Game 2 of the Mann Cup was played Saturday night, between the Lakers and the Thunder, and yours truely was in attendance as I have season tickets with a friend. We sit almost dead centre just a few rows from the top of the lower bowl. They are great seats. Big news for the Lakers is that Thomas Hoggarth is back. He had/has an inner ear infection and it’s probably affecting his balance, but you’d never know from how he played. More on that in a minute.

As much as we complain about instant replay and VAR being shit, when it’s NOT there and things get missed it’s annoying as fuck. There were at least 4 goals that were questionable last night. Two the player had a foot in the crease with the ball. Can’t do that, think going out of bounds in football, the play should be over, but it was missed by the refs. On the in house replay a foot was clearly on and in one case OVER the line. This happened for both teams, so it’s a wash, I guess. There was also a shot that went bar down, hit the floor, bounced back up to the bar and out that was not called a goal. From my seat I thought it was a goal, but without replay and a coaches challenge, we’ll never know.

I also get for the summer lacrosse leagues that having VAR is a huge cost for them and probably not going to happen any time soon. Most of the live feeds, if they even happen, are a single camera from about centre than just pans left and right to follow the action with a few shots from the corners. Needing even more angles including overhead is just not going to happened without a huge investment. As my season ticket holder buddy says, these are “bush league” aka bad.
/steps off soapbox and tries to take a calming breath.

On to the game:
First period:
These teams seem to have the rust off and already have a bit of hate for each other, so took almost 4 minutes for the first goal, scored by Taite Cattoni. This was his first Mann Cup goal. The Thunder then shut ouf the Lakers for the next 10+ minutes of the game while putting in 4 of their own. Peterborough then went on a 5 goal run of their own that would continue into the second period. The first period ends in a 4 -4 tie

Second period
In the second period, Peterborugh continued their run from the first period to open up the score to 6-4 Lakers. Langley would get 2 goals before the end of the period for the 6-6 tie to end the second.

Third period
This was some great lacrosse to watch, as the team basically beat the crap out of one another and traded goals back and forth. Peterborough would open up the score to be 11-9 with just over 4 minutes to play. With the extra attacker on the floor with the goalie pulled (like hockey), Robert Church some how snuck one in. I watch the Youtube replay and have no clue how it went in. So there’s now 77 second left in the game with the Lakers with a 1 goal lead. They win the draw, and control the ball and get the rebound off the missed shot to use up some more time. The Thunder get the ball with about 40 seconds left and the Lakers managed to keep the ball out of the next and get the ball back with 10 seconds to play, where they call timeout. On the inbound, they basically threw the ball into the far corner and hoped time would expire. However, Langely got the ball, quickly got it up the floor where it was now a 2 on 1, with Dickson and Dobbie. Dobbie with a great shot puts the ball into the net with the scoreboard showing 0:00. As there’s no instant replay here, the goal stands. I watched the replay of this as well, and for whatever reason, the live feed does NOT have ANY game time on the display (wtf) and the camera shot is too low to show the score board, so no idea if this was a good goal or not. So, off to OT we go tied at 11.

I can’t figure out how to do the youtube time code, thing, so go to 2:11 into the video to watch the last 10 seconds of regulation time.

First Overtime
This is kinda of a spoiler but there’s an explanation. The first OT period is 10 minutes and the full time is played. If it’s still tied after this period then it goes to sudden death. However, if one team is ahead after this period they win. This is the lacrosse version of both teams get to touch the ball in OT, so not too bad of a rule. So, you already know that the teams traded a bunch of goals. However, it was Langley pulling ahead this time and Peterborough needing the last second heroics from Thomas Hoggarth to tie the game back up at 14 all with 4 second left on the clock.

Second OT
Once the game gets into the second or higher OT, they play 10 minute periods until a goal is scored. While I like some defensive lacrosse, I’m not sure that my heart can take that much tension. We’ve now into sudden death and both teams had some each chances that just missed early on. Each possession is now so important, and everyone out there is playing full out. This last for about 5 minutes until Dane Dobbie, again, spoils the party and rips one past Matt Vinc to end the game 15-14 Langley. As much as there were things wrong with the game, if you have never watch lacrosse before, this would be a great game to start with. Even just from the 3rd period on is worth watching.

Curtis Dickson lead the Thunder with 5 goals and 5 assists, while Dane Dobbie had 4 and 4. They are both just sooooo good. Any time they have their hands free near the net the ball went in. Even a few times when they were both well covered they still scored.

Shawn Evan lead the Lakers with 1 goal and 7 assists and Thomas Hoggarth had 4 goals and assist for the Lakers.

I’m hoping to do some stats of scorers and the like but haven’t the time to do it yet. And the MSL site sucks for things like that, so will need to do it all by hand aka spreadsheet. Again, bush league.

On a lighter note, on the way in there was a local Green Day Cover band performing outside. I couldn’t get a good shot of them, or would have included it. Sorry TWBS, I’ll do better next time.
And my row won a free sub from a local chain (Firehouse Subs). Sweet. I never win anything.

One thing that I do love about the sport is the kids playing out on the floor between periods. There must have been close to 100 kids out there playing around.

My season ticket holder buddy reminded me after the game, that last time that Langley was in the Mann and it was in Peterborough, and they went up 2 games to none, to only then lose 4 straight, so hoping that happens again.

Game 3 recap will be tomorrow sometime.

Langley leads the series 2-0
Game 1: Friday, September 9th at 8:00PM 16-9 Langley
Game 2: Saturday, September 10th at 7:00PM 15-14 Langley
Game 3: Monday, September 12th at 8:00PM
Game 4: Tuesday, September 13th at 8:00PM
Game 5: Wednesday, September 14th at 8:00PM*
Game 6: Friday, September 16th at 8:00PM*
Game 7: Saturday, September 17th at 7:00PM*
*if necessary

For those interested, all games should be streamed here.

Research came from here