April 16th, 2003
Once again, The Cult made their presence felt on Saturday, April 12th at the Ottawa Civic Centre. The visiting Columbus Landsharks took on the Rebel in what was most likely its last regular season game in the Nation's Capital after three years of futility, both in the standings and attendance-wise (not that the franchise did any better in Syracuse in the late 90's).

The usual suspects made the bus trip from the Kirkland bus stop, except for me - I took the bus from Central Station in the eastern part of downtown Montreal. I had also had the chance to meet Jason, a good friend of the other Cult members, who had never actually seen a lacrosse game before.

Whether or not the change in start times affected the players overall, the Rebel didn’t show much enthusiasm during this contest, losing 17-11 to the visitors. Not to blame Terry Sanderson’s club, but their grinding “no-name” offence couldn’t muster more than a dozen goals past Landsharks net-minder Mike Miron who was, in my opinion, the player of the game (hmmm… the same goalie who “stole” a victory for his team against Montreal last season) along with teammate Kyle Arbuckle.

I had hoped that Ottawa could pull this match out for the sake of the few faithful who have done the right thing in supporting their squad during its 3-year tenure. To show my overall support for the league, I donned a road Rebel jersey a couple of minutes after the game.

We were disappointed that the post-game party at Local Heroes was pre-empted for an Ottawa Senators playoff hockey game. Unfortunately, we could not get our hands on former Express player Peter Lough, currently with C-Bus, to get our jerseys signed despite several ambitious attempts. We also ran into some people who weren't aware of the earlier start time during our post-game adventures.

All in all, a pleasant trip!

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The regular season has come to a close and playoff lax is less than four evenings away with Vancouver at Colorado and Calgary visiting Buffalo, both games scheduled for the 19th of this month. I hope the two western Canadian teams will upset their respective foes and move on to the semi-finals (even if some experts might predict a different outcome). The more Canadian teams hanging on in the post-season, the better the chances of getting more playoff games on Rogers Sportsnet.

I will post my next segment after the NLL playoffs for a complete breakdown of the championship match-up along with some tidbits from the action in Sr.B-rated Quebec Lacrosse League.

God bless ya all!

Antoine.