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 In their expansion season the Chicago Shamrox were a tough team to play against. This year they hope to make the jump into the playoffs and even though they lost their home opener against the Rock, it looks as though they are ready to battle this season. On Saturday they were missing two starters due to suspension, two starters out with injury and their number one goalie missed three quarters of the game because of equipment violations. They still almost beat the Toronto Rock, who finally shut down Chicago in the fourth quarter to seal the 11-9 victory. I spoke with Rock coach Glen Clark yesterday who said, “Chicago is a very difficult team to play against because they just run, run, run”. Toronto has put a big emphasis on improving their transition - both ways - this year but the difficulty with a team like Chicago is that they play a style that is “on the edge” with guys like Bobby McBride taking off every time opposing offences  take a shot.

Toronto got 10 of its 11 goals from their big guns as Manning scored 4, Kasey Biernes had 3, Sanderson 2, Wilson 1. Former Chicago captain Cam Woods scored the other Toronto goal against his old team. Chicago got two goals from rookie Bobby McBride and two from former Toronto Rock Kevin Fines.

Clark was very happy with the play of his faceoff and looseball team that went 14/23. Toronto will use Peter Lough on the majority of draws this season but have been very pleased with the emergence of Blaine Manning as a faceoff guy. He looked very good in camp and according to Clark he would have been 4/5 on Saturday if it were not for one faceoff violation.

Surprisely Clark said that he thought his power play unit looked tight in the first half and started looking confident in the second. According to the official stats they were a perfect 7/7. Clark questioned the accuracy of that stat but offensive coach Greg VanSickle won’t be complaining to the league. Chicago was 2 for 5 on power plays.

Last season the Tororoto Rock started the season with back-to-back losses against the Rochester Knighthawks before going on the road to lose a close one to Philadephia. That’s a tough way for a rookie coach to start so he is very pleased to get this win under his belt. Next weekend the season really gets going as every team in the NLL will be playing. The Rock will play a home and home series against Minnesota with Friday’s game being  televised on Roger’s Sportsnet Ontario. Chicago will be going to Philadelphia on Saturday and then get a two-week break before hosting Edmonton.

Sources have told me that we should be hearing about a new U.S. TV deal within a few weeks.

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