It's been quite a rush watching this series between two such evenly matched teams.
In game four, the Bellies outshot the Excels 56 to 37, winnng 8 to 7 in regulation play and tying the series at two game each. In game five, Gill's hat trick led the Bellies to a 10-8 victory, and one game away from the Mann Cup. But Brampton put up a tremendous fight in game six and dashed the Bellies' hope for a Mann Cup championship in six games. And while a Brampton win was somewhat disappointing for fans, the game itself wasn't. The Bellies played well and Roik was outstanding in net, intuitively stopping shots, it seemed. In some cases, he had no way of seeing the actual play, with so many men in front of the net.
For a while there it looked as though the Bellies would take game six. Kyle Ross's tie-breaking goal seven minutes into the period brought tears to my daughter's eyes (I'm not exaggerating). But then, for reasons unbeknownst to me, the ref gave Brampton possession. Whether this call caught the Bellies off-guard or not, I don't know, but Bramptom's Mike Hominuck made a behind-the-back shot into the net, tying it up again. (This irked me somewhat because we've been commenting all series how Brampton's behind-the-back passes and shots have a really low success rate--bummer that this one went as planned). Then, with 15 seconds left in OT, Brampton called a time-out. I hate when that happens. I've seen too many game-altering shots in the last second or two of play. And of course, I was right to be concerned. Dan Dawson scored the game-ending goal with 1.5 seconds on the clock.
Tonight's game could go either way. But one thing's for sure: it's going to be one heck of a battle for the Mann Cup.
A few key points regarding the incident that kicked off the Game 1 brawl:
"After the game he [Don Scott] reviewed the game tape and the referees’ game sheet and as a result New Westminster’s Bobby Snider was assessed a three game suspension. Now it has been made known that while both teams and Scott agree that Ian Hawskbee was the actual player who hit Colin Doyle, the game sheet says it was Snider. New West could have appealed the decision but then they would have put Hawksbee on the hot seat and could have lost him for three games."
and more importantly:
"Scott also commented that in his mind, the check on Doyle was a legal shoulder to chest hit and that it was the resulting head on head collision that did the damage."
So a lousy call not only gets the wrong player suspended for three games for what was apparently a clean hit, but it also sets off the largest bench-clearing brawl in recent lacrosse history. Grrr.
On another note, Jenner also reports that Chris Gill will be retiring after the Mann Cup. This makes me sad. C'mon Bellies, win it for Chris!
Here are a few clips from game 2 in the Mann Cup series. The footage isn't as dramatic as the game 1 brawl, but there's some good stuff in there. (Video for both games by Kaede.)
As for the game, well, it was okay, I suppose. The first period was a good one for the Bellies, and they ended it with a 3-1 lead. Both teams went through a bit of sluggishness midway through the second period, but Brampton managed to emerge from it, while the Bellies seemed to have lost too much momentum. By the end of the second, the teams were tied at 7 apiece, then tied at 9 apiece by the end of the third. In OT, Brampton scored four more times, while the Bellies managed just one more goal. Final score 13-10 for Brampton.
Game 3 is Monday. Same time, same place. But different winner, I hope.
Well, I knew it was going to be a rough one, but I didn't expect a bench-clearing brawl. Here are a few clips of the fights that took place just after Colin Doyle went down. I didn't see what happened to Doyle, but the Bellies took a high-sticking penalty for whatever it was. But to be honest, Doyle seemed fine at first, then went down in an exaggerated manner (with what looked to be a lower body injury), got up again, then went down again. The high-sticking call and a leg injury don't match up, so I have no idea what really happened. But I'm thinking Doyle will be just fine tomorrow.
As for other observations: -Every time the Salmonbellies scored, the Excelsiors (Cosmo and another player) would jump on the scorer. -The heavy-set, neckless ref was lousy--to the point of giving Brampton two goals they shouldn't have gotten. The first one, the ref closest to the nets called it a non-goal, but the heavy one overode his decision from across the floor. And the other goal that Brampton was given didn't go in, plain and simple. Hope that guy doesn't come back to ref again this series. He's the worst yet. -The Excelsiors weren't nearly as good as I expected them to be. The Bellies didn't even play their best game, yet they totally dominated. Maybe Brampton's suffering from jet lag. -In all, there was about three hours' worth of penalties.
Well, the New Westminster Salmonbellies are now down three games to none in the 2008 Mann Cup series against the Brampton Excelsiors. I was really hoping the Bellies would win tonight. In fact, at one point I thought they would.
But it all went downhill when a faulty 30-second call led to a resetting of the clock after an Excelsior's shot hit a NW player's helmet. And of course, at that point, the Excelsiors scored their second goal of the game. After that, a similarly faulty call was made and Brampton scored again (but this time the Bellies had a guy in the box as well).
Final score: 7-3.
I think the Bellies are getting a bit too frustrated. They've had to contend with bad calls before, and usually come out ahead and win the game, which is always the best revenge.
They're just not doing what they know they can do.
Salmonbellies lose their second game of the season
I was getting so used to the Bellies' winning that I didn't expect them to lose to Brampton in the first game of the Mann Cup challenge. But, after seeing them down 6-1 in the second period, I'm just relieved that they managed to bring the score up to a respectable 8-5. It's early days yet, so I'm not too worried.
I sure wish some TV station out there would broadcast the games to us folks in BC, though. But since no station is covering the series, we fans are following the excellent online coverage by Marksy at Lacrosse-Inside the Game. Check out game two tomorrow at 4:30 PST.
His more recent book on lacrosse, however, while an interesting read, has quite a few factual errors, more noticeable to me, a Canadian, than they would perhaps be to an American reader.
Take, for example, this comment on page 40: "In a Dominion Day 1874 game, the Brampton Excelsiors, a British Columbia team, won over the Native Six Nations team..." Um, wrong. The Brampton Excelsiors are based in Brampton, Ontario, a couple of time zones east of British Columbia.
And of course, when he refers to "Nemeimo" on page 144, he must certainly mean Nanaimo, home of the Timbermen.
Careless errors like the above can blow a book's credibility. I hate when publishers cut back on fact-checking.
