes. He did eventually make it back to the floor, and was on the floor for Aaron Pascas’s game-winning goal. Doyle was interviewed by TSN about the incident after the game.

Rochester and Toronto have a home-at-home series starting next Friday night in Toronto, while next Sunday sees Calgary play their arch-rivals, the formerly-winless-but-now-streaking Edmonton Rush.

Other notes:

• This happens in many sports. When a player (on either team) gets hurt and is down on the floor for a while, then gets back up and continues to play, the crowd applauds. If he gets back up and hobbles to the dressing room, the crowd applauds. If he doesn’t get back up and is helped or even carried off the floor, the crowd applauds. Basically, if you stay down long enough and it’s obvious you’re not faking, the crowd will applaud no matter what happens. Since the outcome doesn’t matter, it’s almost as if they’re applauding because you got hurt. I know this isn’t the case, and I do applaud myself in these cases, it just seems strange.
• I brought my dad to the game and told him right before it started, “Watch Geoff Snider, the Calgary guy doing all the face-offs. He’s unbelievable”. Snider proceeded to struggle at the dot and make a liar of me, winning only 11 of 21. I’m surprised it was even that high – we weren’t sure he’d won any at halftime. I did see some of the old Snider in the second half, but he certainly wasn’t as dominant as I’ve seen him in the past. Don’t know if that has anything to do with the new faceoff rules or if he just had an off night. I’m guessing the latter, since his season average was over 64% coming into this game and was only 52% last night. The new rules may be having some effect, though, since he was over 75% last year.
• Two players (Snider and Hoar) were removed from the faceoff circle during OT. I think this was because they had blood on their knees and NLL rules state that if you are bleeding, you cannot be on the floor. This was the only face-off all night that Snider didn’t take for Calgary. Dane Dobbie lost it.
• Nice to see Jim Veltman in the crowd, though I am surprised (and a little disappointed) that the ovation for the former captain wasn’t longer.

I watched this game on NLL.com after plugging my laptop into my new plasma TV. I was surprisingly impressed with the picture quality, so major kudos to the NLL for supplying fans with a free way to watch every game.

Minnesota came in to this game a surprising 3-1, including two wins against the defending champion Washington Stealth. The Swarm’s one loss was in overtime, so they were a goal away from being undefeated, and their confidence was high. The Bandits, on the other hand, came back to the HSBC Arena having been shut down by the Rock last weekend in Toronto. Their offense had something to prove, and prove it they did, scoring 15 goals. John Tavares, who the Bandits TV announcer called “the ageless wonder”, scored two, giving him 699 for his career, and added six assists. Steenhuis and Culp both has hattricks for the Bandits, while Ryan Benesch continued putting up great numbers with three goals and four helpers. Tracey Kelusky did not have a great game, only picking up a single assist though not for lack of trying – Kelusky had 12 shots on net; only one other player had more than six.

As a Rock fan, I had no real rooting interest in this game. Well, I suppose I wanted Minnesota to win (or more accurately, I wanted Buffalo to lose) only because it’s good for the Rock. So I figured any game report I gave would be mostly unbiased. But rather than actually writing stuff (i.e. doing actual work), I thought it would be a little different to summarize the game by listing some tweets that showed up during the game. I’ve removed most of the hashtags.

@GraemePerrow: Finding it hard to take the Swarm seriously in those uniforms

@BanditsBeat: Tavares scores his 698th career goal to give the Bandits a 1-0 lead

@apmckay: mearnsy really has to stop calling everyone Nicky and Chaddy.

@BanditsBeat: The Bandits’ Brandon Francis drops the gloves with Minnesota’s Rory Smith

@mattbova: Brand new Bandit James Purves is making his mark… on Sean Pollock’s face

@apmckay: 3/5ths of the Swarm’s PP is former Shamrox. #nowondertheysuck

@mattbova: Question of the day: Can the Bandits keep up this intensity for another 45 minutes of play?

@CurtisDickson17: Just watched 5 minutes of meet the browns, 5 minutes of my life I will never get back [GP: obviously Calgary rookie Dickson was not watching this game]

@NLLBandits: Travis Irving goes to town on the Swarms Andrew Suitor as they square off

@BanditsBeat: Traving Irving, Bandits No. 1 pick in 2010 draft, looks for a fight and finds a suitor, Andrew Suitor to be exact

@BanditsBeat: Bandits chase Swarm goalie Patterson, take 7-2 lead on Chad Culp’s 3rd goal

@GraemePerrow: Nice goal by Culp from a great pass by Tavares. Mark my words, that Tavares guy’s going to be someone in this league someday.

@mattbova: At the half it’s Buffalo 8, Minnesota 4

@mattbova: Rich Morgan with a stinger past Mike Thompson makes it 5 for the Swarm #BadBeePuns

@mattbova: Official attendance here at the HSBC Arena? No joke: 15,001. Whoever that 1 is deserves to win something.

@Minnesota_Swarm: F Andrew Watt scores and brings the Swarm within three. The Bandits quickly counter with a goal and lead 11-7.

@NLLBandits: Frank Resetarits puts home his first of the night, 12-7

@buffalobandits: Sean Pollock scores for Minnesota after Steenhuis’ goal was overturned

@Minnesota_Swarm: F Sean Pollock posts his second goal of the night, tying the all-time record for most points scored by a Minnesota Swarm player with 310.

@apmckay: Who is Tim Campineau and why does Gurtler keep saying his name? #Readthegamesheet

@BanditsBeat: Benech’s scores his third on a one-hopper off the turf, 13-9 early in the 4th

@GeoffSnider4: Bre Carnegie drinking Scottys drink. What is this Vegas? [GP: the Calgary guys really aren’t interested in this game, are they?]

@buffalobandits: 7 minutes to go in the 4th! 14-10! Anything can happen!

@apmckay: Speaking of “losing focus”, Mearns just talked over 2 goals while obsessing over whether people were obsessing about Tavares’ next goal.

@BanditsBeat: 15-12 as the Swarm score with the empty-net, still down 3 with 1 min left

@NLLBandits: The Buffalo #NLLBandits knock off the Minnesota Swarm by a score of 15-12 to move to 3-2 on the season

Originally posted on The NLL Blog.

The Toronto Rock planned to avenge last week’s OT loss to the Buffalo Bandits in Saturday’s rematch at the ACC in Toronto, and that’s just what they did, defeating the Bandits 8-5 the lowest-scoring game of this young NLL season. The total number of goals in this game was less than either team scored in last week’s game; in fact they came pretty close to tying the record for least total goals in a game (which also featured the Rock at the ACC, they defeated the Albany Attack 7-4 back in the early 2000’s). The score at half-time was only 3-1, an almost unfathomable half-time score for lacrosse. Bob Watson, once again, was absolutely outstanding in net for the Rock. Whipper made 50 saves, only allowed five goals all night, and went for 33 minutes without allowing any. When was the last time an NLL goalie allowed zero goals in two different quarters in the same game? How about two consecutive quarters? Buffalo’s Angus Goodleaf was very good, and allowing the Toronto offense only 8 goals is pretty impressive. He only faced 35 shots, which is more of a statement on the Buffalo defence than the Toronto offense.

From the very beginning of the game, it was apparent that this one would be more like the infamous pre-season game between these two teams (which was called in the third quarter after a bench-clearing brawl) than last week’s game was. Last week, there were some roughing, slashing, and holding penalties, but nothing crazy. But crazy doesn’t begin to describe the first period of this game. Stats from the first quarter alone:

• 17 penalties (70 minutes + 3 game misconducts) for Buffalo, 18 (64 minutes + 2 game misconducts) for Toronto.
• four fighting penalties each
• at one point, there were six Rock players and five Bandits in the penalty box. Given the game misconducts and the players actually playing on the floor, the Rock had more players in the penalty box than on the bench. This is when I wished I had brought my camera to the game.
• The game started at 7:08pm. At 7:30, we’d played 5 minutes and 12 seconds of lacrosse. The first quarter didn’t end until 7:54, taking almost 50 minutes to play.
• at least twice they played three-on-three
• only three goals scored

Only a minute into the game, Bandit Steve Priolo tried to pick a fight with Toronto heavyweight Tim O’Brien but O’Brien didn’t take the bait and each was given a roughing penalty. Less than a minute later, all hell broke loose (or so we thought at the time) as Tracey Kelusky and Patrick Merrill fought near the net and Jeff Gilbert and Frank Resetarits fought near centre. Amusingly, when Gilbert pushed Resetarits down he held him there until the other fight was over, and Resetarits didn’t try to get up. It was almost like they realized that once Resetarits hit the ground the refs would have stopped the fight, but the refs were both trying to break up the other one, so they just waited. Both were ejected for starting a second fight when one was already going on. Kelusky and Merrill both got fighting majors and most Rock fans agreed that taking Kelusky off the floor for five minutes was worth losing Merrill for five, with no disrespect to Merrill.

Just five seconds later, another fight and another ejection as Brandon Francis attacked Rock newcomer Ryan Sharp. Both got five, but Francis got an extra two for instigating and a game misconduct. At this point, I thought “OK, this is just getting silly” but we hadn’t seen nothin’ yet.

It seemed that both teams were just looking for an excuse to start a fight. Mat MacLeod scored and then fell into the Buffalo goalie (no intent there, just gravity and momentum), and a Bandit defender or two jumped him and pummelled him. Then a few seconds later, a Bandit attempted to score and fell into Watson (again, no intent), and two Rock defenders jumped him. It quickly turned nasty as a whole crowd of people were piled on top of each other. No real punches were thrown in the scrum, but off to one side Steve Priolo and Cam Woods started another fight. It didn’t last long before Woods walked away, but Priolo followed him and there were a few more punches before Woods walked away again. Priolo seemed to be out of his mind at this point, and literally ran around the net, looking for someone to fight. He even tried to pull one of the Rock players out of the scrum to fight him. My friend sitting next to me asked “Does he realize how stupid he looks?” and I couldn’t disagree. Priolo and Woods were both ejected, and after a very long delay a bunch of roughing penalties were handed out.

After this, things actually did calm down a little, but the referees did not. Several more penalties were given out in the first quarter, but most of them were arguable. Phil Sanderson was given a very questionable slashing penalty and must have questioned the validity of the call on his way to the penalty box. He was given an extra two for unsportsmanlike conduct, and the same thing happened during the second, when Bandit Tom Montour was given an elbowing penalty.

Let me go off on a bit of a tangent here. I don’t hate NLL refs like many others do. I realize that they have a very difficult and thankless job – if they do their job properly, nobody notices them (when was the last time you heard anyone say “Wow, the reffing in that game was really good”?) but if they make one mistake, it’s talked about to death. Having said that, I really don’t like Grant Spies. Perhaps he lives near Toronto, but he seems to do an awful lot of Rock games and has for years. I haven’t noticed any significant pro-Rock or anti-Rock bias, but he frequently seems to get onto some kind of power trip – I’ve never seen any ref completely take over a game the way he does. He seems to take penalties personally; he was calling a slashing penalty last night and when he stood in front of the scorer’s booth to indicate the penalty, he viciously chopped at his own arm like he was really pissed off. He probably gave himself a bruise. There were some questionable calls in the Toronto-Boston game last week as well, and I considered adding a bit about Spies in my report on that game, but decided against it. But this week, I can’t just let it go. Obviously the fights and rough stuff early on made it difficult, but then they actually started playing lacrosse but Spies wouldn’t put his whistle away. He calmed down a little in the second but still gave out a bunch of questionable penalties. Then there were almost none in the third or fourth. Even when a Rock player blatantly elbowed a Bandit in the head – no call. The lack of consistency was mind-boggling. It started with “C’mon, let them play!” while he kept interrupting whatever flow the game had, and ended with “C’mon, how can you let that go?”

Anyway, back to the game. The second quarter (and thereafter) looked more like lacrosse and less like Wrestlemania XXVLVLDXIIXV. The first quarter was ridiculous, but the rest of the game was really entertaining and we started to see some pretty nice plays. Tracey Kelusky was being heavily covered in front of the Toronto net but caught a pass one-handed and turned and shot it behind his back, though Watson somehow stopped it. Colin Doyle received a beautiful pass from Stephan LeBlanc and backhanded it into the Buffalo net. The whole second half was a defensive battle, with both teams hitting a number of shot clock violations because they just couldn’t get a good shot off. As I mentioned, Goodleaf was good, but Watson was amazing, particularly in the last few minutes of the fourth with Goodleaf on the bench for an extra attacker.

The score at half-time was 3-1, and the Rock scored three more in the third quarter while shutting out the Bandits again. But the Bandits wouldn’t give up and the 6-1 lead evaporated into a 6-5 lead with less than four minutes to go. Colin Doyle scored a minute later and added an empty-netter to seal the victory for the Rock, who are now 4-1 and travel to Boston next weekend. The Bandits fall to 2-2 and host the surprising Minnesota Swarm next Friday night.

Other notes from the game:

• Dear Mr. ACC Video Replay Guy: Please do not show replays of Rock goals if there is any chance of a review being called. Kasey Beirnes scored a goal in the 4th, and a couple of replays were immediately shown on the screen. The replays showed that Beirnes’ foot was in the crease, so the Bandits called for a review, which they won. Should it have been a goal? No, the challenge was valid. Would they have called for a review even if the replay wasn’t shown? I don’t know, but don’t just hand them the evidence.
• Tracey Kelusky scored in the 4th from behind the net. It was not an “Air Gait” type move or the lacrosse equivalent of a wrap-around. You cannot score by bouncing the ball off the goalie’s back, so I’m not sure how it counted. Watson may have been partially turned around at that point, so it’s possible that the ball actually went in off of Watson’s mask or chest, and I suppose that counts. There was no review.
• The Rock didn’t have much of a transition game all night. They had maybe two or three real transition chances, not all of which even resulted in a shot, let alone a goal. Speedy Rob Marshall was not in the lineup, so perhaps that’s partly why. The Bandits transition was much better, but that’s to be expected when you have Mark Steenhuis on your team. I remember thinking a couple of years ago that there was nobody on the Rock that I wouldn’t trade for Steenhuis. The Rock are a much better team now so that’s no longer true, but he’s still one of those players that you hate when they’re on the other team but would love to have on yours.
• In the five games the Rock have played this season, they have shut out the opposing team in the third quarter in three of them. In last week’s game, the Rock were shut out in the third quarter.
• Compare the penalties handed out in the first quarter of this game with the Rock’s win in Rochester on January 15. In that game, only one penalty was handed out to either team. That penalty was to Rochester for illegal substitution.
• One of the groups listed in attendance at the game was the “Gee Nash fan club”. Nash was released by the Rock earlier this week. (Well, he was then re-signed and assigned to the practice roster, but still.)

By Graeme Perrow – GRAY-um PEAR-o

Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve heard a number of names of lacrosse players mispronounced on various TV broadcasts and lacrosse podcasts. As someone whose name is routinely mispronounced (and misspelled), I take issue with this so I’ve written up a handy list on some of the harder-to-pronounce names in the NLL. These are in no particular order.

Kaleb Toth – KAY-leb TOE-th. Not TAW-th, and not KAH-leb as I’ve also heard.

Matt Vinc – like the name VINCE.

John Gallant – gal-ANT.

Stephan Leblanc – STEFF-in la-BLONK.

Nenad Gajic – Nuh-NAD. Last name is either GUY-ch or GUY-itch. I hope it’s the former, because I sure wouldn’t want to tell people my name sounds like guy-itch, especially if your first name ends with “nad”.

Ilija Gajic – ILL-ee-ya.

Alex Gajic – AL-eks. Yeah, I know, but if I don’t include him here, some smart-ass will ask about it.

Rhys Duch – REES DUTCH.

Ryan Benesch – buh-NESH.

John Tavares – tuh-VAR-ez.

Athan Iannucci – eye-uh-NOOCH-ee. In Philadelphia, it’s frequently pronounced GOD.

Chet Koneczny – CHET.

Mitch Belisle – buh-LY-el.

Sean Greenhalgh – GREEN-hall.

Neil Peart – PEERT. Not PERT. Drummer for Rush. Nothing to do with lacrosse. I like Rush. Deal with it.

Geoff Snider – SNY-der. Not SHNY-der.

David Morgan – HO-lee-CRAP look-at-the-SIZE-of-that-guy.

Dane Dobbie – DOUGH-bee. Not DAW-bee.

Curtis Palidwor – PAL-i-door.

Kasey Beirnes – BEERNS.

Mark Steenhuis – STAIN-house.

Grant Spies – SPEEZ. NLL ref.

Mark Miyashita – mee-YA-shtuh. Hasn’t played in the NLL in a few years, but included here because I’m sure he’s had his share of mispronunciations.

John Grant – Normally just like it looks, GRANT. However, because of a local dialect quirk, in Colorado it’s actually pronounced DOOSH.

Another odd change due to a regional dialect occurs in Philadelphia where the last name of all opposing players becomes hyphenated. The name “Suchs” (SUKS) is appended to the names, though it’s curious that the PA announcer keeps forgetting this. Thankfully, the ever-helpful Philadelphia fans are there to remind him.

Wanna know what sucks about the NLL? Here’s what sucks about the NLL. Bandits forward Sean Greenhalgh will miss the entire 2011 season because of something completely unrelated to lacrosse. According to Darris Kilgour in a Buffalo News article, “Greenhalgh has a new job. He has to put some time in before he can ask for time off.”

This is nowhere near the first time a player has had to put his full-time job ahead of his NLL career. Toronto Rock goalie Bob Watson became a police officer this past year and was seriously considering retiring from the NLL because he wasn’t sure he would be able to get enough time off to play. Luckily for Rock fans he was able to get the time off and changed his mind, but he still misses mid-week practices because of it. There are plenty of examples of players who have missed games and practices because of their job, and I’m sure there are other players who have missed entire seasons.

The worst part is that there’s no blame here. You can’t point to one person or one group and say “it’s their fault”, or make some change to the rules or collective bargaining agreement to fix it. You can’t blame Greenhalgh for changing jobs; that decision is his alone, and is entirely based on what’s best for him and his family. You can’t blame his company for expecting their new employee to put in the required time before taking as much vacation as being a pro lacrosse player requires. Player salaries are not high enough for players to make a living from it alone, so they need outside jobs. But you can’t blame the PLPA or the league for that because the league just doesn’t make enough money for that to be a reality.

Perhaps this new deal with IMG will result in more exposure, leading to higher-paying TV deals and greater attendance and such, which will eventually lead to higher player salaries and eliminate the need for outside jobs. If that happens (and realistically, that’s a big if), let’s hope that it doesn’t go hand-in-hand with higher ticket prices.

It would be nice to see NLL players able to be full-time pro lacrosse players but until then, we’ll just have to live with the consequences of being a “fringe” sport.

Wow.

So it’s shortly into the third period and the Rock are leading by a couple. This is lacrosse, so this is by no means an insurmountable lead, especially against the likes of the Boston Blazers and The Big Three. I’ve written a few notes in my little notebook but not that much and nothing earth-shattering. It’s been a pretty entertaining game thus far, but what am I going to write about when I get home? The first goal, which was really weird? The fact that Josh Sanderson was invisible for most of the game so far? No, really, I can’t just say “here’s the final score, and here’s who scored the goals” – I need to write about something. This is a problem. I sure hope some interesting stuff happens in the second half.

The game started off with one of the weirdest goals ever. Stephan Leblanc fired it and hit the crossbar, and the ball shot straight up in the air. I’m not sure Anthony Cosmo knew where it was because when it came back down, he made no attempt to catch it, and it bounced in front of the net and went in. The refs reviewed it to see if it went off of Cosmo’s back (which would have negated it), but it didn’t touch him or anyone else so it counted. Kind of an ugly goal for Leblanc, but the ugly ones still count. This was not the first ugly goal I’ve seen Cosmo give up (nor would it be the last). During a game a bunch of years ago when Cosmo played for the Rock, he made a save on a fairly routine play, then stood up and looked down the floor for someone to pass to. He reared back to make the pass, then hesitated for half a second, and the ball fell out of his stick and bounced into the net. There were no opposing team players within 20 feet of the goal. The guy who got credit for the goal was sitting on the bench when it went in. Ugly. This wasn’t quite as bad as that, but I’m sure Cosmo wouldn’t mind having it back.

Rock sophomore Stephan Leblanc was on fire tonight, scoring five and adding four assists. The other Rock sophomore Garrett Billings only scored one but added six assists while captain Colin Doyle was only one-and-four. On the other side, Casey Powell was almost unstoppable, matching Leblanc’s 5 goals and 4 assists. But he scored his 5 goals on 13 shots, while Leblanc only needed 12. So there. Josh Sanderson only had three assists, which might have been the difference, since Kevin Buchanan scored five and Dan Dawson added two more. If Shooter had been on his game, it wouldn’t have been nearly this close. Maybe he wasn’t happy about having daddy behind the other bench rather than behind his.

That said, Watson had a good night, despite giving up 14 goals. He wasn’t quite as on as he was during the first two Rock games, but he made a bunch of great saves, especially late in the 4th and overtime. I made a point of telling my son that he was lucky to be able to watch the greatest goalie in the history of the NLL. Anthony Cosmo was equally good if not better in the second half – he had a span of over sixteen minutes during the third and fourth quarters where he only gave up one goal. I don’t want to take anything away from Cosmo – he did stand on his head a number of times and was excellent in the second half – but an awful lot of the Rock shots missed the net in the 4th. It does seem weird to talk about how great the goaltending was when 29 goals were scored, but there you have it.

With a little over two minutes left, Colin Doyle grabbed a beautiful flip pass from Garrett Billings and tossed it backhanded into the little hole between Cosmo’s leg and the post, putting the Rock up 14-11. But as we all know, two minutes is an awful long time in a lacrosse game, and no 3-goal lead is ever safe. Boston scored three in the final two minutes (two with less than a minute on the clock), to tie the game and send it to overtime.

The defense and goaltenders for both teams were outstanding during overtime, with a number of forced shot clock violations because nobody could get near enough to the net or open enough to shoot. At one point the Rock had three full 30-second possessions in a row and had no serious scoring chances in any of them. Then almost nine minutes into overtime, Stephan Leblanc tossed the ball towards Aaron Pascas who was in front of the net, but Pascas missed it and it bounced underneath Cosmo and into the net. Easily the ugliest goal all night (see video below), but as I said earlier, the ugly ones count too. The Rock celebrated and lined up for the handshakes, but the refs were reviewing the goal. The Blazers weren’t about to concede anything so they never left their bench. After a minute or so the signal was given and the game was officially over. The weird thing is that Pascas quite obviously ran through the crease before the ball got to the net, so why did the goal count? He wasn’t in the crease when the ball went in, but he did take a couple of steps through and I thought that was an immediate loss of possession. Perhaps it’s only when the guy with the ball steps in the crease. Checking rule book now…

I have a copy of the 2005 NLL rules so it’s possible that these have changed, but it says that a goal is disallowed when the ball goes in the net “when any part of the body of a player of the attacking team is in the goal crease area at the time”. This was not the case, as Pascas was out of the crease before the ball went in. However, Rule 46 (a) specifically says “An attacking player may not be in the opponent’s goal-crease area at any time”. Strangely, it doesn’t say what the penalty is but I doubt it’s “any goal scored after this rule is broken will count”.

Here’s an interesting coincidence from last Saturday.

The Bandits’ John Tavares scored a hat-trick in Buffalo’s 9-6 win over Philadelphia. The very same night, Tavares’ nephew, the other John Tavares, scored a hat-trick in the Islanders’ 4-1 win over Buffalo. But not only did two players with the same name each score hat-tricks for or against Buffalo teams in different sports on the same night, but they both did so against goaltenders named Miller.

Weird.

The Rock finally broke the curse of Rochester Saturday night, winning there for the first time ever in the regular season. (Of course, Rock fans will not hesitate to tell you that the team actually has won in Rochester once, the one time being the 2003 Championship game.) The final score was 12-9 Rock, but the game wasn’t really as close as that score may indicate. Twice the Rock had 6-goal leads, and were pretty much in control for the entire game. The first quarter was all Rock, and it started to look like it might be a pretty one-sided game. But starting in the second, and especially continuing in the third, the Rochester defense really picked up their game, and Matt Vinc made some very nice saves. Once again the story of the game was game MVP Bob Watson who was simply stellar, making 53 saves.

The Knighthawks have been an enigma to me for years. You look at a team with people like John Grant, Shawn Williams, Shawn and Scott Evans, Cory Bomberry, Gary Gait, Mike Accursi, and Craig Point, and backstopped by Pat O’Toole, and yet some nights they look like an expansion team consisting entirely of cast-offs from all the other teams. In 2007 everything came together and they won the Championship, including a sixteen game winning streak that continued into the 2008 season, but then they’ve missed the playoffs two of the past three years. I think they’ve seriously underperformed during that time, and losing Grant (and Bomberry) will not help, even if Cody Jamieson is the real deal. And he looked like the real deal last night, scoring three and adding three helpers.

Other notes from the game (which I did not see live, but watched on TSN2):

• TSN announcers: Yes, there are a lot of new faces in Rochester this season, and yes, Mike Hasen is in his first year as coach, but listing Hasen as one of the new faces in Rochester is patently wrong.
• Kasey Beirnes’ goal in the first was called off but it was actually good – his foot didn’t land in the crease until after the ball was in the net. Of course, I had the advantage of watching the game on PVR, so I rewound and advanced in slow motion.
• TSN’s play of the game was Doyle’s second goal – a backhand and underhand shot that found the top corner. I can’t decide if it was a beautiful shot or a really ugly shot, but it counts either way.
• After two games, I don’t see a difference in faceoffs. Other than when a player (namely Geoff Snider) simply grabs the ball, it still seems random which team ends up with the ball. The two players involved mash their sticks together and one of them wins out and pushes the ball behind him – but there are players from both teams behind him, so it’s essentially random which one ends up with the ball.
• Congrats to Shawn Williams who reached 900 career points and Bob Watson who reached 6000 career saves.
• Beautiful over-the-shoulder goal by Craig Point near the end of the 2nd.
• Some pretty exiting Rock players have worn number 93: Kim Squire back in the early 2000’s, then captain Chris Driscoll, and now rookie Aaron Pascas, who scored two last week and another two tonight.
• Two strange stats: for the second straight game the Rock didn’t allow a goal in the third period, and there was only one penalty in the game – an Illegal Substitution penalty against Rochester at the end of the third.
• Stephan Leblanc’s streak of scoring in every NLL game he’s ever played in continued with a hattrick. That’s 21 straight games with a goal to start his career. The announcers mentioned this streak but strangely, there was no mention of what the league record is. Maybe nobody knows. Or maybe Gary Gait holds the record of something like 84 games and Leblanc is so far away from breaking it that mentioning it wasn’t worth it.

Each off-season for the past four or five I’ve wondered about the Rock’s goaltender situation in the next season, and the phrase “Whipper isn’t getting any younger” always seems to come up. But during the season, that phrase never comes up at all. Watson is arguably the greatest goalie in the history of the NLL, and despite being 40 years old, is still one of the best in the league. Watson recently became a police officer in Kitchener-Waterloo, and because of the new career, he didn’t even decide whether he would play this year until shortly before the season began. Given that, it’s probably safe to assume that this will be his last season, which is a huge blow to the Rock. Watson has been one of the top goalies in the league for the entire existence of the franchise, so the end of the Watson era in Toronto will be bigger than the end of the Bartley era or even the Veltman era. I only hope that if Watson does decide to retire after this season, he announces it before the end of the season as Veltman did so that he can also be given the goodbye he deserves. I have confidence in both of the backup goalies, Campbell and Nash, but as backups. Neither has been a regular starting goalie in the NLL for a few years, so I’m not sure how confident I will be next year if the Rock go with Nash and Campbell as their goalies.