2017 Calgary Roughnecks Thread

[InglewoodFan]

Season opener tonight, looking forward to good things. After a tough early losing streak (3 OT losses in a row) last season the team never seemed to get going 100%.

Not too many changes to the roster this season. I liked Riley Lowen's game with the Rush so I am happy to have him join the squad. Holden Cattoni is young, but it is great to see a Calgary product make the NLL and everything I hear from the preseason on him is he is making a good impression.

Goaltending is the biggest change this season with the departure of Poulin. I watched the pre-season game against the Rush and though Del Bianco looked great, especially considering he isn't even 20 yet.

Speaking of the Rush pre-season game - Frankie, Greg Harnett, Garrett McIntosh are all suspended for the opener. Quite the tussle at the end of the game, nothing like a good old-fashioned goalie scrap. Zach Higgins will be backup goalie tonight.

I have no reason to believe the Rush won't be the best in the west again this season, they have a strong roster top to bottom. But having so much carry over from last year's roster should mean a stronger Roughnecks team. Looking forward to seeing more from Wes Berg and Tyler Digby.

Bob Snider seems to be perpetually on the practice roster, no idea what that is about but it would be great to have him in the lineup for faceoffs.

One great thing the Roughnecks did for STH this year is free access to NLLTV for the season, so we can watch all of the road games online. Worked great for the pre-season game.

Very happy to see the change to three on floor officials, remains to be seen what the NLL is doing to get the quality of officiating up.

[Kerplunk]

So the extra useless lump of a ref on the floor isn't my imagination! Seems to get in the way more often than not.

Goaltending could be a bit of an issue this year....

[dirk diggler]

not their finest moment tonight. Vancouver was clearly the better team tonight. really tired of seeing that one particular ref, guy is brutal and his demeanor just cry's out for everyone to notice him....

[Dion]

Roughnecks don't have a good record on opening nights.

[dirk diggler]

their big guns did not play well tonight. Dickson was invisible most of the night... a team effort, no part of the team was anything special

[GC91]

Still a fun night out..Better atmosphere than a flames game.

[InglewoodFan]

Hoping the early pull of Del Bianco isn't an indication that he gets shaken easily. I think we are going to need some minutes out of him this season as Frankie won't be able to take them all. I didn't know much about Zach Higgins going in but he kept us in there. One thing I did like about Del Bianco when he was in was he is deadly with the long breakout pass. Keep firing those to Bell.

Snider and Burton kept us over .500 on faceoffs. Snider won a huge one with seconds left to give us a chance to tie it up, but his D needs some work. He looked a little flat footed at times.

Berg was great. Digby needed the ball more, he is a big body and can crash and bang to the net well. Dickson had a tough game, was pretty much shut down.

A lot of our shots in the first half especially seemed low percentage, just weren't finding good lanes. Vancouver's goalie wasn't spectacular, we just needed to get the ball to better spots. The intensity in the fourth quarter to a big jump, if they had pushed that hard all game they probably wouldn't have had to come back from down by 5.

Officiating was horsepucks on both sides. That fourth quarter cross checking call on Mike Carnegie was such a dive. I've seen bantam games where they wouldn't call that soft crap. I don't know what the solution is to better NLL officiating is, there is no money for development it seems and even moving referees up through minor-major-senior has to be difficult as the pro game is so much faster.

All in all, happy to be back in lacrosse season. Good crowd for the opener (11,500) and our new seats have great sightlines.

[JiriHrdina]

Higgins has a good share of NLL experience and may have earned himself a longer look. He was superb last night

[TheAlpineOracle]

I wish I had known the season started last night. Would have went.

[cavalera403]

Much better start to the game tonight

[InglewoodFan]

Lots to like about the game tonight, the early offence was overwhelming. We had eight shots and three goals before they even got it in our end for any sustained pressure.

And then the officiating turned on us. I've never seen calls like I saw in the second quarter, some of them I didn't see at all. I would say the number one challenge to the NLL right now is officiating. It is all over the map.

Second half was much better when we were out of the box. The unsportsmanlike call on Harnett was a mystery, he walked away from the guy. Speaking of Harnett, I have to assume they are appealing the 6 game suspension since he was in the lineup.

As I said to my kid at the end of the game, it sucks that defenders never seem to get a game star. Mike Carnegie was shut down on Greer all night. Just sat in his back pocket and frustrated the hell out of him. Had a huge game impact.

Hopefully the much better season start coupled with Saskatchewan looking a lot more average than I thought they would leads to a win next week.

[dirk diggler]

this sport is such a great sport to watch but the reffing is beyond awful. tonight it turned the game from a great game to almost wanting to leave. nice to see the necks win as they played well though

[Dion]

Was surprised at the number of parents and kids at the game. They were loud and noisy, at least the ones sitting near us.

Took my brother to the game and he raved about the fan experience and the number of fans in attendance. Wasn't expecting what he saw.

[cavalera403]

A great game and another fun night in the rough house. But man watching the refs is just baffling. The extra ref on the floor has not helped in the least.

And the refs did the same last week in Colorado. The necks looked dominant and started going away with the game and then some just off the calls started getting made and kept the mammoth in the game. Even the mammoth announcers were baffled by what was going on.

Hopefully they get out to another good start next week

[cavalera403]

Gameday!

[dirk diggler]

good game tonight but the Rush pulled away in the end. also, perhaps the best reffed game i have seen in the NLL... refs let the teams play

[InglewoodFan]

Yeah, way better reffing last game.

Discount tickets available for the game this Sunday afternoon, $15 for kids. And I think there is also $20-something vouchers at Safeway for adult tickets as well.

[Resolute 14]

About $23 for the Safeway vouchers. That's available for all games.

[InglewoodFan]

Appeal on Harnett's suspension was denied, suspended for 5 games for the match penalty hit on Noble. A lot of lacrosse folks don't consider this to be a boarding call, it was shoulder to shoulder and the player was not in a defenseless position. The ref said the head impacted the dasher but the video doesn't really show this to me. The most galling part of this is that there was never any supplementary discipline for the hit on Leung last season that continues to have him out of the lineup with concussion problems. Buque leveled him in a completely defenseless and unaware position.

[JiriHrdina]

The Rock are an interesting team in town this week. They have a trio of free agent American players that are having an impact, and also the rights to Paul Rabil. If they can position themselves as the destination of choice for those types of players - they will have a significant advantage. Basically they were able to sign guys that are would have the same pedigree as very high first round choices.
They have scored the fewest goals in the league, while giving up the fewest - so a tough matchup for the Riggers offense.
Roughnecks are 1-2 on home floor, continuing a pattern of poor play at the dome for the last few years.
This is a big one to keep pace in the West.
I predicate a 13-10 Riggers win.