By the numbers

Some interesting stats about the NLL at the halfway point of the season.

Number of face-offs taken by the Calgary Roughnecks: 214
Number of face-offs not taken by Geoff Snider: 12

Geoff Snider's league-leading face-off percentage in 2010: 75.6%
Second-highest face-off percentage in 2010: 57.5% (Stephen Peyser)
Snider's face-off percentage this year after implementation of the "Snider rule": 64.9%
Highest face-off percentage this year: 70.9% (Bob Snider, Geoff's brother)
Highest non-Snider face-off percentage this year: 60.1% (Jamison Koesterer, who has retired)

Players in the league with 5 or more points per game (>1 game): 10
Players on the Toronto Rock: 3 (LeBlanc, Manning, Billings)
Players in the entire west division: 3 (Benesch, Ratcliffe, Duch)

Penalty minutes for Scott Self in Buffalo's Jan. 22 loss to Toronto: 30
Players in the league with more than 30 penalty minutes total: 7
Penalty minutes for Scott Self since that game: 2

Goal differential for Toronto in the 3rd quarter: +14
Goal differential for Boston in the 2nd quarter: +13
Goal differential for Colorado in the 1st quarter: 0
Goal differential for Colorado in the 2nd quarter: –16

Total goals for/against for Calgary: 91/89
Calgary's record: 5-3
Total goals for/against for Minnesota: 91/88
Minnesota's record: 4-4

Number of games where Toronto opponents scored 0 goals in a period: 5 (one of those games had 2 such periods)
Number of games where that period was the third: 4
Next closest team: Buffalo, with 2

Highest shooting percentage (goals/shots, at least 10 goals): Andrew Watt, 45.48%
Number of players over 25%: 3 (Watt, Chad Culp - 32.5%, Ryan Benesch – 26.6%)

Number of players with >10 loose balls per game: 4
Number named Snider: 2

Best home attendance average: Colorado, 15,745 per game
Total attendance for all four home games in Washington: 15,974

Number of eastern division teams allowing more than 11 goals/game: 0
Number of western division teams allowing less than 11 goals/game: 0
(Thanks to Casey Vock at the NLL Insider for that one)

Out of my league

The brand-new SkyDome opened in Toronto in the summer of 1989. I was a second-year computer science student at the University of Waterloo at the time, and when the Math Society bought group tickets to a Blue Jays game, a bunch of my friends and I joined in.

On the day of the game, a couple of school busses full of students made the 1 1/2 hour drive to SkyDome. We were all responsible university students so, of course, we were all drinking. Many of us bought 2L bottles of Coke, drank a bit, and filled it back up with rye or rum. News flash: when you've consumed 2 litres of rye-and-coke in less than two hours, trapped on a school bus in downtown Toronto traffic is not the place you want to be. This seemed particularly true for one student, a guy named Cam. Cam was a computer engineer and was in the same class as my roommate, so I knew who he was though I didn't know him well. He was sitting a few seats ahead of me and I believe his bouncing started somewhere down the 427. We were at least 20 minutes away from the stadium – in good traffic. We weren't in good traffic, so it was going to be much longer before relief would be available. Within a few minutes, everyone on the bus knew that Cam was in some trouble, and of course everyone thought that this was pretty darned funny. Well, almost everyone - Cam certainly wasn't laughing much, and neither was his girlfriend, who was sitting a couple of seats behind me. The fact that Cam was so public about his discomfort was absolutely mortifying to this girl, who was slouching down in her seat, trying to hide. I was single at the time, and thought she was extremely cute and seemed really nice but I quickly came back to reality - not only was she already seeing someone, but I remember thinking "She is so out of my league".

I guess Cam's rye-and-Coke bottle wasn't even empty at this point, because I remember him asking if anyone else had an empty bottle and someone tossed him theirs. (His girlfriend slouched even lower at this point.) He immediately had the seat to himself. He sat there for at least ten minutes. Call it performance anxiety, but despite his discomfort, he found himself unable to, um, fill the bottle. Another 10-15 minutes later, we were stuck in stop-and-go traffic on Lakeshore Boulevard right in front of Ontario Place, when Cam could stand it no longer. He asked the bus driver to open the door and ran over to some bushes at the side of the road. He didn't even bother finding a discreet place – everyone on Lakeshore could see him. A bunch of drunk mathies and engineers cheered from the bus as Cam found relief, and he waved – though thankfully without turning around first. He made his way back onto the bus to great applause. I'm pretty sure his girlfriend was not clapping. I remember nothing else about that trip - not a single thing about the game itself.

As for his girlfriend, she turned out to be a math major like me and friend of a friend and I did eventually get to know her. I was right – she was extremely cute, and was even nicer in person than I imagined on that bus ride.

We've been married now for over fifteen years.

The NLL Skills Competition

By Graeme Perrow

The NLL will hold the 2011 All-Star game at Turning Stone Resort Casino in Verona, New York on February 27, 2011. The game itself is getting some buzz around the league, but what is getting less fanfare is the skills competition the night before. Here are some of the events taking place:

Coaches Cursing: Troy Cordingley and Darris Kilgour are the heavy favourites. Lucky for them Bruce Boudreau is not an NLL coach.

Guess The Next Team Move: Players attempt to guess the next NLL franchise to move or vanish. You get double points if it happens before the end of All-Star weekend.

We are Family: All the players in the league who also have brothers, nephews/uncles, or cousins in the league will be put together for one big lacrosse game. The seven other players in the league will watch.

Random one-on-one: Forwards and defenders are chosen randomly one at a time for a one-on-one. The forward has to get by the defender – the defender that that keeps the forward away the longest wins. Last year's competition featuring Josh Sanderson against David Morgan had to be cancelled after thirty-six hours, when Sanderson complained that he wasn't even sure that the net was still there since he hadn't seen it all day.

Why are you still here? A two-part competition. Part 1: Players guess at the next time one of the Gait brothers re-un-retires. Part 2: Players attempt to determine why. Part one is worth five points, part two is worth five thousand.

Hairball: Players attempt to stop a Paul Rabil shot with only their hair. Bandit Mark Steenhuis is the current record holder, but Edmonton Washington's Ian Hawksbee will put up a good fight. NLL newcomer Connor Martin might jump into the fray as well, if he can overcome his shyness. Former Mammoth and Albany Attack head coach Bob McMahon will be judging. Brandon Miller declined an invitation to participate.

Goalie 100m dash: Goalies attempt to run 100m in full equipment. A time of less than an hour and a half is considered outstanding. The race is usually won by the cameraman running backwards.

Game Report: Toronto 13 Rochester 6

I was not at the Blue Cross Arena for tonight's Rock-Knighthawks rematch, so I watched it on nll.com. I've said it before, but major kudos to the NLL for streaming every game live. The picture and audio quality was great, and there were only a couple of network interruptions. The Rock - Knighthawks game is now over and I'm watching the Boston – Minnesota game, and the picture quality is just as good. It ain't HD by any stretch, but certainly watchable and you can't beat the price.

Anyway, the Rock have definitely thrown off whatever curse may have been on them in Rochester. After winning only one game in Rochester ever, they've now won twice there this season. Once again, the Hawks just couldn't get anything going. They scored a single goal in each of the first three quarters before "exploding" for three in the fourth. Matt Vinc was downright average, looking even less like the reigning Goalie of the Year than last night. Given that Cody Jamieson seemed pretty pissed in the first quarter and that Shawn Evans tried to pull helmets off both Watson and Phil Sanderson in the fourth and the fact that the Hawks were in danger of getting blown out by the same team two nights in a row, there was surprisingly little chippiness. The Rock took advantage of penalties on both sides, scoring four power play goals and two shorthanded goals – with both shorthanded goals coming less than 40 seconds apart on the same penalty. The Rock's two shorthanded goals were two more than Rochester scored during Toronto penalties.

Nice to see Mike Hasen and Jeremy Hollenbeck inducted into Knighthawks Hall of Fame before the game.

First quarter

• Stephen Hoar on a breakaway – didn't look like that hard a shot but froze Vinc. 1-0 Toronto
• Rochester fans starting the "Watson... Watson... Watson.... you suck!" a few minutes before their first goal. At that point, no Knighthawk had scored on Watson in well over 30 minutes going back to last night.
• Shawn Williams scores with less than a minute remaining in the quarter to tie it at 1
• Rochester fans get Knightingales. Toronto fans get Iggy.

Second quarter

• Nice passing resulting in a power play goal by Leblanc – 2-1 Rock
• Jarrett Davis goes five hole to tie it up at 2
• Kasey Biernes dives across the goal mouth to put the Rock back up by 1. Leblanc is given credit for the goal, though I was sure it was Biernes. Perhaps I was mistaken. Update: I was, but so were they. The goal was later awarded to Billings.
• Kasey Biernes on the PP with a one-timer past Vinc – Rock 4-2
• Manning passes from behind the net to Leblanc who buries it to put the Rock up 5-2
• Jeff Gilbert scores on an empty net, beating Matt Vinc sliding into second base across the crease right at the end of the half – Rock up 6-2

Third quarter

• Mike Hobbins scores on a shorthanded breakaway. Awesome. 7-2 Toronto
• Another defender shorthanded goal, this time by Stephen Hoar. 8-2 Rock
• Mike Accursi from Shawn Evans – 8-3 Rock
• Garrett Billings goes to his favourite place – top shelf. 9-3 Rock
• Pascas scoops up a loose ball, feeds to Manning who has all kinds of time to decide how to score. Rock ahead 10-3
• Rochester fans starting the "Watson... you suck" chant again right after their goalie lets in a goal. Um, it's 10-3 people.
• Nice goal by Pascas called back, presumably because his toe was in the crease. Awfully close, but I can't say they were wrong
• Another nice diving-across-the-crease goal by Leblanc – 11-3

Fourth quarter

• Former Rock Scott Campbell with a transition goal opens the scoring in the fourth – 11-4
• Another Rochester goal – Mike Accursi hits the top corner. 11-5
• Creighton Reid answers for the Rock – 12-5 Toronto
• Shawn Evans tries to start something with a Rock defender (Sanderson I think) and they both end up in the crease in front of Watson. Evans ends up grabbing Watson and pulling his helmet off before dropping on top of Sanderson and trying to pull his helmet off. He gets 2 for facemasking and 2 for roughing. No penalty for being a douchebag.
• Garrett Billings scores Toronto's fourth PP goal of the night. 13-5
• Shawn Evans comes out of the box and scores after a nice move on Bryan. He's still a douchebag. 13-6 Toronto.

Game Review: Toronto 10 Rochester 5

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. <grumble>

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.

Lacr-awesome

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. <tear>

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.

The Lord of the Rings / There's so much to talk about / Two haikus for each

I had enough fun writing the haikus for the Star Wars and Harry Potter movies that I decided to keep going. Presenting: The Lord of the Rings.

The Fellowship of the Ring

Aragorn, Gimli 
Legolas and the hobbits
Galdalf, Boromir

The fellowship is
taking the Ring to Mordor 
Chuck it in the fire 

The Two Towers

Gollum is creepy 
He wants his precious back from
Nasty hobbitses

Battle at Helm's Deep
Elves and Men fight together
Against Uruk-hai

The Return of the King

Despite Denethor,
Minas Tirith calls for help
Rohan will answer

Gollum and the Ring
Both are destroyed in Mount Doom
Two birds with one stone

Game Review: Toronto 9 Calgary 8

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.

Special places

I wrote on facebook a little while ago that "There is a special place in hell for people who blow snow from their driveway onto the road". Someone asked if people who don't shovel their sidewalk went there too, and I replied that they went to a different special place in hell. There are lots of special places in hell. Obviously there are places for murderers, child molesters, rapists, spammers, sidewalk non-shovellers, and people like that, but here are some other types of people that have their own special place:

• People who smoke in their cars and throw the butts out the window. For that matter, people who smoke anywhere and throw their butts on the ground rather than properly disposing of them.
• Similarly, people who throw litter of any kind out the window of their car or leave it on a shelf in a store.
• People who park in handicapped spots who don't need them. Similarly, people who have disabled parking stickers and park in designated spots when they don't need to, i.e. someone has a sticker for mom who's in a wheelchair (fine), but uses the handicapped spot even if mom isn't there (not fine).
• People who don't clear their table at fast-food restaurants (where there are no waiters to do it for you).
• People who listen to the entire "We're not here right now" voicemail announcement, wait for the beep, and then hang up.
• People who use the phrase "as well too". "As well" is fine, and "too" is fine, but you don't need to say both of them. That's just repeating yourself redundantly over again.
• People who leave shopping carts in the middle of the parking lot.
• People at pro sports games who stand up during play for the sole purpose of waving at their buddy who's somewhere else in the stadium, and who they are currently talking to on their cell phone. "Hey! Hey Steve! I'm over in section 119! Can you see me? How's it goin'?" Down and up, dude: Sit the F down and shut the F up.
• People who take far more than 8 items into the express lane at the grocery store. If you end up with 10 or 11 and the limit is 8, that's no big deal, but there was a lady in front of me the other morning who filled up at least four of those big cloth bags in the eight-items-or-less line. Her total bill came to $89. The guy in front of me had about five items. I had one.
• People who don't pull over to allow emergency vehicles to get by. North Americans are far worse at this than Europeans.
• People who don't stop when a school bus has its lights flashing.

I'm sure I've missed some – feel free to leave a comment with yours! Note that I'm not talking about people who are just stupid or do something silly without thinking. This is for people who commit acts of extreme douchebaggery knowing that they're being dicks. Nobody leaves their shopping cart in the middle of the parking lot because they forgot to put it in the corral. Nobody tosses their cigarette butt out the window because they think that's the right thing to do with it. Looking over the list again, most of the time it's just extreme laziness. OK, saying "as well too" isn't laziness, and I wouldn't call it douchebaggery either. But those people still get their own special place. Otherwise, how will they learn?

The good, the bad, and the ugly

It was a year ago today that I had my pancreatitis attack. I've written a fair bit about it - an article on the original attack, a fun one about all my different roommates, some numbers regarding my hospital stay, and a three-part series on my time in the hospital before and after surgery and my recovery at home. Obviously this was not the ideal way to spend the winter, but being the glass-half-full kinda guy that I am, I've come up with some good things about my experience. But along with the good comes the bad and in some cases, the ugly.

Good: Lost the ten pounds that I wanted to lose!
Bad: Lost thirty more.
Ugly: Me. I looked like a skeleton for a while.

Good: Had Jello every day. My eight-year-old thinks that daddy's time in the hospital sucked, "but at least you got Jello!"
Bad: Had Jello every day.

Good: Education is always a good thing, and I learned more about what a gallbladder does.
Bad: Don't have one anymore.

Good: Met lots of friendly and helpful nurses.
Bad: Swabs twice a week.
Ugly: Don't ask where they were swabbing.

Good: Lots of free time to watch the Vancouver Olympics!
Bad: On a 9" TV with headphones.
Ugly: And a feeding tube up my nose.

Good: On Valentine's Day, I got a banana popsicle as part of my lunch.
Bad: It was the closest thing to solid food I'd had in a week or would have for another four weeks.

Good: Lots of time to read books.
Bad: Spilled bile on one. Ewwwwwww.

Good: Had a bunch of interesting roommates. See link to my roommates article above.
Bad: One was a clinically depressed homeless drunk drug addict. And he wasn't even a friendly clinically depressed homeless drunk drug addict.
Ugly: Another was forcibly secured to his bed because he had a breakdown and threatened nurses with a pencil.

Good: Canada! Free healthcare! Paid for nothing but the TV, internet, and phone in my room.
Bad: The TV cost about $90 / week. I cancelled it the week after the Olympics ended.

Good: Used text messages to converse with my sister from my hospital room.
Bad: The text auto-completion on my phone still thinks that any word beginning with "c" is "CT scan".

Good: Able to get wireless internet in my room.
Bad: The bandwidth wasn't good enough to watch streaming video and the TV didn't get TSN2, so I missed almost the entire 2010 NLL season.

Good: I gained back all the weight that I lost.
Bad: I didn't want it all back.
Ugly: I gained back more than I lost.

Good: I'm feeling back to normal now.
Bad: My eating habits aren't as healthy as they should be, and I don't exercise as often as I should. Yup, back to normal.

Game review: Buffalo 15 Minnesota 12

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

Game Review: Toronto 8 Buffalo 5

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.)

NLL Player Name Pronunciation Guide

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.

Why the NLL sucks

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.

More movie haikus / The Harry Potter series / But what will be next?

Continuing on from my recent Star Wars haiku posting, here are some for the Harry Potter series. I managed to come up with two different ones for the first movie. Not sure what to do next – Lord of the Rings? Star Trek? Indiana Jones? James Bond? No, that would take too long and most of the Bond movies blur together for me anyway. Toy Story? Shrek? Spy Kids? Ooooh, I know – High School Musical!

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

He's the boy who lived 
And a thumpin' good wizard 
Wow, he can fly too

or

Fluffy guards the Stone 
You-know-who wants to steal it
We don't say his name

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Is Harry the heir? 
They both can speak parseltongue 
That's a big-ass snake

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

A powerful spell 
"Expecto Patronum" works
If you think happy 

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Harry's name comes out 
Cedric's, Fleur's, and Krum's do too 
They all fight dragons 

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Occlumency fails
Voldemort plants a vision
Sirius is toast

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Thanks to his textbook 
Harry wins some liquid luck 
Who's the half-blood prince? 

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

The final battle 
Voldemort and Harry fight 
One of them will die 

Game Summary – Toronto 15 Boston 14 OT

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".

 

 

So I think enough interesting stuff happened in the second half that I can find something to write about. Both teams showed why they were both undefeated going in. There was great defense and great goaltending but lots of offense as well. There was some rough stuff but no real fights. There were ugly goals and beauties on both sides. The game was close all night and overtime lasted almost nine minutes and was thrilling. All in all, not a bad way to spend a frigid Friday evening.

 

Other notes:

• It irritates me when players jump and dance around like they have to go to the bathroom during the national anthems, or leave the line before the songs are over. I get that they are warmed up and want to stay loose, but some players stand absolutely still during the anthems, and it doesn't seem to negatively affect them. Great players like Jim Veltman and Colin Doyle never jump around during the anthems, and Doyle even sings O Canada. It really makes no sense – you have all these players jumping around to stay loose, and the first thing the majority of them do when the anthems are over is go to the bench and sit down. Show some respect and stand still.
• When the shot clock is reset and the ten second countdown starts, why do the refs count the ten seconds themselves? (Yes, it is in the rule book. Rule 32 (b): "The time shall be kept by the trailing referee on the floor by a chopping wave of the hand for each second.") Do they not know that there is already a clock doing the counting for them?  Just keep an eye on the shot clock and if it reaches 20 before the ball crosses the centre line, blow the whistle. There was one play tonight where the shot clock was at 16 before the Rock brought it over the line – the Boston bench was going crazy but no whistle was blown. I guess some refs say "Mississippi" faster than others.
• The second assist on Boston's 9th goal was originally given to Nick Rose. Pretty impressive for Rose, considering he's the backup goalie who never left the bench the whole game. They did fix the scoring a few minutes later but we got a good laugh out of it.
• Sandy Chapman's first goal of the season was a beauty. He grabbed the loose ball in his own end and ran most of the length of the floor with a defender stuck to him and two more a few feet behind, then dove through the crease and scored.
• Kevin Buchanan scored five, and none of them was fluky or cheap. I think every one of them was a laser shot from way out. Nasty.
• Speaking of nasty, Mr. Buchanan decked Patrick Merrill with a blatant crosscheck to the head with about 3 minutes left in the 4th. One ref was on the other side of the net so he didn't have a great view, but how the other ref missed it I do not know. Not only was there no penalty on the play, but the whistle wasn't even blown for five seconds while Merrill lay on the floor.
• Anthony Cosmo was seriously pissed about something. He was yelling at the refs starting in the 3rd and continuing for the rest of the game. Don't know what it was.
• The music guy at the ACC decided to play some upbeat music right at the beginning of OT. Unfortunately, the song he chose was the theme from Mission: Impossible. Perhaps not the best choice.
• In the last 2 minutes of the game and OT, the coaches cannot throw their little yellow flags to challenge goals. OK, fine, I get that. But is it really necessary to make a point of taking the flags away? The coaches know the rule so if they throw the flag just pick it up and ignore it, or throw it back. Maybe yell at them that challenges are no longer allowed. Why go over and collect the flag?

Awesome-ness

One of the things we bought my sister this year for Christmas was a book called The Book of Awesome. It's a book based on a blog listing a whole bunch of awesome things, from waiters who bring refills without asking to the smell of freshly cut grass to the last few seconds of untying a really stubborn knot. It's a fun book, and I think everyone had at least a few minutes of looking through it. Every time I saw someone looking at it, it didn't take long before they were smiling and nodding, having found one they agreed with. I decided to come up with a few of my own, but note that I did not read the book cover to cover so it's possible that one of mine is actually in the book.

Turkey sandwiches the day after a turkey dinner. A couple of pieces of fresh bread, turkey (white or dark meat, doesn't matter), some mayonnaise and a touch of salt and pepper, then nuke it for about 10 seconds. I was going to say "soft white bread" instead of just "fresh bread" but this past Christmas I had one at my parents' place on fresh twelve grain bread that was just... well, awesome.

When your kids give you a hug in front of their friends. I remember dropping the boys off at school last year and after saying goodbye to Nicky, I saw that Ryan (age 10) was across the room talking with his friends. I didn't want to embarrass him so I just waved, said "Have a good day, buddy", and kept walking. He said "Daddy!" and ran across the room to say goodbye and give me a hug. It made my day.

When you get home from a long vacation and remember as you are walking in the door that you cleaned up the kitchen before leaving. We've had vacations where that wasn't the case, and when you've been travelling all day and you're tired and have lots of unpacking and laundry to look forward to, not to mention returning to work / school / etc., walking in to a messy kitchen just sucks.

Taking your ski boots off and putting your regular boots on after a full day of skiing. Doesn't matter how old and ratty your boots are, they are soooooo comfortable. Also, the warm glow you feel on your face when you come inside after a full day of skiing.

The sound of a baby giggling. Extra points if it's your baby.

That moment when your parents kiss at the Enchantment Under The Sea dance and you, your brother, and your sister re-appear in that photograph in your pocket. You know the feeling. Just makes you wanna pick up your guitar and wail on the Johnny B. Goode solo.

Working from home during a big winter storm. I've written about this in the past. The iPod in the dock, a cup of hot chocolate, and a fierce storm outside makes for a surprisingly happy guy working at home.

Fixing a particularly nasty software bug. You have been working on this bug for days. It seems random. There's seemingly no predicting when it will happen, let alone why. Customers are waiting for a resolution. You have made zero progress since the last time your boss asked how it was going, and you know that he's just about ready to ask again. Then in the debugger you see that a variable is set to 0 when it shouldn't be. "Why the hell is it 0?" you think. "If it's zero, then that would mean that —" and then it hits you. Suddenly you know exactly why it's happening, and why it's so hard to reproduce. All of the weird descriptions of the problems the customer is seeing that didn't make sense suddenly do make sense. Even better, you know you can give the customer a workaround, fix the problem easily, and even write a simple automated test so that the problem never happens again. It doesn't get any better than that.

Forgetting that it's garbage day until you think it's too late, and making the garbage truck anyway. Even better, when you get the green / blue bin to the curb just as the truck gets to your house, so you can wait for 15 seconds and bring the bin back in.

Being complimented by a stranger on your parenting. When we're out with the boys at a restaurant or store, I'm proud to say that sometimes they will be particularly polite or helpful. Sometimes, not so much. But when they are, the server will occasionally turn to us and tell us how impressed they are with our kids. When a complete stranger tells you that your kid is very polite, that feeling ("I'm not a complete failure as a parent!") more than makes up for the bowl of cereal that he (the kid, not the stranger) took 45 minutes to eat that morning despite the fact that you were already late for work.

Tavares scores!

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.

Movie review: Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage

I am a huge Rush fan, and have been since the early '80s. I had heard some of their songs on the radio, but my real introduction was the first side of Moving Pictures, which someone copied onto a tape for me. Tom Sawyer, Red Barchetta, YYZ, and Limelight. Four unbelievably fantastic songs, which I played over and over again. Imagine my surprise when, at least a year or two later, I realized that there were more songs on that album! And they were really good too! I eventually got most of their older albums as well, and I remember Signals being one of the most popular albums when I was in grade nine. Hearing the opening of New World Man still reminds me of early high school. I started to lose interest with the Grace Under Pressure album, and wasn't too thrilled with the next couple of albums. It wasn't so much that they started using more keyboards (Signals had lots of keyboards and I love that album), for me it was more that the keyboards seemed to replace the guitar rather than complementing it. I didn't even buy Hold Your Fire (or Test for Echo) for many years, which meant that Rush had been removed from my list of auto-purchase bands - when a new album was released by bands on this list, I would immediately go and buy it, even if I hadn't heard anything from it. Dream Theater has been on this list for years, and Linkin Park was, up until the most recent album A Thousand Suns, and now I'm not so sure about the next one. But I digress. Presto was pretty good, and rekindled my interest in the band. For Christmas, Gail bought me the DVD of the new movie Beyond The Lighted Stage, a documentary about the history of Rush. I have heard (on the radio and twitter) that even people who aren't Rush fans are really liking this film, so I figured I would love it, since I am a Rush fan. I wasn't disappointed.

There was lot more footage and pictures from the very early years of the band than I would have expected, including video of early concerts at local high schools and such. There was even video of a teenage Alex Lifeson sitting at the dinner table at his house, arguing about why he should be going to school when music is what he really wanted to do. Why someone in his family was recording that conversation, I have no idea. I found it funny that to this day, Geddy and Alex still refer to Neil Peart (who joined Rush in 1974) as "the new guy" because he wasn't there for the beginning of the band and didn't appear on their first album. There was a fair bit of discussion on each album up to and including Signals. After that, they mentioned that Rush entered a period where they used lots of synths which nobody but Geddy seemed excited about, including many fans. They squashed the Grace Under Pressure, Power Windows, Hold Your Fire, and Presto albums into fairly one short segment, and I don't think they even mentioned the names Grace Under Pressure, Hold Your Fire, or Presto. Roll The Bones and Counterparts were touched on briefly and Test For Echo was almost ignored before a section focussed on Neil Peart and the tragedies that befell him in 1997 and 1998.

Within a year of each other, Peart's daughter and wife both passed away, and Peart took several years off from the band to ride his motorcycle around North and Central America. (He wrote a book about this trip called "Ghost Rider: Travels on the Healing Road" which is now on my must-read list.) After returning, he had doubts as to whether he would be able to continue in Rush because he'd been away from the drum kit for so long. It seems amazing that someone as talented as Peart (widely regarded as one of the best rock drummers there is) could have such doubts about his own ability. A couple of people in the film described Peart as a perfectionist, so he'd likely be unhappy performing at 80% of what he used to be able to do – even though 80% of Neil Peart is still better than a large percentage of other drummers. They also talked about how private a man Peart is, and how he really doesn't like meeting with fans who gush or fawn over him, and is uncomfortable with his fame (for reference, see the lyrics of the aforementioned "Limelight"). Neil, if you happen to read this, just know that I think you are an extremely talented drummer and lyricist and your music has meant a lot to me over the last thirty years. And I promise that if I happen to see you at a restaurant or store or something, I will leave you the hell alone.

Funniest scene: Alex and Geddy are sitting in a diner (the scene looks pretty recent, i.e. 2005-2010 time frame), and the waitress recognizes Geddy. She said that her son or nephew or something is a big fan, and asks if he can give her an autograph. He says sure, and she basically elbows Alex (who she obviously does not recognize) out of the way to give Geddy something to sign. Geddy asks if she wants Alex to sign it as well, and she just says "Thanks a lot" and walks away. Alex is laughing the whole time.

A number of prominent musicians were interviewed throughout the movie, including members of Rage Against The Machine, Smashing Pumpkins, Dream Theater, Metallica, and Kiss, as well as musician / actor Jack Black. Sometimes Jack Black can be really funny while other times a little goes a long way, and I kind of found that here. A few interviews with him were fine, but I almost wanted to fast-forward over a couple.

I guess it's not surprising that I really enjoyed this movie, since I am such a fan of the band. But as I said, I have heard a couple of different people talk about how much they enjoyed the movie despite not being Rush fans. At least, they weren't Rush fans when they started the movie.

Game Review: Toronto 12 @ Rochester 9

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.