2008 Toronto Rock Season
The Toronto Rock are a lacrosse team based in Toronto playing in the National Lacrosse League (NLL). The 2008 season was the 12th in franchise history, and 11th as the Rock.
The 2008 season almost never happened. On October 16, 2007 the league released a statement officially cancelling the season, after no agreement could be reached on a new collective bargaining agreement. However, negotiations continued, and on October 25, the league announced that a new CBA has been agreed on, and that the season would proceed. The new revised schedule was released on November 2, 2007, but only included 12 of the expected 14 teams were included. The expansion Boston Blazers and 2007 Western division champion Arizona Sting had decided for "a number of business reasons" to opt out of the 2008 season and return in 2009. Due to the short time frame between the agreement on a new CBA and the start of the season, the New York Titans were unable to secure 8 home dates for the revised schedule, and thus both the Toronto Rock and Buffalo Bandits hosted a Titans home game in their own arena.
The Rock had their second consecutive sub-.500 season, finishing 7-9, and out of the playoffs for the first time since they were the Ontario Raiders in 1998. Despite the losing season, veteran Bob Watson was named NLL Goaltender of the Year.
This was captain Jim Veltman's final season as a player; he retired after 16 seasons and joined the Rock coaching staff in 2009.
Famous quotes containing the words rock and/or season:
“When the rock was hid by the surges’ swell,
The mariners heard the warning bell,
And then they knew the perilous rock,
And bless’d the Abbot of Aberbrothok.”
—Robert Southey (1774–1843)
“If woman is inconstant,
good, I am faithful to
ebb and flow, I fall
in season and now
is a time of ripening.”
—Denise Levertov (b. 1923)