Fighting in lacrosse

I don't like fighting in lacrosse. There, I said it. They say that admitting you have a problem is the first step to recovery, though I really don't consider this a problem. (Yeah, I know. Denial.) Let me clarify my position here. I do not think fighting should be banned from the game entirely, i.e. one fight and you're out for the season, or anything like that. I think the current penalties are fine, though I wouldn't be opposed to an automatic game misconduct for a fight. I absolutely do not want to take the roughness away from the game. I simply don't like fighting. I think it's rarely necessary, and despite being "part of the game", I think the game would get along just fine if it were removed entirely.

I know that this is not a popular opinion. Whenever I'm at a Rock game and a fight breaks out, the crowd instantly stands to get a better view, and the cheering volume reaches levels not usually reached outside of overtime. I generally don't stand up, but I know I'm in the minority.

Note that a number of places in this article talk about hockey rather than lacrosse because there is a lot more talk about hockey than lacrosse out there, and the fighting pros and cons are very similar.

OK, fighting enthusiasts, start up your pro-fighting excuse machine – here, let me help you by listing the most often-heard ones:

This is lacrosse, not ballet dancing. It's a rough game, suck it up.

I know that lacrosse is a rough game – that's one of the things I love about it. I talk to a lot of people who know nothing about lacrosse and think it's basically people who hit each other with sticks, and occasionally toss a ball around if it happens to come near them. I try to convince people unfamiliar with the game that it's a rough game but not a violent one, certainly no more violent than hockey. And what happens to bring lacrosse to the forefront of the local sportscast? An amazing behind the back pass from Tracey Kelusky to Chad Culp who dives across the crease and scores a beautiful goal? No, a bench clearing brawl between Toronto and Buffalo in a meaningless game. (You want to know how much I don't like fighting in lacrosse? The video of this brawl is all over Youtube and features my favourite team but I have never watched it.) Just about the only time the NLL makes it onto SportsCentre is when there's a huge fight. Thanks for supporting my claim, guys. Now I'm a liar, and the unfair reputation of lacrosse players as thugs in uniforms is cemented in more and more people's minds.

And no, it's not ballet dancing. But that doesn't mean it needs to be the WWE either.

Lacrosse players are passionate and sometimes that passion for the game spills over and things get rough.

Hogwash. Not that lacrosse players aren't passionate about the game, absolutely they are. But where is it written that passionate people cannot control their emotions? Seems to me that football players are pretty passionate about their game, and football is a far rougher sport than lacrosse or hockey. (Note to international readers that I'm talking about American/Canadian football here, not what we would call soccer. In soccer, the players don't fight, the fans do.) In fact, one could argue that football is the most violent team sport there is – almost every play ends up with numerous people being tackled and thrown to the ground - but you rarely see fights in football games. In the Super Bowl a couple of months ago, I watched a play where a player was tackled (legally, as far as I could tell) and got up and gave the opposing player a swat in the head. Rather than retaliate, the guy that was hit immediately got ran off. Call him a pussy or whatever you like but because the tackled player was not able to control his emotions, he (and therefore his team) was penalized and they now had an extra five yards to make up. If the other player had retaliated, which would have been totally accepted (and expected) if this were hockey or lacrosse, both players would likely have been penalized and both teams would have been worse off.

Now, sometimes you do see this in lacrosse – one player attempts to drop the gloves but the opposing player opts not to. I don't think that anyone would question that Geoff Snider is one of the best fighters in the game. But in a recent game, I saw an opposing player (David Morgan of the Rush, I believe) give him the old "You wanna go? You wanna go?" and a few shoves. Snider basically ignored him, Morgan went to the box for roughing, and the Roughnecks went on the power play. I don't remember if Calgary scored, but I do remember thinking that that was a very smart play by Snider. He didn't let his emotions get the better of him, and helped his team in the process. He did more for his team by not fighting that he would have if he'd dropped the gloves.

Sometimes you need to fight to get your team fired up.

If this is true, then this is a sad statement on your sport. First off, your coach deserves to be fired because it's his job to motivate his players. Plus, what happened to this passion that lacrosse players have for the game? Why would such passionate people need a fight to get them going? These are the best lacrosse players in the world playing at the highest level of their sport – if they can't get motivated to play their best without watching a fight, then they don't deserve to be there.

Fighting is payback for dirty hits and is useful for protection of star players.

If this is your argument, I have two words for you: Todd Bertuzzi. Bertuzzi (and the entire Canucks team) said publicly that Steve Moore would have to pay for his hit against Markus Naslund in a previous game (a hit that was perfectly legal, by the way) and Bertuzzi ensured that he did pay – with his career. You could certainly argue that what Bertuzzi did was not a fight and was far cheaper and dirtier than what Moore did, and you'd be right. But Bertuzzi was trying to pick a fight, even if we went about it the wrong way. (If you're trying to pick a fight, you skate in front of him and challenge him. You don't skate up behind him and slam his head into the ice.) If fighting wasn't so embedded in the hockey culture, or if the punishment for fighting was a multi-game suspension, Bertuzzi wouldn't have thought the way he did and the incident never would have happened.

Having said that, I can see the desire for revenge after a dirty hit, especially on a star player. In my opinion, however, a revenge fight needs to follow three rules:

1. It must be done during the same game as the dirty hit. Once the game's over, that's it.
2. This only applies to hits that are not penalized. If the player gets a penalty for the hit, that should be it. Though if Joe Superstar leaves the game with a possible concussion or broken leg and the player that hit him from behind gets nothing more than a two minute penalty, his teammates may feel that this was insufficient. I can't really blame them, so I'd be willing to waive this rule in some cases.
3. You cannot get revenge for a legal hit. It always puzzled me why Dave Semenko would go after anyone who checked Wayne Gretzky with a legal check. Wayne's a big boy and a pro hockey player; he can handle being bodychecked.

Fighting builds team cohesion.

OK, this one I agree with. I remember a game back in early 2010 where Boston's Paul Dawson got into a fight with Toronto captain Colin Doyle. While both players were in the box, four different fights broke out at the same time and a bunch of people were tossed. As I wrote at the time: 'The unmistakeable message from the Rock was "You will not touch our captain."' Was it necessary? No. Was it over the top? Yes, four fights at once was too much. Did it handcuff the team for the rest of the game? Yes. But did it send a message? Yes – to Doyle. His teammates were telling Doyle that they were willing to fight for him, not because he couldn't do it himself (he actually held his own pretty well against Dawson, a seasoned fighter), not because he got pounded (he didn't), not because he's a superstar, and not even because he's the captain - just because he was their teammate. Again, it wasn't necessary, but that's the kind of team building that's just not the same as buying a round of beers after the game.

It's part of the game and always has been.

So what? Beheading the captain of the losing team was once part of the game too. Sports evolve over time. Rules change. Things that used to be part of the game are removed, and things that were never part of the game are added. Have you ever seen a lacrosse game without a fight? Sure you have. Did you walk away thinking "Wow, that game would have been much better if there had been a fight"? Probably not. If you are in any way familiar with lacrosse, I'm sure you would argue that it's certainly possible to have an intense, hard-hitting, and entertaining game with no fights whatsoever. So why again are they necessary?

For the most part, fights don't happen in Olympic or international hockey. Did you hear anyone complaining that the hockey during the Vancouver Olympics was boring? (Just mentioning hockey here because international lacrosse games are too few and far between and Olympic lacrosse is non-existent.) It's fairly well-documented that fights don't happen nearly as often in the playoffs as they do in the regular season. If fighting is so integral to the game, why does it disappear during the most critical games?

Hockey and lacrosse are the only North American team sports that allow fighting. If there are fights in a baseball game, multi-game suspensions are handed out. There was a fight in an NBA game a couple of months ago and while only a couple of punches were thrown, each player was suspended a game for the fight, and the instigator had to sit for an extra one. Note the penalty for instigating: not two minutes, an entire game. There was a fight in an NFL game back in November, and while neither player was suspended, each was fined $25,000. One of the fighters, Tennessee Titan Cortland Finnegan, had this to say after the fines were announced:

"This is the NFL, not the NHL, and it's a higher standard," Finnegan said. "That's the NHL. They fight. They get penalized for that. The NFL, it's not even heard of ... you do that, you're suspended. Hands down. That's what I've been taught."

"It's a higher standard." What does that mean? It means that pro football players look down on the NHL because of the fighting. Where are the people telling him that this is football, not ballet dancing?

Baseball and basketball get along just fine without fighting. Now neither is as full-contact as lacrosse or hockey, so perhaps that's an unfair comparison. But nothing is as violent as football, and even they get along fine without fighting. So why can't hockey or lacrosse players?

I almost made it through this entire article without even mentioning the injuries brought on by fighting. In December of 2009, an OHL hockey player named Don Sanderson died after falling and hitting his head on the ice during a fight. (To my knowledge, he is not related to the numerous Sandersons currently or formerly in the NLL.) This was, obviously, a huge story at the time and it seemed that rules may change because of it, but to my knowledge, nothing ever came of it. You could argue that it had nothing to do with the fight – his injury came because he fell. But if not for the fight, he would have been wearing a helmet. In early March, it was announced that the late hockey fighter extraordinaire Bob Probert had brain damage (Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy) because of his years of fighting. I'd be very surprised if the Troy Bonterres, Tim O'Briens, and Geoff Sniders of the NLL didn't pay serious attention to those findings.

Recently, the NHL has considered banning any hits to the head to try to avoid concussions and it's become a serious issue in the NLL as well – just ask Ken Montour or Merrick Thomson. Stephen Stamp wrote an excellent article about the problems that players face after experiencing a concussion – the article is quite long, but well worth the time.

With the proposed changes, if you hit someone in the head with your stick, even if it's accidental, you'll be suspended for at least a couple of games. But if players deliberately take their helmets off and pound each other in the head with their bare fists – five minutes.

Fans like fighting so it helps attract fans.

This thinking led to the old joke "I went to a fight the other day and a hockey game broke out". I can't disagree with the fact that many (if not most) fans enjoy fights. Does it actually bring people into the building that wouldn't otherwise come? Would fans stop coming to lacrosse games if they knew they would not see a fight? Personally, I'd say no to both of these questions, but I have no stats either way.

What a pansy.

Oh yeah? Ya think so? You wanna go? Huh? You wanna go? Actually, I can't right now. I have a quiche in the oven. It's almost ready.

He's never played lacrosse. He doesn't get it.

You're right. I haven't. And I don't.

Game Report: Buffalo 11 Toronto 8

Wow, did that game ever suck. The Toronto Rock squandered an opportunity to clinch first place in the Eastern division and keep pace with Calgary for first overall, losing 11-8 to the Buffalo Bandits, who move ahead of the Rock into first in the East. The game was the final home regular-season game in Bob Watson's hall-of-fame career, and the Rock organization celebrated it with a ceremony before the game, as well as video tributes from current and former Rock players including Kaleb Toth, Dan Stroup, Josh Sanderson (and his dad Terry), Sandy Chapman, and Pat Campbell. Captain Colin Doyle, Rock owner Jamie Dawick, and Watson's own daughter Sydney gave short speeches, and Watson acknowledged his teammates, Rock ownership and management, coaches, trainers, as well as the fans.

As for the game itself, I thought I was heading to a Rock/Bandits game, but must have missed the paper handed out in the lobby saying "For tonight's performance, the role of the Toronto Rock will be played by the Colorado Mammoth". Good goaltending, with periods of great goaltending, solid defense, and absolutely no offense to speak of. I don't want to take anything away from the Buffalo defense, which was also solid, and Mike Thompson was great (with periods of outstanding), but the Rock O was just not there. They missed passes all over the place, frequently decided to pass rather than shoot (at one point Kyle Ross had nobody between him and the goalie five feet away, and still passed), and were just generally anemic all night. The Bandits offense wasn't an awful lot better – there were more dropped balls and passes to nobody in particular on both sides than you'd expect from 8-4 and 10-4 teams and as a result, this was not a very entertaining game.

After the touching ceremony for Watson, the Rock and the Bandits got down to business. The Toronto crowd of over 15,000 was pumped and it was nice to see that level of attendance again. The Rock haven't announced the attendance at a game in a couple of years, and haven't hit 15k for at least that long. It didn't take long to make the crowd happy, as Jon Harasym was given a bogus cross-checking penalty less than two minutes in, and Kasey Beirnes scored his first of three on the resulting power play. Pat Merrill scored on a breakaway a minute later, and it seemed that the Rock were also pumped and might just run away with this game. Not so fast. At 4:48, that was it for the Rock scoring in the first quarter. Tracey Kelusky scored 30 seconds after Merrill's goal to get the Bandits on the board, and Brett Bucktooth tied it a couple of minutes later. John Tavares and Chad Culp scored to give the Bandits a 4-2 lead before the Rock finally got their third goal (about 22 minutes after their second), and their fourth goal was a beautiful passing play. Colin Doyle passed to Kasey Beirnes standing on the left side of the goal, but rather than one-time it in from there (which Thompson expected), he passed it cross-crease to Stephan LeBlanc who buried it. Props to Thompson who managed to change direction quickly and actually have an attempt at stopping the shot.

For the rest of the game, it seemed that the Rock were trying to replicate that goal, and passed the ball as much as possible rather than take shots. Unfortunately for them, this led to a bunch of wasted possessions, as they just passed until the shot clock ran out. For a Rock fan, I'm giving props to the Bandits quite liberally today, but they deserve them – this time they go to the Bandits defenders who seemed to read the Rock attackers really well, and just put their sticks in the air and blocked I don't know how many passes. Once or twice the ball went into the stands and give the Rock a fresh 30, sometimes they actually intercepted the ball and had a transition chance, but most of the time they just deflected it harmlessly away from the Rock players.

The Rock took a two-goal lead early in the third, and then things fell apart. The Bandits scored seven unanswered goals to take a 11-6 lead. The desperation set in early for the Rock, and they started pulling Watson for the extra attacker with four or five minutes left in the 4th. It did pay off, as Garrett Billings and Kasey Beirnes scored with under a minute to play, but it was way too little and way too late. Once again, the Rock went about 24 minutes between their sixth and seventh goals.

Not exactly the way Bob Watson likely envisioned his final regular season game at the ACC, but he wasn't the reason for this loss. The good news for the Rock is that they already made the playoffs. The bad news is that they no longer control their own destiny with respect to home playoff games – if the Bandits win out, they grab first in the east regardless of what the Rock does in their one remaining game. If the Rock lose to Edmonton next week and Rochester wins out, Toronto could even find themselves in third, and could potentially have no home games. The Bandits are in action tonight against the Knighthawks, then Boston next Saturday and Rochester again the week after that.

Other game notes:

• Watson was the first Rock player through the post-game handshakes, and it was nice to see how many Bandits players took an extra second or two and said something more than just "good game". Many even gave him a hug or a stick bump. Classy.
• When the team started their "victory lap", which they do regardless of whether they win or lose, Colin Doyle stopped and let Watson go first. Again, classy.
• At least three Bandit names were mispronounced by the Rock announcer. He pronounced Kelusky two different ways on the same goal announcement, and also got Harasym and Tavares wrong. How does anyone familiar with the NLL over the any part of the last twenty years say Tavares wrong? What we need is a list of frequently mispronounced names and their correct pronunciation. Oh wait, we have one. Tracy Kelusky is not on that list though – I believe it's "kuh-LUH-skee", not "kuh-LOO-skee".
• Why do they still have TV timeouts even when the game is not televised?
• The Bandits had a 5-on-3 power play for about a minute and a half in the first, and Bob Watson made some outstanding saves. Creighton Reid did a nice job on the PK too, getting the Bandits to chase him around the floor and eating up time.
• I'm all for being optimistic and playing a full 60 minutes, but when you've been playing like the Rock were, you're down by five, and there's only a minute left in the game, I'm not sure pulling the goalie for the extra attacker is really necessary. Yes, the Rock did score twice within the last minute, but is it realistic to even dream of three more in the last 33 seconds?

Game Review: Toronto 13 Washington 12

The Rock kept hold of first place in the East with a thrilling 13-12 overtime victory over the Washington Stealth in Toronto last night. Toronto has made it known throughout the season that they had "unfinished business" to take care of thanks to the Stealth stealing the Championship last year – not that the Stealth didn't deserve the victory, but that they were the only team standing between the Rock and their sixth Championship. This rematch was not only important to the Rock to stay in first in the East, but as a little payback.

Colin Doyle led all scorers with 2 goals and 5 assists, while both Garrett Billings and Rob Hellyer had 5 assists. Blaine Manning was held to a single assist and was having trouble hitting the net. He had 15 shots and the scoresheet says that 10 of them were on net, but I don't think so. Lewis Ratcliff led the Stealth in scoring with 3 and 3, while Paul Rabil (holy crap, he's good) got a goal and four assists and Rhys Duch had two goals and two assists. Ratcliff also had a game high sixteen shots on net – nobody else had more than 11.

As I said in last week's game report, I've tried to hold back on complaining about NLL refs. I've tried to give them the benefit of the doubt for years, but I'm starting to lose my patience, and last night's game didn't help. The Rock had seven power plays (scoring 5 PP goals) and the Stealth four, but a number of the calls made little sense. Craig Conn was given five for an illegal cross-check, but two would have been sufficient. Once out of the box, Conn then punched Kyle Ross in the face after the whistle right in front of the ref who called nothing. When Troy Cordingley expressed his displeasure with that, the Rock were given a penalty, leading to several beautiful Watson saves before Matt Beers buried one with 5 seconds left in the first half. There were people on Twitter saying that the refs were trying to give the win to the Rock, but that goal lands squarely in the other court. Five minutes into the third, a Jeff Moleski was approaching Stephen Hoar, who had his stick turned, ready to make a (completely legal) cross-check on Moleski's arm or mid-section, when Moleski suddenly dropped his head and tried to go around Hoar. Hoar's stick made contact with Moleski's head and Hoar was given an illegal cross-check penalty. It should have been obvious what happened – I saw it from the other side of the arena 17 rows up. I just watched it again (thanks to TSN!) and it looked the same – a total accident with no intent. What's the point of penalizing Hoar on that play?

Bob Watson had another good outing, and will be a serious contender for goaltender of the year. Only once has a goaltender ever been named league MVP, that being Steve Dietrich in 2006, but if Watson leads the Rock deep into the playoffs, that could be a possibility as well. At the other end of the floor, Tyler Richards faced 66 Toronto shots, and had a better game than the 13 goals scored against him might indicate. Not that 13 goals against is terrible, but I can think of several unbelievable saves Richards made that kept this game from being an 18-12 Rock win – particularly one on Kasey Beirnes in the second when Beirnes was right on the edge of the crease with a wide open net and Richards somehow got a hand up and deflected the ball into the crowd. Richards made another save in the 4th that actually made me and others near me applaud. Note to Richards if he's reading this – it seemed to me that a lot of the Rock goals went in over your left shoulder. May want to look into that.

The Rock are idle for another <checks watch> three hours and play in Philadelphia tonight, while the Stealth head down the QEW to Buffalo for a battle (aren't they all?) with the Bandits. Hopefully Cam Sedgwick makes it to the game – according to a couple of his teammates on Twitter, he left his passport in the hotel in Toronto and the team bus was delayed at the border.

Other game notes:

• Early in the 4th, Cliff Smith scored a goal while falling into Watson. The goal counted and Smith was given a goaltender interference penalty. WTF? If there was goaltender interference before the goal, the goal shouldn't have counted. If it was after the goal, unless it was an intentional punch or something, there should be no penalty. I just watched the replay again and it was a complete accident – Smith fell into Watson after a nice diving goal. Again, what's the point of this penalty?
• Weird rule: In the NHL, a shot on goal is loosely defined as any shot that goes in the net or would go in the net were it not for the goalie stopping it. In the NLL, a shot that hits the post or crossbar and doesn't go in is also considered a shot on net. This is probably because of the shot clock – so they can simply say that any shot on net resets the clock. The weird thing is that in this case the goalie (who was beaten) gets credited with a save. I guess they decided that any shot on net must result in either a goal or a save, so if they're going to make hitting the post a shot, they also need to make it a save. Still weird.
• After goalie Tyler Richards left his net to set a pick on Jeff Gilbert (what was Gilbert doing at that end of the floor?), Gilbert pushed him down. Chris McElroy took exception and jumped Gilbert, getting two for instigating, five for fighting, and a game misconduct. Gilbert was given two for goaltender interference and five for being the recipient of several punches. Isn't it true that you are allowed to hit the goalie if he's out of the crease? If it's not, it should be. The goalie has a "safe zone" where nobody can touch him and if he makes the conscious decision to leave that safe zone, he should do it at his own peril. Plus, he's the most heavily padded guy on the floor.

Roughnecks on the move

By Loof Lirpa, special correspondent

The drama is finally over. A spokesman for the Calgary Roughnecks announced this morning that the team has been sold and will relocate for the 2012 season. Following in the league's decisions to try new markets and to move to smaller towns outside of major cities (Hoffman Estates IL, Everett WA, Glendale AZ), the Roughnecks have been sold to a Mexican company called Ándale Arriba. The president of Ándale Arriba, S. Gonzales, has already stated his intention to move the team to Chimalhuacán, a town of just over half a million people near Mexico City. The team will begin play in the 2012 season, and will be known as the Mexico City Menudos.

NLL Commissioner George Daniel said that he is "sorry for the Roughnecks fans in Calgary who have to watch their team leave, but at the same time, very excited for the people of Chimalhuacán and Mexico City. This is a big step for our league, and we are happy for the mill— um, thous— um, dozens of Mexican lacrosse fans who will be able to watch the best lacrosse players in the world right in their own back yard. Seriously, until the arena gets built, Mr. Gonzales will be hosting the games in his back yard. Not much in the way of seating, but the tequila and burritos are really cheap. And I guarantee that snowstorms on game nights will be less of an issue than in Calgary."

After a private meeting with the players, Menudo captain Andrew McBride issued the following statement on behalf of himself and his teammates: "We're going where?"

In an exclusive interview with The NLL Blog, former Roughnecks owner Brad Bannister explained his financial reasoning and how he came to the difficult decision that this was the right move for the franchise: "Some dude gave me a coupla hundred grand and a bottle of Cuervo Gold. More than the Flames offered."

The movement for next season may not be over yet. There are rumours that the NLL may become the first professional North American sports league to have a team in Iceland, as the Rochester Knighthawks become the Reykjavík Hrútspungars. We will keep you updated on this story as it develops.

CD Review: Paul Cusick "Focal Point"

The moral of this story: Sometimes you do get a second chance to make a first impression.

While perusing ye olde Facebook back in April of 2010, I was shown an ad for an album by a guy named Paul Cusick. I have Dream Theater listed among bands that I like, and the ad said something like "Do you like Dream Theater? Check out Paul Cusick!" So for the first time in recorded history, I clicked on a advertising link on Facebook. It took me to his web site, and it turned out that Paul Cusick is an English multi-instrumentalist who had recorded a progressive rock album in 2009 called Focal Point. I'm a fan of progressive rock and I'm always impressed by multi-instrumentalists, so I figured what the heck. The album was available in digital-only format for about ₤5, which is less than $10 so I gave it a shot. Since the ad mentioned Dream Theater, I was expecting some pretty heavy stuff – but by the end of the album, I have to admit being a little disappointed. It was pretty good, but much of it wasn't nearly as heavy as I was expecting. As a result, I might have listened to the album maybe once more over the next six months or so – every time I saw it in the iPod listing, I remembered "Oh right, that wasn't very good, was it?" Then recently I gave it another listen but this time I kind of forgot about the Dream Theater link (which ironically brought this guy to my attention in the first place), and found that I enjoyed the album a lot more.

No, this album doesn't sound much like Dream Theater, other than the frequent time signature changes. But as I said, once I stopped the comparisons, I realized that this is quite a good album. Cusick is a talented musician with a quiet voice – no screaming here. He plays all the instruments except drums, and proves himself to be a good guitarist and bassist but particularly a keyboardist. There are a lot more keyboards than guitar on this album. The Dream Theater comparison didn't work, but some tracks (Fade Away, Touch, Senza Tempo) remind me of Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour's On An Island album. This is a good thing, as I love that album.

Mini-reviews of each song:

Focal Point – Cool keyboard-based prog-rock instrumental track.

Everblue – This song has a very full sound – it's hard to believe it's just one person performing this (other than drums). Yes I know how multi-track stuff works, but still.

Fade Away - This ballad reminds me a lot of the Gilmour album.

Soul Words – Funky song with some nice bass and guitar work.

Scared To Dream – Starts off slowly with just piano and vocals and then the guitar and drums come in, but I like how he keeps the piano riff in the background. Very cool.

Touch – Similar to Scared To Dream – starts off slowly, then gets faster. Great drums on this track.

Senza Tempo – Paul found the guitar! There has been lots of rhythm guitar up to this point, but not much lead. This one is a very melodic solo guitar piece.

Big Cars – Fast hard-rocking guitar track. No keyboards anywhere to be found. This one reminds me of Porcupine Tree.

Hold On – Sounds like it was written to be a single. Not bad but not my favourite.

Hello – Piano and vocals only. Slow and kind of haunting.

Cusick's second solo album, called P'Dice, is being recorded now and you can pre-order it here. The first 500 people to pre-order will have their names listed in the CD sleeve, and also get a "personalised limited edition postcard". If you look, you'll see my name there (along with "The Edge"! Is it The The Edge? I dunno), though there's no release date or even an estimate. But I'm looking forward to hearing it.

Game report: Calgary 14 Toronto 9

The battle of the first place teams is over, and the better team won. On this night, anyway, Calgary was indeed the better team in a 14-9 victory over the Toronto Rock. The Roughnecks dominated the entire game and while Bob Watson is having a career year in his final season, he was outplayed by his former backup Mike Poulin.

The Rock and Roughnecks traded goals early before Kasey Beirnes scored six minutes in to give the Rock a 2-1 lead. Dane Dobbie erased that only twelve seconds later with his first of four, and the Roughnecks never trailed again. Calgary had a much more balanced attack than the Rock – thirteen different Roughnecks got points to the Rock's seven. Dobbie and Jeff Shattler led the scoring with seven points each, while Curtis Dickson got a hat trick and Scott Ranger had four helpers. On the Rock side, Colin Doyle was the only multiple-goal scorer with 3, with LeBlanc, Billings, Manning, Maddalena, Beirnes, and Marshall all getting one each.

I thought Toronto's transition was a big part of their downfall – far too many times a defender would grab the ball and race up the floor looking for a breakaway or 2-on-1, which almost never happened. They'd take a shot from a bad angle or through traffic, Poulin would make an easy save if the ball even got to him, and the Roughnecks offense would come back up the floor again. Rob Marshall scored one, but no other defense or transition players even had assists, a sure sign that your transition is not working.

Pro: The game was on TSN2 in high definition, which was really nice for those of us not in Calgary. Dave Randorf is great on the play-by-play and Brian Shanahan, while he needs a new haircut, really knows his stuff. My wife declared that their ties didn't match either, though I have to say I did not notice that. I have to say, though, that the Calgary announcer needs to STFU during play. Trying to get the crowd going and announcing goals and penalties is fine, but keep the Supercuts ads for breaks in play. They also need to turn his mic down – he was drowning out the TV commentators.

Con: the game was tape-delayed at least 30 minutes so that TSN2 could continue their March Madness coverage. Now if they were covering a game that went long, and tape-delayed the lacrosse game to finish it, I could understand that. They should have put a banner across the bottom of the screen saying this. But that's not what happened here. The game they were covering was over, and they showed half an hour of James Cybulski and Jack Armstrong talking about that game and some other upcoming ones, and then showed the first ten minutes or so of the Ohio State / someone else (Kentucky? Florida? Don't remember, and don't care enough to go look it up) game. No banner indicating the change in scheduling was shown. Then at the end of the coverage, they finally said that the Rock / Roughnecks game was coming up, but Cybulski added insult to injury by stating that their March Madness coverage would continue over on TSN, so you want to change the channel.... now. Right, because nobody really wants to watch lacrosse, do they? Remember that Rock owner Jamie Dawick pays to have the Rock games on TSN2, so I can't imagine he's too happy with how things played out last night.

Now if they had had Kate Beirness (who apparently went to the non-existent "University of Ontario"*) doing the basketball coverage, I would have been able to forgive TSN a lot easier. I'd watch half an hour of her reading the phone book. I might even PVR it so that I could revisit the subtle intricacies of her performance. <shakes head> Sorry, where was I?

I'm afraid I'm turning into one of those people who complain about the refs after every game. I've tried to be good and give them the benefit of the doubt, and I know it's a hard job and I couldn't do it and all that, but still. As I've mentioned before, Grant Spies takes every penalty he calls as a personal affront to him or to the game or something, and there were a number of phantom or "You called that? Really?" penalties on both sides. The weirdest call was a no-goal on Kasey Beirnes in the 3rd. Replays clearly showed that his goal was good, but it was waved off. Troy Cordingley immediately threw the challenge flag only to be told that the call was not reviewable. I have no idea why not, but the call stood. Another weird one had happened in the second when the shot clock whistle sounded just before a Roughnecks goal, but I have to give the refs credit on that one – it appeared to be the wrong call, but it was actually correct. The shot was taken just before time ran out and Watson made the save, resetting the clock. Dobbie then grabbed the rebound and buried it. It happened fast enough that it looked like the goal shouldn't have counted, but it should have and did.

The game was a little chippy but not really rough until the end. Blaine Manning was getting pretty ticked by the end of the game, and according to Claude Feig, Manning wanted to go out and fight Andrew McBride but Cordingley wouldn't let him. The coach didn't have the same restraints on Patrick Merrill or Kyle Ross, however, and both got into completely pointless fights with under a minute in the game. Merrill took on Mike Kilby and I'd have to call that one a draw, and then Ross took on heavyweight Geoff Snider. Ross went right after Snider and even took him down almost right away. But Snider did a smooth tuck-and-roll and got back up, landed three punches, and it was over. Snider was the clear winner there.

Both teams are done for the weekend and play at home next week. The Rock host the Washington Stealth, while the Roughnecks play the Minnesota Swarm.

* - I stand corrected; there is a University of Ontario Institute of Technology in Oshawa. My bad.

Graph: Itchy Nose

SI: The NLL isn't "major"

From Sports Illustrated's Go Figure column, March 7, 2011 (emphasis mine):

55.5
Percentage of MLS teams that will make the playoffs in 2011, more than any other major American pro sports league, after the 18-team outfit upped the number by two to 10.

The NLL's percentage: 80.

Steve Toll – Hall of Famer?

Steve Toll recently announced that he will retire after the 2012 NLL season, which will be his fifteenth in the league. It's probably for the best, since his memory is obviously going. In the story on NLL.com, Toll recalls his first game, while playing with the Ontario Raiders in 1998: "It was in the old Philadelphia Spectrum. We beat Philadelphia and I got an assist." The story then says "That was the beginning of the streak."  But if you check the career stats page, also on NLL.com, you find that Toll played one game in 1998, collecting zero points, then played one game in 1999, collecting an assist. His streak couldn't have begun in 1998, since he only played one game in 1999. Also, according to the Spectrum's page on Wikipedia, the Wings stopped playing there in 1996, two years before Toll started in the league. OK, so either someone screwed up their research or Toll can't remember details from 13 years ago. No big deal.

Anyway, when I heard that Toll was going to retire, I wondered if he would be considered for the NLL Hall of Fame. My first thought was "Definitely yes!", but then I wondered if I was just being a homer because I'm a Rock fan and he was a big part of the Rock's success from 1999-2004. So I reconsidered and decided no, Toll was a great player but not a Hall of Famer. But I have reconsidered my reconsideration, and now I've decided once and for all – when Toll retires, he deserves to join his former teammates Dan Stroup, Jim Veltman, and Gary Gait (though he didn't win a Championship with Gait) as well as former coach Les Bartley and GM Johnny Mouradian in the NLL Hall of Fame.

If you want numbers, I got numbers. Toll has played in 201 NLL games, all but the first consecutively. He's won 5 Championships – four with the Rock during their years of dominance in the early 2000's, and one more with the Knighthawks during their dream 2007 season. The Hawks finished the season winning 12 in a row plus 3 more in the playoffs, and became the first team to ever win a Championship in a home game over two thousand miles away from their arena (don't ask). Toll led the Knighthawks in loose balls every year he played there (except 2005 when he only played 5 games with them after being traded from San Jose), and the only reason he didn't lead the Rock in that category was a guy by the name of Jim Veltman. He was also was the first-ever winner of the NLL Transition Player of the Year award in 2007.

Toll had three consecutive seasons with over 50 points for the Rock, collecting 65 in 2002. He scored 15 or more goals four times, and 25 or more twice. In Rochester, the numbers tailed off but Toll was primarily a defender, so looking at the point stats can be misleading. His speed made him very effective on transition, and Rock fans got used to at least one Speedin' Stevie Toll breakaway goal, and sometimes several, each and every game. I just checked his Wikipedia page, and found that Steve Toll is six feet tall, which I never would have guessed. He never seemed that big to me. He was never the Dan Ladouceur type of defender who would just stand in front of you and make you try to get around him because otherwise you couldn't see the net. Toll would chase you into the corner and pound on you with his stick until you either made a desperation pass or dropped the ball, in which case he'd have picked it up and be halfway to your net before you even knew it was gone. He was also very effective at intercepting passes, a skill he learned from Jim Veltman.

They say that the mark of a true Hall-of-Famer in any sport is that you cannot describe the league during the time that that player played without mentioning him. You cannot describe the Rock and their success in the early 2000's without talking about Steve Toll. The Knighthawks didn't have the same kind of success in his six seasons there, but along with John Grant and Toll's good friend Shawn Williams, Toll was a team leader there as well. Obviously Colorado isn't having much in the way of success this year, but Toll is the oldest player on a young team – Toll is at least six years older than every D/T player on the Mammoth except John Gallant, and Ben Davies was only ten when Toll played his first NLL game. He's no longer the fastest guy in the league – he's probably not even the fastest guy on his team – but having a veteran like Toll around has got to have a positive impact on these young players.

It's almost a season and a half early, but congratulations on a stellar career Steve, and I look forward to your Hall of Fame induction.

In which Graeme gets seriously pissed off

Warning: there are some expletives in this posting. Once you read it, I hope you will understand why.

On March 14, Wil Wheaton posted the following on Twitter:

To the "Japan had it coming because OMG Pearl Harbor" crowd that's crawled out of the sewer: Go fuck yourselves, you ignorant pieces of shit

There are a bunch of people on Facebook and Twitter posting the kind of crap that Wil is referring to: that the earthquake and tsunami that devastated parts of Japan was somehow payback for the Pearl Harbor attacks in 1941. People are even saying things like If you wanna feel better about the earthquake in Japan, google "Pearl Harbor death toll". When I first read this I was utterly speechless. Once I was able to comprehend that this wasn't someone's idea of a sick joke, I basically thought what Wil said above.

It saddens me to no end that there are this many people that think this way. The odd nutjob here and there I could see, but it turns out that there are lots of these scumbags – just click the "Facebook" link above to see a bunch of them. Luckily, since those all came from facebook, there are names associated with them. No more hiding behind the anonymity of the internet – now everyone knows who you assholes are.

First off, what happened at Pearl Harbor in 1941 was a terrible thing, no question. But that was seventy years ago, and Japan is now an ally of both Canada and the US. I did google "Pearl Harbor death toll", and found that 2,402 people were killed during that attack. Thus far, there are 1,886 confirmed dead due to the earthquake, and thousands more are missing. But if you're still looking for payback, perhaps you have forgotten that you already did get payback: you fucking nuked them - twice. The atomic bomb that the US dropped on Hiroshima in 1945 killed between 90,000 and 140,000 people and destroyed over half the city. Then three days later, 73,000 were killed when the US dropped another one on Nagasaki. That's between 160,000 and 210,000 people dead. For each American killed at Pearl Harbor, most of whom were military, Americans killed between sixty-six and eighty-seven Japanese people, most of whom were civilians. That's not including the hundreds of thousands of people injured or homeless, or the people that suffered for years or even decades with radiation sickness, or the children of the radiation victims, many of whom themselves suffered and died. The only nuclear weapons ever used during actual conflict were used by the USA on the people of Japan. And that's not "payback" enough?

I wonder if there were people in Japan (or anywhere else in the world) who saw Hurricane Katrina or 9/11 and thought about payback for Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Those people, or anyone else who thinks that innocent people who suffer and die deserved it because of the actions of a different generation, would be scumbags as well, but quite honestly, in terms of raw numbers, the Japanese have a lot more to complain about than the Americans.

I also wonder if the people posting this anti-Japanese vitriol realize the irony of doing it using computers and phones that are chock-full of Japanese-designed electronics.

If you disagree with this and do think that the earthquake was somehow caused by karma or that Japan deserved it, you are entitled to that opinion. But please remove yourself from my friends list on Facebook. You are no friend of mine. But even so, I'm going to make a donation to the Japanese Red Cross Society right now, in your honour.

New NLL Rules

The NLL has instigated a new rule to make sure that fans sitting behind the players benches can always see the game. This came from a group of fans in Philadelphia who couldn't see because the Calgary coaches were standing on the benches. The fans complained to the Wings, the Wings complained to the league, and bam! A new rule was instigated saying that if anyone (player or otherwise) is standing on the bench at any time during play, or if coaches or non-playing personnel are "deemed to be deliberately obstructing fans", the team will get a bench minor.

After listening to complaints from other fans, here are some other rules the NLL is considering:

• Teddy Jenner reported on Twitter that because of complaining in Colorado, the Mammoth will be spotted a ten-goal lead for all home games. With this rule in place, the Mammoth may be able to win a home game sometime in the next season or two.
• There will be a $50 cover charge per person at Roughnecks home games. Ladies are free after halftime! Two drink minimum.
• Thanks to complaints from around the league, the Minnesota Swarm are banned from wearing those awful striped jerseys.
• No fan under the age of 18 is allowed within ten rows of the Bandits bench. They were going to make a rule preventing Darris Kilgour from swearing, but nobody wanted to tell him.
• In order to boost attendance in Washington, the Stealth will automatically win all of their home games. If they are successful on the floor, the fans will show up in droves, right?
• Due to complaints from Rock fans, either Stephan LeBlanc or Bob Watson will be named Player of the Week every week. Even weeks where the Rock don't play. Sure, Casey Powell scored eight goals but if Stephan had played, he would have scored nine.
• Hey, as long as the fans are deciding the rules, every game will have at least one penalty shot, a fight, and a penalty that the goalie has to serve himself. Or maybe get them all done at once – a penalty shot that results in a goalie fight. And games that end in a tie go to a shootout. If the teams are still tied after five shots, there will be a trick shot competition, where players like Mark Steenhuis throw their sticks in the air or flip them behind their back before scoring. Coolest shot wins, even if it doesn't go in.
• How about a lap dance competi- um, never mind.

Bye Bye Bell

During a recent conversation at work, a colleague (John) mentioned that his phone bills are usually under $10/month. I thought about our $60+ phone bills (not including mobile) and asked how on earth that was possible. He said that he uses VOIP and not only does he pay almost nothing, but he gets more features than Bell supplies. Again I asked how, and he pointed me at voip.ms. After a little research, I decided to try it out. It's working now, but getting everything working was far from simple.

VOIP, for those of you who don't know, is short for Voice Over IP, which basically means your telephone service is provided over your internet connection. As long as you have broadband always-on internet service, you can use it to provide telephone service as well. In my case, I pay $1.99 per phone number and then 0.5¢ per minute per call (both incoming and outgoing). Note that there are no long distance charges, so a call to friends around the corner costs the same as calling the other side of the country – but a one-hour call costs all of 30¢.

To make this work, I first needed to sign up for a voip.ms account. This was free and very easy. Then you need something to convert your phone signals into internet traffic; in my case I bought an analog telephone adapter (ATA) from Linksys. My research for this purchase was not exactly extensive – it consisted entirely of asking John which one he bought, and then buying the same one. I plugged the device into my router and then plugged a phone into the adapter. Guess what? No dial tone. This made sense, since I hadn't told the adapter how to get to the voip.ms server, nor did it have a phone number for me to use, which means that I have some configuring to do.

(Attention technophobes – you might want to skip this paragraph.) The adapter supports both a web interface and a phone interface. The phone interface is minimal and cumbersome - I had to pick up the phone and dial * four times and that gave me a voice menu. The menu options (not many of them) are listed in the manual and everything seemed very cryptic. Luckily there is also a web-based interface, which would make life a lot easier, but getting that enabled was a bit of work as well. The adapter had already been assigned an IP address by DHCP, but to get the VOIP stuff working, I had to open ports in the firewall which requires a static IP address. I entered a key sequence to disable DHCP and another to assign a static IP address, and then another to enable the web interface. Then I hung up and went to the IP address in a browser. Success! Now I could modify all the settings. Except that there were a zillion different settings, each with meaningless (to me) acronyms, and I didn't know what the settings were supposed to be.

The web interface was orders of magnitude easier than the phone interface, but even so, you'd be lost without a good knowledge of telephony terminology. Unfortunately, I don't have such knowledge. I eventually found a description of how to configure my particular device on the voip.ms page. Once that was done, things should have worked, in theory. To test it out, I ordered a new phone number (what they call a "DID") from voip.ms, which cost me $1.99 / month. It gave me a Waterdown number (area code 289) instantly, and I was able to make outgoing calls. Incoming calls required a little more configuration but with more help from John, I soon had that working. I then started the process of moving my existing phone number over from Bell, and a week and $25 later, that was done. I cancelled the temporary number, physically disconnected the Bell line, and away we went.

Cool options available with voip.ms:

• You can set the name and number for call display. For example, when I call someone, I can set it so that their phone displays 867-5309 and "Jenny".
• I get emailed every time someone leaves a voicemail. A .wav file is attached containing the message. When I dial the number to get my voicemail from home, I don't need to enter a PIN.
• I can set up a dialing rule so that I don't need to dial '905' for local calls.
• If there is no answer (after a time period that I choose), I can:
  • go to voicemail
  • forward the call to another number (for example, my cell phone)
  • play a recording
  • give a busy signal
  • hang up
  • give a "this number is not in service" message
  • give a "this number has been disconnected" message
  • do nothing
• If the line is busy, I can choose any of the above options as well, and it doesn't have to be the same as if there's no answer.
• I can set up any number of phone numbers that all ring on my phone. These numbers can be anywhere in North America, and it would be a local call for people there. For example, I can set up a phone number in Huntsville (for $1.99/month) that my parents and Gail's dad could call locally, and it would ring here. Nobody would pay long distance for that call.
• I can have the ring sound different depending on who's calling or what number they dialled. In theory. John tried this, however, and couldn't get it to work.
• I can add numbers into my local address book for speed dial on any phone. If they call me, I can set the name that's displayed. This is handy, for example, because our cell phones always show up as "Unknown name" and the boys don't answer the phone unless they recognize the name. (They haven't memorized our cell numbers yet.) So I added our numbers to the address book and now my cell comes up as "Graeme cell".
• I can set up multiple mailboxes and a "digital receptionist". For example, I can say "Press 1 to leave a message for Graeme, 2 for Gail, 3 for Ryan, and 4 for Nicky".
• I can put calls into a calling queue, complete with hold music. "Your call is important to us, and is being held in priority sequence. Please hold for the first available Perrow family member."
• I can set up a "ring group" so that when a call comes in, both my home phone and my cell phone ring, and the first one to answer get it.
• I can make rules for specific numbers, so that telemarketers get the "This number has been disconnected" message, or some go straight to voicemail without ringing the phone.
• I can do almost anything above differently based on time of day. For example, I could say that between 11pm and 7am, only ring twice before going to voicemail, otherwise ring 5 times.
• I can get a complete list of every incoming and outgoing call, and how long it was. There are a number of graphs available, showing things like call lengths and total cost.
• 911 works, although it does not automatically forward our street address to the 911 operator. It also costs $1.99 / month extra.
• Other than 911, all of the above options are free included in the price.

Drawbacks:

• The 911 thing I mentioned. It works, but we have to tell the operator our address. Not a big deal.
• No call waiting, but I don't care. We didn't have it for many years and only added it recently. I don't remember why we even added it - we usually just let the second call go to voicemail.
• If we're doing a lot of internet stuff, like the boys are watching YouTube videos or I'm watching a lacrosse game, call quality could drop. John said he's noticed this a few times but not often.

As I said, it was non-trivial to get everything set up, and the ATA device cost about $60, and moving the phone number cost $25. But if I end up with $10 monthly phone bills rather than $60+, those extra costs get covered pretty quickly. We've only been live for four days, but I have not noticed any drop in voice quality. And if nothing else, damn it's cool.

Real men wear pink

Game Review: Toronto 15 Philadelphia 10

I'm pretty sure Calgary used that "Real men wear pink" line a few years ago when they had their pink jerseys, but it's worth repeating. The Toronto Rock had their Black Out for Breast Cancer night at the ACC tonight, and wore their awesome black jerseys and bright pink helmets. A couple of the players even had pink string in the lacrosse sticks. This is an annual event that the Rock have done for a number of years, where fans can bid on the jersey of their favourite player, and the highest bidder gets to go onto the field after the game and get the actual jersey worn by that player. All the money raised (over $12,000) goes towards breast cancer research at Sunnybrook Hospital, and as the son, son-in-law, and grandson-in-law of three breast cancer survivors, I cannot think of a more worthy cause.

Anyway, the first-place Rock hosted the last-place (in the East) Philadelphia Wings tonight and beat them 15-10, but don't let the final score fool you – the game was closer than that score might indicate. The Wings didn't look to me like a last place team on this night, though it seemed to be a bit of a backwards night for them. It seems unusual for a team that's 4-5 to have a goalie starting the All-Star game, but that's exactly what Brandon Miller did. He's been a bright spot for Philly in an otherwise unremarkable season, but he looked downright ordinary tonight. He wasn't terrible but he did allow all 15 goals on only 46 shots. Bob Watson had another good performance in goal for the Rock, saving 40 of 50 Philadelphia shots. Both goalies made their share of great saves but each let in a few softies as well. Considering these were the two goalies in the East chosen for the All-Star game, you might have expected a better goaltending display tonight, but alas, it was not to be.

That said, defense was the name of the game early on, as the teams took turns stifling the other's scorers. Pat Maddalena scored his first of the season six minutes in and Blaine Manning followed with another less than thirty seconds later. Shortly after that, Paul Dawson managed to get a breakaway but ran too far and didn't shoot until he was actually in the crease. Watson made the stop, but Dawson kept going and fell into Watson, making completely avoidable contact with the goalie. That's a no-no, and the ref sent Dawson to his room without supper and told him to think about what you've done, mister. Garrett Billings scored on the PP to put the Rock up 3-0, but Alex Turner scored his first of two on a one-timer after a beautiful feed from a falling Drew Westervelt, and the first quarter ended with only four goals. Philly opened the second by scoring just 33 seconds in, before the Rock scored another three unanswered goals. Philly did not give up and scored three of their own sandwiched around another Billings goal to put the halftime score at 7-5. Philly's last goal of the second was a very nice play by tough guy Paul Dawson.

Just like they did in the second, Philly opened the scoring early in the third, with Athan Iannucci scoring his second of the night just 26 seconds in. Both teams traded goals until Matt Alrich silenced the Toronto crowd with a bullet over Bob Watson's left shoulder to tie the game at 9. The game was tied for almost five minutes before 18-year-old rookie Rob Hellyer, playing in his first NLL game, scored his first goal - and what a goal it was. Hellyer broke towards the net from the left side, had the ball knocked out of his stick by Bill McGlone (who would have been given a holding call on the play if Hellyer hadn't scored – the ref's arm was already up), but recovered the ball and threw it back over his shoulder and past Miller. Not only was it an amazing effort and goal, but it turned out to be the winning goal, as it put the Rock up 10-9, a lead which they would not relinquish.

In the fourth, it was the Rock who opened the scoring early, as Sandy Chapman scored 11 seconds in. The Wings seemed to run out of gas in the fourth, only scoring one goal while the Rock added another four. Toronto extended its home winning streak to 6 games this year, and nine going back to last year. The last time the Rock lost at home was an 11-10 OT loss to the Bandits on March 12 last year. They have the next two weeks off while the Wings travel to Calgary to play the Roughnecks tomorrow night.

Other notes:

• There were a bunch of really nice goals tonight by both teams. Both of Alex Turner's were one-timers – kind of the alley-oop of lacrosse – and he missed on a third. Dawson had a nice one as I mentioned, Iannucci had a couple, and Hellyer's was awesome.
• Pat Maddalena has put the ball in the net four times this season. Three of them have been challenged, and two of those resulted in disallowed goals.
• As soon as Rob Hellyer scored his first-ever NLL goal, Pat Maddalena ran to the ref to grab the game ball for him. Classy.
• Stephen Hoar had a shorthanded breakaway. Awesome.
• Athan Iannucci is a very good lacrosse player. Yup, you heard it here first, folks. I'm still not sure he's back to the level he was at during the 2008 season, but even if he's 80% of that guy, that's still pretty damned good. He had a ton of shots and four very nice goals.

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