Two teams, both 13-5, both undefeated at home, something had to give right? Well, not just yet. In two tight games, both the Bandits and Rush took a home win this past weekend and will now head for a winner-take-all showdown in Buffalo this coming Saturday.
As soon as the Rush won Saturday night, I checked to see how much a flight to Buffalo would cost. It was doubtful I could go, the soccer team I coach is in a tournament this weekend. But after hearing stories from Bandits fans that plane tickets were upwards of $900 to $1100 USD out of Pearson to get to Saskatoon, I took a look, and it was $1,389 CAD ($1,007 USD) on Air Canada. That price plus a rental car, hotel and meals… yeah I’ll be coaching soccer this weekend.
It was interesting hearing a number of the travel stories. Keep in mind that flights couldn’t really be booked until the Rush defeated Halifax, so the race was on to see what seats remained on what flights to make the trip from Buffalo to Saskatoon. The two teams took the bus from Buffalo to Mississauga on Friday night. Team personnel came in Saturday evening. It was a mess as to who was on what flight, but luckily nobody’s flight was cancelled.
It was also nice to catch up with John Gurtler, Steve Bermel and Dave Buchanan on Saturday night. As much as we do chat or connect over social media from time to time, we don’t get to see one another that often. When you’re in the same city in those rare occurrences, you have to take advantage of it. Also, a nice touch for the Bandits to send their entire broadcast crew for the radio broadcast. It was also great to catch up with a number of Bandits fans that had made the trip into Saskatoon in the hopes the Bandits would end the series Sunday night.
It was also strange to walk out of a Rush game and its still sunlight out, a combination of the early start and the long summer days this part of the year. Its going to be even earlier this weekend with a 4:30pm Eastern start time for game 3. Its not an ideal game time for a number of reasons, but the key is to get the game on a major ESPN station to get maximum exposure. At least the game is not being moved to another city because the circus was in town or on a strange day of the week because the arena was rented out continuously for university convocations (yes those have actually happened).
So sit back, relax, and enjoy what should be a fantastic game 3. In the 3 head-to-head battles between these teams so far, every game was won by 2 or less.
Bandits Strike First
The game on Friday night started off with a bit of a surprise lineup. The Rush had scratched Mike Triolo and dressed Levi Anderson. From a statistics standpoint, this makes sense as Triolo only had one assist in three playoff games going into the finals. He had missed the second-to-last game of the regular season as well. On the flip side, the Rush simply play much better when they’re in a righty strong set, so sitting Triolo for Anderson forces a lefty strong set on most possessions. Triolo returned for Sunday night, and was held pointless once again, whereas Anderson had an early goal and an assist on Friday night, plus a critical goal that was called back on a Buffalo challenge late in the first half. Going into game three, it will be interesting to see what the plan is: play Triolo who is clearly struggling, play Anderson or call up Josh Zawada from the practice roster.
The game started off in perfect fashion for the Rush. Just 22 seconds in they scored the opener with Clark Walter left all alone of the top of the crease. Then it was Anderson who beat the Buffalo defense to the low lane and scores off a crease dive to put the Rush up two. This was a reoccurring theme for the Bandits defense in the opening 40 minutes. They were in a tough spot. When they pushed their defense out, the Rush used their speed to beat the Bandits low or inside. When the Bandits packed the defense in, the Rush were finding spots to fire on Vinc.
The Bandits would level things quickly with goals from Josh Byrne and Kyle Buchanan. But the early game was dominated by the Rush. They outshot the Bandits 16-7 in the first quarter and had the Bandits doubled up on shots at the half. The Bandits defense wasn’t getting to loose balls effectively.
The turning point in my mind comes with 9 minutes remaining in the 2nd quarter. Levi Anderson scores to what appears to be a 5-2 lead for the Rush. But on replay, the shot goes off the post, off Vinc and in, and Anderson steps in the crease just before the ball crosses the line. This challenge was crucial for the Bandits because a 3-goal Rush lead might have put the Bandits under in this game. Instead, Ian MacKay scores on the next possession to get the Bandits to within one and the Bandits go on a three-goal run to get the lead back. MacKay’s second quarter hat trick was the main offensive spark plug for the Bandits.
Even though the game was tied at 6 at the half, the Rush were the fresher team coming out of the half and had two goal leads at 8-6, 9-7 and 10-8, and then, the well turned dry.
For the first 40 minutes, Matt Vinc didn’t look like Matt Vinc. Shots you would expect to be saved went in. Mike Messenger’s goal just before half time from outside the restraining line was one of these that confused everyone at first. But when you look at the replay, you can’t blame Vinc too much here. Paul Dawson and Steve Priolo are providing a perfect screen for Messenger, including Dawson bringing his arms up which would have blocked the view of Messenger’s stick for Vinc. Regardless, it appeared for a while that this was turning into one of those occasional games where Vinc just has a stinker and you hate to be the next opponent as he’ll typically have one of the best games of his career. But instead, it was a bit of a stinker for 40 minutes, but not the full 60.
It became one of these games where the clock just kept ticking. It wasn’t just the Rush offense that went dry, so did the Bandits after a late third quarter 3 goal run gave the Bandits the lead. After all the goals leading into this, there wasn’t a goal from 3:24 remaining in the 3rd quarter until 12 seconds left. Both offenses were a little slower which made a huge difference. The defenses figured out what the plan of attack was and both goaltenders saw the ball better. And both teams were hitting the pipe on a regular basis. But it was one of those finishes where the clock ticked and ticked to the point where you all of a sudden realized there’s just two minutes remaining.
At the end of the game, the Bandits were perhaps a bit fortunate that the Rush offense ran out of gas early and the Rush were a bit fortunate that the Bandits offense couldn’t put things away. An empty netter on a deflection by Kyle Buchanan ended things at 12-10 for the Bandits. As to who the result was more crucial for, its tough to say. As I mentioned on Buffalo radio in the pre-game, I thought it was more critical for the Bandits to get the opening win because to head down to Sask down 0-1 would be trouble. But for the Rush, was this the opportunity to steal one on the road and they let it slip? We will find out on Saturday.
The Rush Strike Back
Game 2 started off as a carbon copy of game 1. The Rush get out to a quick 3-0 lead. The Bandits were outshot badly in the opening half. Jake Naso was dominating Connor Farrell early in the game. The only difference is that it took the Bandits until the early second quarter to even things up.
One mistake the Rush bench made early that could have cost them dearly later on was the second of their goal challenges. The first challenge was obvious enough from the initial replays in the arena that it probably wasn’t a good goal and ended up being a little closer than they thought. But the second challenge wasn’t as obvious and Quinlan told Keenan to throw the flag. Considering that the loss on that challenge meant you didn’t have one the rest of the way and had to rely on the refs getting it right, that’s not a good position to be in.
One of the turning points in this game was Jake Boudreau’s goal with 0.9 seconds remaining in the first half. Buffalo makes the initial mistake here by shooting too early, especially when the Rush don’t have a timeout. But the number of chaotic bounces this ball took to end up in Boudreau’s stick in front of the crease was a mini-miracle and getting the Rush even going to halftime was critical.
Then there was the Chase Fraser Bionda goal. He had been trying to score a highlight goal for most of the opening half. So to see him do it live, it was almost like you were expecting to see it. Maybe not a Bionda, but something similar. Most importantly, the amount of publicity a goal like that gets on non-lacrosse media outlets is nothing but good publicity for the league. According to Teddy Jenner, Fraser had been practicing this in the morning shoot around, but was trying to put the same shot through the referee’s hole in the glass.
Ultimately it was a 3-1 Rush fourth quarter that was the difference. The Rush’s youth and speed making the difference late in the game. I’m still confused as to why the Bandits put Vinc back in the goal with 35 seconds to go in the game. To expect a defensive stance and have enough time to run the floor and tie the game up is highly unlikely. Your odds are far better in my opinion to keep the goaltender pulled and force a turnover 5 on 6. But fittingly for this series, it was a Holden Garlent blocked shot that ended things.
One of the things the Rush definitely need to work on from game 2 was the number of multiple possessions they were giving up, especially in the second half. What was a dominant first half SOG performance by the Rush was quickly washed away because of the number of second and third possessions the Rush were giving up on defence. According to Ty Merrow, they surrendered 8 in the second half alone, and I don’t believe those included a few situations where the Bandits shot and missed early in the shot clock and the Rush couldn’t pick up an easy loose ball, giving the Bandits another shot within the original 30. The Rush were perhaps fortunate that on those 8 multi-possessions, the Bandits only scored once. Considering how long the Rush defense was on the floor in the third quarter, I was surprised that it was the Bandits that went on a 15-minute goalless streak through most of the 4th quarter.
If you’re asking me to predict a winner in game 3, I don’t think I can. These two teams have battled and battled through three games this season and its likely to come down to one player or one team’s extra effort on the right play at the right time that will ultimately decide things.
PLL vs NLL
Recently we have seen a number of Canadian PLL players being added to the holdout list. While this doesn’t apply to every player, the majority of them are making the decision to play summer box lacrosse.
A number of fans have taken a negative light to the PLL, seemingly blaming Paul Rabil for everything wrong with summer lacrosse. I think we need to take a breath here and take a look at realities.
A few years ago, the PLL took the stance that you were either playing strictly in the PLL in the summer or you weren’t, which made players decide between playing in the PLL or in the MSL/WLA. I don’t blame Rabil for taking this stance. With the amount of wear and tear lacrosse players’ bodies already go through, to play in two leagues at once increases the risk of a player sustaining a major injury. If you’re trying to market your league to multiple markets all at once, you want as many of your top players as possible to be playing, and not getting injured while you’re moonlighting in another league. This decision didn’t come without a painful loss for Rabil. His most visible player, Lyle Thompson, chose to play for the Six Nations Chiefs.
With the arms race that has started to develop this summer between Six Nations, Peterborough, Victoria and New Westminster, the amount of money being offered to players is on the rise which is contributing to the number of hold outs in the PLL. Also, in the MSL/WLA, you can still play post-season lacrosse if you play just a handful of games in the summer and you can play in the Mann Cup as long as you’re on the roster of the team in some form.
At first the departures from the PLL confused me because field lacrosse doesn’t put nearly the amount of stress on the body that box lacrosse does, so why would people leave for the MSL/WLA? Well, there is certainly less travel with summer box lacrosse. The pay could be better. Or it’s a situation where you only want to play a handful of games. Or just maybe, your desire to win a Mann Cup is that much greater.
Regardless of the reason, I’m shocked by the amount of distaste there is for the PLL north of the border. Yes, Rabil’s concept of calling it “pro lacrosse” instead of “pro field lacrosse” is upsetting to Canadians and NLL fans alike. The drop off in Canadian viewers should pinpoint this. But for me, it’s a different situation. Perhaps its because I learned to play field lacrosse long before I learned to play box lacrosse. But I’m one that will still turn on a PLL game anytime I have free time on a weekend and enjoy a top level lacrosse game, the same as I would turn on an OJLL game or a Six Nations Chiefs game on YouTube on a given night.
My biggest challenge this season will be finding a team to support. I have been a Chaos fan since the start of the league. In large part because of the number of Canadians the original team had and in part because of Andy Towers. Now there are almost no Canadians left for Chaos and Towers is gone as well. Time to support a new team? Perhaps.
But think about this for a moment, what would pro field lacrosse have looked like if Rabil hadn’t stepped up? A dying MLL that would probably be out of business by now anyways? I don’t agree with everything Rabil does and sometimes it angers me, but if I put the NLL or CLA to the same standard, yeah, the exact same thing happens there.
If you follow the concept of “growing the game”, then that includes the PLL as well as the NLL, MSL, WLA, college lacrosse, World Lacrosse, etc. If I’ve learned anything about this game, its that it can be its own worst enemy sometimes. If field lacrosse isn’t your thing, that’s okay. But don’t hate the PLL because of its owner. If wrestling fans did that, the WWE wouldn’t be in business. The talent level in the PLL is ridiculously high so enjoy it.
Until next time…
andy towers was a MILL guy. played for coached ron fraser & tony resch. he understood the culture of the canadians and american box laxers. new coach roy colsey was a rifle with the ny saints so its not like there is complete abandonment of the NLL attitude but given what 6 Nations & Victoria are capable of paying, why not? further, because the PLL has no home team, every game for every player is a road contest and they are all fly-ins. perhaps the high expense of flying boys from toronto or vancouver every week just got too high and maybe that was going to eat into their pay? but rabil always said that the players own a piece of the PLL. do the likes of josh byrne and dhane smith relinquish that equity? i love the PLL’s field dimensions. it’s very similar to a box set up and the chaos capitalized on it before anyone else. but i hate the two point shot. reward the two man play instead. and i have the rush winning it.