Turns out the Albany Attack didn't have to watch the Toronto Rock raise that championship banner into the Air Canada Centre rafters after all.

Oh, the banner was raised, the rings were handed out, and the gigantic, pre-recorded face of Rock captain Jim Veltman generously thanked 17,059 fans from the scoreboard video screen. But the Attack, who lost the title game to the Rock last April by the slimmest of slimmest margins, didn't see any of it.

"Toronto was pretty good about it when the schedule came out," Attack coach Bob McMahon explained. "We looked at it and thought this was kind of dicey, and they tried to change it, but it would have needed about a hundred other schedule changes to accommodate it. So they just said we should stay in our dressing room and come out at the end of the ceremony. That was good on their part."

When they did come out, in the dark to a half-hearted, anti-climactic rain of booing, Albany got right down to business. Four goals from Dan Teat; a three-goal, four-assist outing from a fired-up Josh Sanderson; and some solid team defense and goaltending lifted the Attack to an emphatic 12-9 win over the Rock, levelling their record at 2-2, dropping Toronto to 1-2 and an unaccustomed place in the division basement.

Nick Trudeau got the visitors going just over two minutes in, lasering home a diagonal 40-footer. Mike Regan quickly doubled the lead, surprising Toronto goalie Bob Watson with a turn-around slot bouncer, fired while actually running away from the goal. Blaine Manning opened the Rock's account at 5:22 with a diagonal screened pump job on the power play. Steve Toll knotted the game at 12:13, cashing in one of his trademark blazing counterbreak, even though he had to duck under two converging slam checks just as he shot.

2-2 after one.

Albany continued to dictate the game, totally dominating the first eight minutes of the new quarter. Teat bagged his first on the night on a bang-bang man-up pass play at the top of the Toronto crease. A minute later, Josh Sanderson scored on a fine diagonal cutting run, and Teat put the Attack up 5-2 with a diagonal screen whip at 7:56.

Both goalies knocked down breakaways in this quarter. Rob Blasdell of the Attack kept the momentum humming when he stoned Rock captain Jim Veltman with just over five minutes left in the half. But a good sustained run of Toronto pressure paid off for the champs at 10:13, when rookie Aaron Wilson was sprung down the middle by a delicious touch pump pass from ex-Philadelphia Wing and all-time NLL ironman Kevin Finneran.

5-3 Attack at the half.

Despite a sputtering offence and way too many missed passed and all-purpose cough-ups, Toronto made a major play to regain control after the break. Defender Darryl Gibson, whose two late breakaway goals finished off the Attack -- his former team! -- in last April's championship game, forced a loose ball at midfloor just after play resumed. Toll vaccumed it up, and picked the high corner behind Blasdell on the full run.

Five minutes in, Todd Richard (nothing personal, but this man has no business being nicknamed "Rocket!") dumped the tying goal over Blasdell's shoulder. It fell to Finneran to put his new team ahead for the first time at 7:21. Hit from behind while charging the Albany net, he rode the power of a crosscheck in the back to glory, channeling it into a shot which found nothing but net.

6-5 Rock, but now it was Albany's turn. Josh Sanderson tied the game with a low rip bouncer at 9:25. Trudeau notched his second, a long floating change-up on the power play. Then Brian Beisel bagged the ball at midfloor - and trotted, untouched, untroubled and undiverted, through the entire Toronto team! Watson couldn't stop the shot. No single play in this entire game better shows how out-of-synch the Rock were this afternoon.

It wasn't over. Josh Sanderson's best point of the night wasn't a goal. It came after he stepped around a pick and magicked a sizzling diagonal pass from the right point to Dan Teat on a cutting run to the left crease. Teat buried his hat-trick goal, and the all-out Attack hit the three-quarter pole with an emphatic 9-6 lead.

Sanderson finished his own three-spot a minute into the fourth, cutting across the front after a Toronto defender coughed up the ball behind the net. But, again, here came the counter-push from the Rock. Blaine Manning stepping into a monster power-play bomb at 1:44.

Then came a thoroughly bizarre goal, created entirely by Colin Doyle and credited to Sandy Chapman, even though the ball never entered the net! Here's the deal. Doyle drives hard to Blasdell's right, but there's no opening. Doyle checks off, a goes for a looping run around the back of the net. Out front, Blasdell gets tangled up with a teammate, and both go flying backwards, dislodging the net. As Doyle rounds back out the other side, goalie and defender panic, and the net goes flying and bouncing clear to the back boards. Doyle pumps the ball to Chapman, who instantly shoots in the general direction of where the rules say the net ought to be. Shot goes high. Refs Paul Ravary and Grant Spies sense an injustice, and the goal is awarded.

Not much of an argument from Albany, so I assume this rule exists. Confirmation, as always, will be gleefully accepted.

Just over a minute later, Doyle decided to show the huge opening-day crowd how it should be done. After getting his gong rung on a five-star body check, Toronto's human highlight film stood his ground, got the ball back on a good pass from Finneran following an Albany turnover, spun around a check from a charging defender and obliterated Blasdell and the back netting with an amazing, dazzling, life-affirming jackhammer of a backhand.

10-9, but that's as close as it would get. Teat finished his night, cutting to the net and scoring when nobody finished the check. Mike Regan capped the conquest with a low whipper of a goal past Watson on the cut-across at 8:02.

Full credit to Albany, but the Rock looked very disorganized tonight. Injuries and new faces meant this was a very different team, and there still appears to be quite a bit of unfamiliarity out there. By anyone's standard, it was a sloppy, casual outing. By Rock standards, glaringly so.

The Attack comes up huge, and avoids falling into a perilous 1-3 pit. Toronto must regroup, and put out a much more solid, committed effort in their visit to Calgary next weekend.

BOX SUMMARY
                                      1  2  3  4     TOT
Albany Attack (2-2)                   2  3  4  3  --  12
Toronto Rock (1-2)                    2  1  3  3  --   9

ALBANY ATTACK                 TORONTO ROCK
               G - A   PTS                   G - A   PTS
J Sanderson    3 - 4     7    Doyle          1 - 5     6
Teat           4 - 0     4    Manning        2 - 2     4
Trudeau        2 - 1     3    Finneran       1 - 3     4
Cochrane       0 - 3     3    Toll           2 - 1     3
Rosyski        0 - 3     3    Richard        1 - 1     2
Regan          2 - 0     2    Ji Veltman     0 - 2     2
Beisel         1 - 1     2    Chapman        1 - 0     1
Woods          0 - 2     2    Wilson         1 - 0     1
Grimoldby      0 - 1     1    Gibson         0 - 1     1
Moss           0 - 1     1    Merrill        0 - 1     1
P Sanderson    0 - 1     1    

Shots on goal           40    Shots on goal           46
Saves made by           37    Saves made by           28
   Blasdell          37          Watson            28
Penalties                7    Penalties                6
Penalty Minutes         14    Penalty Minutes         12
Power Play Chances       5    Power Play Chances       6
Power Play Goals         3    Power Play Goals         3
   J Sanderson        1          Manning            2
   Teat               1          Richard            1
   Trudeau            1
Shorthanded Goals        0    Shorthanded Goals        0
Loose Balls             82    Loose Balls             62
   Beisel            12          Ji Veltman        13
   Cochrane           8          Toll               8
   Grimoldby          8          Coyle              6
   Moss               8          Merrill            6
Faceoffs Won            13    Faceoffs Won            14

   *** STATS OFFICIAL BY VERIFY WITH TORONTO ROCK ***