Minnesota Swarm (0-1)
	Rochester Knighthawks (1-0)

Swarm Lose in Pre-Season Opener

Sunday, December 9, 2007
Six Nations, Ontario

Game Links

Here are some notes from a few very reliable sources about yesterday’s scrimmage that the Minnesota Swarm lost 14-10 to the Rochester Knighthawks in Six Nations, Ontario:

The following players (definitely not your average NLL players) did not play in yesterday’s scrimmage:

• Ryan Cousins – 2007 NLL Defensive Player of the Year
• Dean Hill – Swarm’s leading goal scorer in 2007
• Mike Hominuck – 28 points in six games last year for the Swarm
• Nick Patterson – The Swarm’s #1 Goaltender & Second Team All-NLL the last two years
• Sean Pollock – The Swarm’s second leading scorer last year
• Ryan Ward – The Swarm’s top scorer the last two seasons

That meant the Swarm braintrust got the opportunity to look at many of their new faces against an enemy lineup for presumably the first time. If it helped in deciding the last few roster spots, your guess is as good as mine but that was the main point of the scrimmage. However, this Saturday against Toronto expect the big guns to be locked and loaded as the Swarm along with the Rock, will have already announced their 23-man roster by game time.

With Patterson not playing, Kevin Croswell played the whole game in net. After looking good in the first half, he tired at the end giving up some goals that should not have been allowed. Croswell wasn’t the only player to falter with tiredness in the second half for the Swarm even though some of that could be attributable to the Knighthawks keeping at least seven players off the floor until the second half. The fact remains that the team has to do a better job of keeping up physically throughout the whole game.

The following players stood out yesterday and throughout camp for the Swarm:

• Chris Courtney has made quite a case throughout camp to make the active roster.
• Chad Culp scored two goals in addition to the three goals from Craig Point and two from Andy Secore.
• Darren Halls did well on face offs when given the opportunity.
• Travis Hill was very impressive on face offs after take the large majority of them, extremely spirited and quite disruptive to the Knighthawk offense. If Mark Miyashita comes back, the Swarm will be well off at the face off circle as they will have three players that can take charge there and not be a liability defensively.
• Jon Sullivan has stepped up physically on defense in a very dramatic way and very well could build on last season.