The Toronto Rock are the 2011 NLL Champions

(Originally posted on The NLL Blog)

The ending to Bob Watson's incredible NLL career couldn't have been scripted any better. Not only did he win his sixth championship with the Toronto Rock after an 8-7 victory over the Washington Stealth, but he was named game MVP for the second time in his career. And this was no "it's his last game, let's just give him the game MVP" thing, he deserved that puppy. Watson put on a goaltending clinic in his last-ever game, stopping 46 of 53 shots and keeping the most potent offense in the league to just 7 goals. Tyler Richards played a great game in the opposing goal, keeping the third-most potent offense in the league to only 8 goals, and only one in the entire second half. This was a strong defensive battle on both sides, especially considering the offensive firepower of both of these teams.

Rookie defender Glen Bryan of the Rock opened the scoring less than two minutes into the game, thereby doubling his career goals total. Cliff Smith answered a few minutes later, with a weak shot that went over Watson's right shoulder. Watson looked quite awkward on the play, but then he and the Rock defense shut the door, not allowing another goal until twelve minutes into the second quarter. "The defense was Rock-solid!" said my eleven-year-old son Ryan, very proud of his pun. Both teams played excellent defense as I said, and many of the 50+ shots taken by each team either hit the goalie square in the chest, or occurred with a second left on the shot clock.

The Rock D kept the pressure on the entire first half, and the Stealth forwards started to make mistakes when they realized their game plan wasn't working. When the Stealth did manage to get a decent shot off, Watson closed the door. Lewis Ratcliff was denied on one of Watson's brilliant saves and when the ball ricocheted into the crowd, Ratcliff simply stopped and looked at the floor, frustration written all over his body.

On Teddy Jenner's Off-The-Crossebar podcast last week, Rhys Duch said that they couldn't afford to let the Rock get off to a big lead early: "If we're going to spot Toronto a 5-1 lead like we did Minnesota, that's a hole we might not be able to dig ourselves out of". Duch was more accurate with that statement that he likely wanted to be. The Rock led 6-1 late in the second and 7-2 at the half. In Stephen Stamp's live blog of the game, he even used the word "blowout". That said however, everyone in both the Rock and Stealth dressing rooms (and I suspect many fans in the building) remembers the seven goals the Stealth scored in the 4th quarter of last year's final on their way to a comeback victory. At halftime, despite the five goal differential, nobody thinks this game is over.

The second half was more of the same at the Rock's end of the floor. Solid defense, frustrated Washington offense, and brilliant goaltending. The Stealth did start to put things together though, scoring two in the third and three in the fourth to get back to within one – while at the other end of the floor, Tyler Richards was more than doing his part and making his own bid for game MVP, keeping the Rock scoreless in the third and only allowing one in the fourth. As the Stealth slowly climbed their way back into the game, the crowd got quieter and quieter, praying they weren't about to witness a repeat of last year. But as Whipper and the D continued to stone the Stealth forwards, the clock continued to wind down.

As an aside, "Whipper and the D" would be a good name for a rock band.

The Stealth got within one at 7-6, then Stephan Leblanc put the Rock up by two once again. But just thirteen seconds later, Paul Rabil got the Stealth back to within one with an absolutely blistering shot. Rabil was circling around the offensive zone when there was only a second or two left on the shot clock. He turned towards the net and fired, while still running, what might have been the hardest shot I've ever seen. The shot hit Watson so hard it knocked him down and then trickled underneath him across the line. An unbelievable goal. Rabil's shot has been clocked at over 110 mph, so for all of you who laugh at the amount of padding lacrosse goalies wear, that's why.

In the end, despite the strong play of Richards as well as Paul Rabil, Mike Grimes, and the Stealth D, the offense just couldn't get it done. When Cam Woods picked up a loose ball with 15 seconds left, he did not shoot at the open net but just burned the clock until the horn sounded, and then joined his teammates in mobbing Watson.

Once the handshakes had been done, many of the Stealth players remained on the floor to watch the Cup presentation ceremony, and even applauded when Bob Watson approached the podium. They were given a well-deserved ovation by the crowd after a strong season and a great game. It was no surprise that Watson was named game MVP, as he was in 2002. There was really nobody else that could have been game MVP – the Rock played very well as a team but nobody other than Watson really stood out. (If I had to choose second-place, I might go with Kasey Beirnes.) After Watson thanked Commissioner George Daniel and the crowd, Daniel told Colin Doyle to come up for the presentation of the Champion's Cup, but Doyle sent veterans Cam Woods and Kasey Beirnes up to get it. (Daniel later tweeted "Colin threw me a curve ball with that classy move...") Woods and Biernes had each played ten-plus years in the NLL with no championships, so this was indeed a classy move by Doyle, a six-time Champion. After Biernes gave Doyle the Cup, he gave it to Watson, who got the biggest ovation of all.

The Rock are now tied with the Philadelphia Wings with six championships each. But if you only consider the NLL itself (not the MILL or Eagle Pro leagues), the Rock have won three times as many championships as anyone else, since no other team has won more than two since 1998.

After the game, a bunch of us went for dinner at Fran's Restaurant. On our way back to Union Station to catch the train home, we were crossing Yonge at Front when we heard someone yelling "Yeah Rock! Wooooooooooo!" (Note that this was close to three hours after the game ended.) An SUV drove by (going south on Yonge) with the windows down – they must have seen a few of us with our Rock jerseys. I didn't see the driver, but there was a smiling man in the front seat, and another very excited man in the back seat with his head and right arm out the window who was waving at us and still yelling "Wooooooo!" We laughed and waved as Troy Cordingley (in the back) and John Lovell (in the front) continued on their way to the next victory party.

Other game notes:

• Paul Rabil was all over the floor, and did a great job killing time while the Stealth were down by two men.
• The refs stayed out of it for the most part – no really stupid penalties were called, though I think one ref made a big mistake at the end of the first quarter that could have caused a severe injury to Kyle Sorensen and may result in a suspension to Kyle Ross. I'm going to write about that in a separate posting.
• The Rock were hitting posts and crossbars all over the place. Kasey Beirnes took a shot in the second quarter that hit the right post, the left post, and Richards' back but it still managed to bounce out.
• If you recorded the game or get a chance to see it on the NLL network, go to the 11:05 mark of the second quarter (i.e. 11:05 left in the quarter). You will see Bob Watson make one of the best lacrosse saves you will ever see. As Stephen Stamp said, "He doesn’t look like a man who's half a game away from retiring."
• The Stealth were given an interesting too-many-men penalty in the first quarter. Usually "too many men" refers to a player leaving the bench just a little early and getting involved in the play before his counterpart leaves the floor. In this case, the Stealth actually had six attackers out on the floor, none of them within twenty feet of the bench. Oops. The crowd noticed this long before the refs did, and a number of people near me were yelling "too many men!" before the whistle was blown.
• The Rock have really gotten into this Air Gait thing lately. For a while they were illegal, and then the rules were changed a couple of years ago. Since then they have been fairly rare, but in the last few Rock games, there have been several attempts (many successful!) at these leaps from behind the net. There was another attempt by Colin Doyle in this game, though it was disallowed because Doyle was touching the line when he jumped. Actually, since the goal was immediately waved off and there was a review, it's more accurate to say that there was no evidence that he wasn't touching the line.
• Creighton Reid was given a goaltender interference penalty in the third, which you could describe as "two minutes for not knowing what to do when you're in the offensive zone". He took a shot which was trapped on the ground by Richards, but then he hit Richards' stick with his own. As soon as he did it, he had this look like "Oh crap, I don't think you can do that." But how often has Reid even seen the other side of the centre line? I'm sure he'll remember next time.
• Garrett Billings scored a beautiful over-the-shoulder goal near the end of the second. While standing slightly to Richards' left with his back to the goalie, he looked over his left shoulder and then fired the shot over his right.
• The attendance at the game was 14,488. I was sure I read on Twitter through the week that over 15,000 tickets had been sold, and the last time a Championship game was held in Toronto, an NLL record was set when over 19,000 showed up. From those points of view, the attendance was a little disappointing, but I think it was also the highest attended game in Toronto in several years, so that's certainly a good thing. Hopefully that carries over into next season.
• In the Rock's six championships, they have only had three Championship Game MVPs – Doyle won it three times and Whipper twice. The other winner was also in attendance – Stealth assistant coach Dan Stroup won it in 2000. Watson and Doyle are two of only three players who have won the award more than once – Philadelphia legend Dallas Eliuk won it in 1998 and 2001.
• Interesting stat: Number of League MVP awards won by Gary Gait, Paul Gait, and John Tavares combined: 10. Number of Championship Game MVP awards: 0.

Our American Cousins

We went to Sault Ste. Marie (Ontario) this past weekend, and drove up through Michigan to get there. Now, it's not like I've never been to the US before, in fact I've been countless times. I've visited about half of the 50 states. At my last job (1994-1997), I traveled to Boston a couple of times a month for three years. I've also travelled on business to San Francisco (twice), Naples Florida, Washington DC, Baltimore (3 times), and New York City. I lived in Redmond, Washington for four months back in 1991. I live less than an hour's drive from the border at Niagara Falls, and even closer to Queenston/Lewiston. I even have a US Social Security number, though I have no idea what it is or where my card is.

Canadian and US culture is unquestionably similar, but there are a few differences (some subtle and some less so) that a seasoned traveler will notice. Here are some examples of the roadside signs and billboards we saw during our trip that you would not see in Canada:

• Bail bonds
• Fishing line (priced by the yard) – not that we don't have fishermen in Canada, but I've never seen ads like this
• Crossbows
• "Guns Galore" and "Gun sights and outfitters" – though there was a gun show in the Sault (Canadian side!) while we were there
• Bob Evans, Stuckey's, Cracker Barrel (never had these in Canada)
• Big Boy, Ponderosa (used to have these in Canada – why don't we anymore?)
• "Entering prison area. Do not pick up hitchhikers"
• Ads for health insurance
• One billboard was entirely in Spanish. This wouldn't surprise me in California, New Mexico, Texas, or Arizona... OK, maybe it would in Arizona. But in central Michigan?
• The Marines
• poopycredit.com – containing the slogan "Does your credit stink?"  This is a real web site, though one of the worst commercial sites I've seen. There are only six links on the site – two of them bump you off to different sites. Contact Us gives a "page not found" error, Privacy gives a document with multiple font sizes that looks like it was cut-and-pasted with no formatting, Additional Forms gives a very badly formatted form with a zillion fields, and I don't know about Video. I am not going to click on a link marked "Video" on any site with the word "poopy" in the title.

Please note that this is not a criticism, just an observation. In particular, I like the Marines billboards, and I'd love to see more billboards in Canada regarding the Canadian Forces – I like the "Fight with the Canadian Forces" ads that have come out recently.

Blackout!

(Originally posted on The NLL Blog)

I travelled with my wife and sons to Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario this past weekend for a family thing, which meant that I wasn't able to travel to Buffalo to see the Toronto Rock's victory over the Buffalo Bandits. I knew the game was being televised on TSN2, so I was hopeful that I would be able to watch it at the hotel. I checked in advance and the hotel did have free wifi, so worst case, the hotel doesn't get TSN2 but I'll be able to stream the game over the internet, right? Wrong.

When we arrived at the hotel, one of the first things I did was to check to see if they got TSN2. No such luck. We went about our family stuff and after dinner on Saturday, we returned to the hotel where I planned on firing up the ol' laptop to watch the game. I connected to nll.com, clicked "Watch Live" as I have done so many times this season, and waited in anticipation to see the score, since we had missed the first quarter. The game came up, I saw a score of 6-4 Rock, and a second later the screen went blank. A message came up saying something like "The content owner has blocked access from your current location, you LOSER", and it was then I remembered the whole blackout thing. When Rock games are televised on TSN or TSN2, they are generally blacked out in Canada on the NLL Network. I have never really paid much attention to this before, since I am at the home games, and I watch the away games on TV. This time, I'm over nine hours away from HSBC Arena and I can't watch on TV, so the internet is the only option.

I ended up "watching" the game by bringing up the boxscore from NLL.com and hitting Ctrl-R now and again to refresh it. This was less than satisfying so I tweeted NLL Commissioner George Daniel asking why. To his credit, he responded quickly. Here is our short conversation:

@GraemePerrow: . @NLLCommissioner Why is the Toronto/Buffalo game blacked out on NLL.com? It's impossible for me to watch the game any other way

@NLLCommissioner: @GraemePerrow should have only been blacked out if you are in Canada because game was on TSN2

@GraemePerrow: @NLLCommissioner I'm in Sault Ste. Marie ON, in a hotel on the river. I could throw a rock and hit Michigan. My hotel doesn't get TSN2

@NLLCommissioner: @GraemePerrow sorry about that but we did publish the blackout in advance on nll.com.

Mr. Daniel was absolutely right, they did publish the blackout in advance, I just didn't pay attention to it. And the fact that my hotel was a few hundred feet from the American border was irrelevant – they have to draw the line somewhere, and if you're on the wrong side of that line, too bad. (OK, so maybe I couldn't throw a rock from the hotel and hit Michigan. But if I walked down towards the water a little, I could definitely hit the cut-off man.) I suppose I could have driven across the border to Sault Michigan, found a Starbucks with free wifi, and watched the game from there.

But Andrew McKay from The Laxist also chimed in, saying "IMO, shouldn't be blacking out game that's on an opt-in digital channel." But he quickly changed his mind: "actrually [sic] I take it back. Agreement makes sense because TSN does move games to main channel." I was a little disappointed that Andrew had pulled his support for my predicament, and we had the following exchange:

@GraemePerrow: @apmckay IF they move it to the main channel, fine, but otherwise it shouldn't be blacked out

@apmckay: @GraemePerrow yeah but I can see signing blackout rights in return for main channel possibility.

There it is. That's the thing that made me change my mind and see reason. The NLL must have negotiated a deal with TSN that says "All games televised will be blacked out in Canada. In return, the occasional game will be televised on TSN rather than TSN2." I believe that Rock owner Jamie Dawick paid TSN to televise Rock games during the regular season, so I don't know how the regular season blackouts worked. But I did confirm with Mr. Daniel (again, via twitter) that the Championship game rights were negotiated with the league, not the Rock. I would assume that deal included all the playoff series.

So yes, it sucked that I couldn't watch the Rock-Bandits game last weekend, especially since it sounds like it was a great game. (On the upside, I did get to visit the Canadian Bushplane Heritage Centre, which is much more interesting than it sounds.) But in the end, having lacrosse televised (even occasionally) on the most-watched sports network in Canada is worth a little inconvenience.

The Transition Player That Wasn't

Last week, Calgary's Jeff Shattler was awarded the 2011 Transition Player of the Year award. There is no question that Shattler had a great season, and I would even list him in the top few MVP candidates. I congratulate him both on his season and this award. But Shattler wasn't a transition player for most of 2011, he was a forward, a significant part of the Roughnecks offense.

According to ILIndoor.com (a couple of typos left intact):

...apparently as long as a player is classified with a “T” by their name (which is done by the team, not league), they can be a contender for the NLL’s Transition Player of the Year Award. Andyone with D or F by their name (defender or forward), no matter what role they appear to be playing during the season, cannot be considered for the honour.

So Shattler was considered a transition player by the league because Calgary listed him as one at the beginning of the season, regardless of how he was actually used. This is silly. Surely the GMs and coaches and whoever else votes on these awards are lacrosse-savvy enough to be able to distinguish which players should be considered based on their play, not based on a letter on the roster list?

If you look at the Toronto Rock roster on nll.com, the only person listed with a "T" by their name is Ryan Sharp, who missed most of the year. Does this mean that nobody on the Rock was even considered for this award? I don't think anyone on the Rock had a Transition Player of the Year type season quite honestly, but to completely disqualify players like Marshall and Chapman and Merrill because the Rock listed them as defenders is silly and unfair.

Whether a player is a "defender" or "transition player" is hard to nail down. Many transition players play a lot of defense as well, and some defenders are involved in transition while others aren't. But as I said, the people voting on the NLL awards know lacrosse. They don't need to be told that Brodie Merrill is a transition guy while Cam Woods is not. They are not going to vote for Colin Doyle for Defender of the Year, and they don't need to look to see if there's a D beside his name to make that decision. Having said that, enough of them did vote for Shattler which is why he got the award. Can't say I understand that.

There were a couple of travesties in the NLL awards this year – Dave Pym should have been a lock for Coach of the Year, and Matt Vinc had a very good season but Mike Thompson's was better. Many people are disagreeing with the choice of Pat McCready as Defensive Player of the Year. No disrespect to Shattler intended, but the league got this one wrong as well.

Expanded playoffs in MLB

I read an article in Sports Illustrated by a baseball writer named Joe Sheehan the other day, and after finishing it, I couldn't get to the computer to fire up my blog-writing software fast enough. The article was called "More is Less", and had the following subtitle:

Miss pennant races? Think the regular season should matter? Then an expanded postseason isn't for you.

I was halfway through the first paragraph of the article before I realized that I read what I expected to read, not what was actually there. It said "an expanded postseason isn't for you". I can't imagine how an expanded postseason isn't better for everyone.

Sheehan says that adding an extra wild-card team to the playoffs will "finally destroy any notion that regular-season excellence matters". He illustrates his point with a scenario in which the winner of the second wild-card spot (Team A, in fifth place) has a big lead over the sixth place team and therefore "cruises" into the playoffs, allowing them to rest their starters during the last few games of the season, while the fourth place team (Team B) finishes hard because they're trying to win their division and just fall short. This means that the Team B, who finished ahead of Team A potentially by "10 or 12 games", needs to play a well-rested Team A in the first round and the team that finished lower in the regular season could end up winning that series. I'm not saying that this scenario is not possible, of course it is. But that's what we sports fans call "The Playoffs". I suppose Mr. Sheehan thinks that the fact that the President's Trophy winner rarely wins the Stanley Cup the same year is a failing of the NHL.

The thing is that this scenario could happen even without the wild cards. Say we're back in the days when there was just two divisions in each league, and the winners face off in the League Championship Series. Now say the winner of the weaker East had a 90-72 record but clinched the division with a week left in the season, and the winner of the stronger West finished at 100-62 but didn't clinch over the second-place 99-63 team until the last day. The team with the worse record is well rested and has a big advantage over the exhausted team with the better record.

I hate to tell you this, Mr. Sheehan, but the regular season is the seeding process for the playoffs. Ask any baseball player which they would rather do – have the best record in the regular season, or win the World Series? Any athlete in any sport will tell you that winning the regular season title is meaningless if they don't win the Championship.

Mr. Sheehan came up with a theoretical scenario in which expanding the postseason might negatively affect a team in a particular situation (note that the team that was affected in his scenario did make the playoffs, so a lot of teams might think that's a pretty nice problem to have). But let's look at a real-life scenario – the 2009 American League. On September 1st, the Yankees, Tigers, and Angels were leading their divisions. The Red Sox were 6½ games back in the East (and leading in the wild card race), the Twins were 3½ games back in the Central, and the Rangers were 6 back in the West. None of the races is over, but if there is no wild card spot, the East and West are much less compelling. 6 or 6½ games out with a month left to go is certainly not insurmountable, but even if Boston sweeps a four-game series against New York, they're still 2 back, so a lot would have to happen for the Red Sox to make the playoffs. The Rangers are in the same situation in the west, but nobody else really has a chance in either of those divisions. With a wild card spot, the Red Sox make the playoffs, and Texas and Tampa are only 4 and 5 games out respectively. Right away, you can see that having a wild card race means that excitement in these cities would be much higher – excitement not only for the fans, but for the players as well. More excitement for fans means higher attendance and more TV viewers, which is good for ownership and for baseball in general. More excitement for players means harder-played and likely more exciting games, which further increases fan interest. And that's not just fans in those cities – fans of the other front-running teams will be watching more to see the team they might face in the postseason. I don't see how adding the wild card spot is bad for anyone.

With a second wild card spot, there's still excitement in Boston but now if things stay the same, Texas will make also  the postseason and Tampa is only one game out. The Mariners are 9 games out of the first wild card spot, but only 5 out of the second. More exciting games, more excited fans in more cities, more TV viewers. Once again, everybody wins. Winning the division is still valuable – you make the playoffs and have home field advantage while playing a weaker team.

This doesn't turn MLB into the NHL, where teams barely over .500 make the playoffs (the 2009 Canadiens were 39-33-10) , or even worse – the NBA, where the 37-45 Pacers made the 2011 playoffs. (Of course, I'm a fan of the National Lacrosse League where 80% of the league makes the playoffs, including the 5-11 Minnesota Swarm in 2010. But I digress.) Even with a second wild card spot, only the top five teams in each league (out of 14 or 16) see postseason action.

It is, and should be, possible for a team to lose in the playoffs to a team below them in the regular-season standings. In Mr. Sheehan's view, this makes the regular season meaningless. But what if there were no wild card spot in the 2009 season? The Yankees get a bye (fans love those, don't they? They get to watch their team play fewer playoffs games) while the Twins and Angels play each other. But what if the Twins take out the Angels and then the Yankees? It certainly could happen – weirder things than that have. The Yankees won sixteen more games than the Twins in the regular season but don't go to the World Series. Doesn't this also make the regular season meaningless?

I am a Blue Jays fan, and the Jays haven't played a really meaningful game in September for well over a decade, and this is true for many other teams as well. Maybe the entire regular season isn't meaningless but the last month or so is, for the vast majority of teams. Adding an extra wild card team in each league means that some of these teams have a better chance of making the postseason. They may not be in a Pennant race, but they will be in a playoff race, and for teams that haven't been in an actual Pennant race in years, that's almost as good. September will be more compelling and exciting and therefore meaningful for these teams. Isn't making the regular season meaningful something that you're trying to accomplish?

So Mr. Sheehan, if you want to make sure that the regular season is really meaningful, you'd need to eliminate the divisions entirely and just have the first-place AL team play the first-place NL team in the World Series. The W-L records can't be compared because they play with different rules and against different teams, and so there's none of this worse-record-beats-better-record stuff that you don't like. But you tell the owners that you're reducing the post-season from eight teams and three rounds to two teams and a maximum of seven games and see how they welcome this dramatic drop in playoff revenue. You tell the fans of the fourth- and fifth-place teams that the fact that they didn't make the playoffs is somehow good for baseball. This scheme may be better for the ultra-purists, but not for anyone else.

Game Review: Toronto 10 Rochester 8

The Toronto Rock moved one game closer to the Championship game on Sunday with a 10-8 win over the Rochester Knighthawks. Bob Watson, in what might have been his last-ever game in Toronto (only one of the four possible outcomes of next week's games means another Rock home game), was great but Toronto's defense was even better, only allowing 41 Rochester shots and keeping the Knighthawks scoreless for over 30 minutes from the first through the third quarters. The offense seems to have overcome the problems they had in the last few games of the season, though there were still a few situations that looked like a drill where the idea was to pass as much as possible and not shoot at all. Shawn Evans, Jordan Hall, and Mike Accursi each had 2 goals for Rochester, while Garrett Billings and Colin Doyle each had hat-tricks for the Rock.

The Knighthawks took an early lead but down 3-1 after ten minutes, the Rock scored seven straight goals to take an 8-3 lead. The first was a beauty by Colin Doyle, diving from behind the net to stuff the ball in behind Vinc in a mirror-image of a Tracey Kelusky goal against Boston the night before. Rochester didn't score their fourth goal until ten minutes into the third, but then scored four in the 4th to make it close. One of those four included a rare penalty shot, scored by Jordan Hall after a Rock defender left the bench a touch early when Hall was on a breakaway.

The game was a fairly typical Toronto-Rochester matchup, a close game with no fights and not much chippiness. Somehow Shawn Evans was not aware of this, and seemed to think that more chippiness was just what this game needed. At one point Evans (5'9", 180 lbs) got into a pushing match with Jeff Gilbert (6'4", 215 lbs) and even managed to take Gilbert's helmet off, but Gilbert just stood his ground and didn't retaliate or let it develop into a full-blown fight. I'm not sure he even knew there was someone hitting him, actually. In the end, nobody was even penalized. There weren't that many penalties called at all, actually; I thought the refs did a pretty decent job for the most part, though there was one "warding off" call early in the game – that happens all the time, but when is it ever called?

Toronto's third goal was scored by Aaron Pascas, and I don't think the ref had brought his arms down from signalling the goal before Mike Hasen had thrown the challenge flag. It looked pretty cut-and-dried to me – Pascas shot the ball, Vinc got a piece of it, Pascas ran through the crease, and then the ball crossed the line. Pascas was definitely in and through the crease before the ball went in, so I thought it was a no-brainer – no goal. So when the ref came out of the video booth and signalled that the goal was good, we (as Rock fans) were pleased but thoroughly confused. It turns out that if the player goes into and gets out of the crease before the ball goes in, the goal counts. This makes no sense to me, but I'll take it. Pascas later left the game on a painful note – in the 4th quarter, a Knighthawks player fell on him in the Rochester crease and after the Knighthawk got up and ran off, Pascas half-crawled half-dragged himself through the crease, in obvious pain. The Rock trainer went out and after a few minutes, Pascas was helped off the floor, making sure to put no weight at all on his left leg. It didn't look good, but according to TSN, Pascas should be ready to go for next week's game.

Note to Rock promotional staff: it was nice to give the white "rally towels" to everyone, but you are aware of the phrase "waving the white flag" and what it signifies, right? Or "throwing in the towel"? That said, seeing ten thousand people spinning them around at the same time was pretty cool.

The Rock travel down the QEW to Buffalo to meet the Bandits in the Eastern division final next Saturday. The game is televised on Versus on Sunday afternoon, for those of you who get Versus (i.e. not Canadians). The winner of that game makes it to the Championship game – the winner either travels to Calgary or hosts Washington.

Cloud computing is like groovy, man

I downloaded a package from sourceforge.net this morning and saw an advertisement for a whitepaper from IBM on cloud computing. This line in the ad intrigued me:

I wonder what kinds of cloud computing initiatives IBM was working on in 1971, when TCP/IP (the protocol used by the internet) hadn't been invented yet?

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.