Toronto, ON- The Silver Seven.
That’s the name of an old Ottawa hockey team, but that number of CUFLA players certainly shined like silver in the Toronto Rock’s 13-9 win over rivals the Buffalo Bandits on Sunday afternoon.
With the geographical location of the two teams and their proximity to schools in the CUFLA, it is not surprising that the amount of university talent is so high. One of the things that the two teams share is their abundance of Canadians. Most of the players in the league are of Canadian citizenship, however, there are few American teams with so much reliance on Canada.
The visiting buffalo bandits have a roster entirely of Canadians. This wouldn’t have been too shocking if we were talking about one of the three teams based above the 49th parallel, but for an American team to be completely Canadian is certainly something interesting.
Of all of the Canadians on the roster, four played in the CUFLA. Mitch De Snoo, a transition player for the Bandits played for the University of Toronto Varsity Blues, who play their home games less than a 20-minute walk away from Scotiabank Arena where the Bandits played on Sunday. He was joined by Matt Spanger of Western University, and a pair of Guelph Gryphons in Jon Harnett and Justin Martin.
For Toronto, they continue to charge forward without their pair of Brock Badgers, as Latrell Harris and Brandon Slade remained on the sidelines. However, Nippising’s Scott Dominey and Western’s Reid Reinholdt gave the Rock their small yet mighty CUFLA contingent.
Unlike in most games, it took very little time for one of these players to make a mark on the scoresheet. Reinholdt, the former Mustang got the primary assist on Dan Dawson’s opening goal less than three minutes into the game.
That was not the last time that Reinholdt would be the aid to a Dawson tally, as the same thing happened when “Dangerous” Dan Dawson scored Toronto’s fourth goal, giving them the lead once again at 4-3.
While Reinholdt was leading the charge of CUFLA talent for the Torontonians, it was only a matter of time until one of the Buffalo Canadian university players got on the scoresheet. Finally, it happened with Mitch De Snoo, as the former Varsity Blue collected an assist for the Bandits tying goal at 4-4.
Reinholdt’s mentality was almost as if he wanted to be the top university talent on the floor, as just minutes after De Snoo’s point, Reinholdt got a goal of his own, also assisted by Dawson. Western’s Matt Spanger added an assist of his own, topping off the first half of CUFLA contributions.
By half time, five of the 16 goals scored had hints of CUFLA on them.
The second half saw the pace of scoring slow down, and the same had to be said for the CUFLA players who also turned back the throttle. While there was only s single goal in the third, which was without a CUFLA ingredient, the fourth saw a much more rampant scoring streak.
Nipissing’s Scott Dominey, who was the midfielder of the CUFLA midfielder of the year, got himself a goal on a breakaway to make the score 10-8. “It’s important to score goals like that and get the win over our rival,” said Dominey post-game.
By the end of the day, seven points were scored by CUFLA players, one of the higher totals this year. Next week, the Rock will return to Alterna Cup action as they host the Vancouver Warriors, who unlike themselves, boast few CUFLA talents. That game is set for 7:00 next Saturday at Toronto’s Scotiabank Arena.