365 days ago the Toronto Rock faced the Washington Stealth where the Toronto Rock were up 10-6 and then the Stealth ran off 8 straight goals which gave the Stealth a 14-10 lead and they went onto a 15-11 victory in Everett, Washington.
Today the Rock scored the first goal when D Glen Bryan scored @ 1:54 in the first quarter but Stealth tied it up with a Smith goal @ 5:14 of the first quarter and until 2:08 left in the second quarter the Rock scored 5 straight goals to take a 6-1 lead and then the Stealth and the Rock got a goal each before the end of the first half and the Rock lead 7-2. In the third quarter it was all about the defense as the Stealth scored the only 2 goals in the quarter as they scored 1:07 with a Duch goal and then scored with 50 seconds left in the quarter when Lewis Ratcliff scored and it was 7-4 and the Luke Wiles of the Stealth fans in front of me were completely going crazy and they kept going in the fourth quarter as Lewis Ratcliff scored 1:23 into the final quarter and then Zywicki scored for the Stealth with 10 minutes left in the game and it was 7-6 Rock. At this point the Luke Wiles fans were doing their go Stealth go chant and yelling at the Stealth players as they dominated the Rock and call names at Rock captain Colin Doyle as he was one of the players that the Stealth traded to the Rock before the 2010 NLL season began as the Stealth traded basically Colin Doyle for both Lewis Ratcliff and Luke Wiles. So it was 7-6 and the Rocks fans were trying to stay excited but it was hard until Stephan Leblanc scored with 8:01 left in the quarter to give the Rock a 8-6 lead but while the Rock fans were cheering the first Rock goal in 23 minutes the Stealth went down and got the goal back with 7:48 left to was 8-7 Rock and it was back and forth with hopes of the Rock putting more breathing room between themselves and the Stealth and the nervousness of the Stealth tying the game up but in the end the Rock were unable to score their 9 goal but Bob "Whipper" Watson kept the ball out of the Rock net in the final game in his 15 seasons in the NLL so the Rock held on for a 8-7 win and brought a championship back to Toronto.
Bob "Whipper" Watson was named Championship Cup MVP as he made 46 saves on 53 shots which was an amazing to end a fantastic career and it is his second Championship Cup MVP as he also won MVP in 2003 and now he has won 6 Championship Cups all with the Toronto Rock. He also made Youtube spectacular saves which will be all over the internet in the next few days and were definite goals if he did not play out of his mind at times to make sure the Rock won the title for Toronto and the 14,000 plus Rock fans in attendance. If the Stealth had won the MVP would of gone to their goalie Richards who made 50 saves on 58 shots and kept the Stealth in the game especially in the second half as he saved 20 of 21 shots to help get the Stealth back into the game.
After the game when NLL commissioner called for captain Colin Doyle to come get the cup for the Rock instead of him going to get the cup it was Kasey Barnes which was a surprised and Bob Watson went around with his daughter after the game and made final round of the Toronto Rock floor and Kasey Barnes also played with his kid around one of the nets while the Rock players past around the Championship cup and took a group photo on the floor and then watched the Stealth post game conference on big screen.
So going into next season the Rock has to figure out two things and those are one if they are going to play out of the ACC or somewhere else and it is more likely they will but they may also move to Oshawa or somewhere to be closer to their main fan base and keep costs down. The Second is who will be the starting goalie next season as they could maybe try and get a Matt Vinc or an Anthony Cosmo but they could also start a younger goalie and try to build another franchise goalie and this is going to be the more interesting decision going into the off season as Watson has been the only Rock goalie in the franchise history.
Go Rock Go
Tom Mehegan
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