When the Toronto Rock arrived in Rochester for tonight's championship game against the Knighthawks, its players and coaches were looking to overcome one teeny, tiny problem.

They had never won at the Blue Cross Arena at the Rochester War Memorial.

Never, as in 0-6 alltime at the league's oldest barn.

"It's small and the fans are close to you," Rock defenseman Pat Coyle said in the days leading up to the game. "Rochester plays different at home. They seem to have more confidence at home."

The dominance hasn't been solely against the Rock, either. Coming into tonight's game, the Knighthawks had posted an eye-popping 27-4 home record since the start of the 2000 season.

Not even Toronto, usually recognized as having the league's best home-floor advantage, can beat that four-losses-in-four-years run (the Rock is 30-5 at home over the same stretch).

Toronto's solution to Rochester's home supremacy? Take the fans out of the equation.

A good plan, and it worked to perfection, as the Rock scored the first five goals of the game, then held on for an 8-6 win in the lowest-scoring title game in league history.

"Speedin' Steve" Toll struck first, grabbing a long pass from Coyle and racing in for a shorthanded goal at 3:04.

Four and a half minutes later, Toll did it again; this time, the feed came from team captain Jim Veltman.

"[Speed] is what Steve Toll bring to a team," Rock head coach Les Bartley said. "We talked to him prior to the game... because we thought he had to be a game-breaker."

What Toll turned out to be was the first of several back-breakers.

At 12:16, Patrick Merrill sprung out of the penalty box (he had been whistled for holding), reeled in a bomb from Toronto netminder Bob Watson, and found the back of the net.

Three long passes, three nice goals, and one very quiet Blue Cross Arena.

Less than a minute later, Chris Driscoll scored after Blaine Manning dove at the ball to avoid an over-and-back violation. What's more, Coyle swiped the ensuing faceoff and waltzed in for an unassisted goal.

If the house was almost silent before, it was the Rochester Free Library now. Shamed defensively and fruitless offensively, the mighty Knighthawks were down five goals in their own building in the first quarter.

What's more, this was supposed to be the night that the Knighthawks, often demeaned as perennial chokers, would finally show they could win the big game. Oops.

"We totally needed that [quick start] in this building," Veltman said. "We had to set the tone."

"We knew [when it got to be 5-0] we were going to have to claw our way back and that it was going to be tough," Rochester head coach Paul Day said.

The first step in the rally came quick enough, though. Nineteen seconds after Coyle's goal, John Grant broke the shutout with an even-strength goal to end the period.

Five minutes into the second quarter, Rochester inched a little closer. With Coyle freshly planted in the box for cross-checking, Shawn Williams took a feed from Cory Bomberry and put it past Watson.

Two minutes later, Jeremy Hollenbeck grabbed his own Bomberry helper and made the score 5-3.

The Knighthawks, burned so often in transition earlier in the game, had adjusted, and goaltender Pat O'Toole was rising to the occasion. Suddenly, we had a game again.

At 14:41, Grant reduced the deficit to one goal, but Colin Doyle stole back the momentum, scoring a six-on-five goal with three seconds left before intermission, for a 6-4 lead.

Typical Bartleyball. Pull the goaltender and find the open man.

"We work on that stuff all year long," Bartley said. "We scored on an identical play the last time we played Rochester [in the postseason]."

Ah yes, the 2000 NLL Champion's Cup final. Tied at thirteen late in the game, Doyle found a wide-open Kaleb Toth for the game-winner with one second to play in regulation.

Toth has since moved on, but Doyle never left Toronto and O'Toole, victimized on that historic goal (it was the final sporting event in the history of Maple Leaf Gardens), surely never forgot.

Having allowed just six first-half goals tonight, O'Toole could yet be the hero and make people forget his annual postseason flops.

To get there, though, the momentum had to swing back to the Teal Warriors.

"That goal at the end of the half, on the six-on-five, that's always a backbreaker," Day said, "and then they scored the first goal of the third quarter."

"They" actually was Veltman, the ageless King of the Loose Ball, who scored a man-up goal at 2:12.

"Sometimes, when you're my age, you get these bursts of energy you have to take advantage of," Veltman said.

That burst of energy held up for a while, apparently, because Veltman got the next goal, too, giving the Rock a commanding 8-4 lead at the end of three quarters.

Short of an amazing comeback by the Knighthawks -- and the way Watson was playing, that wasn't likely -- the game was over, with the home side playing mostly for pride and the visitors just trying to make the clock move faster.

To its credit, Rochester didn't just roll over and die, like a few of its opponents had done this season in the face of a huge Knighthawk lead.

After squandering a power play opportunity early in the fourth quarter, the Knighthawks got a man-up goal from Grant, completing the only hat trick of the ballgame.

Three minutes later, Curt Malawsky cut the gap to two, increasing the tension in the building just a little bit.

No worries. Watson put down the rally and the Rock was soon lifting the Champion's Cup for the fourth time in five years.

Veltman and Toll led the Rock with two goals each, but "Whipper" was the man of the hour, earning Game MVP honors for his forty-save effort.

Ask the goalie, though, and he'll deflect the credit.

"It's not me, it's our whole team," Watson said. "My defense did a great job of pushing their shooters out and making them take shots they didn't want to take."

The same could be said of the Knighthawks' defense, a well-respected unit which allowed just three goals after that disastrous first quarter.

With all the stellar back line play, it's no wonder that this was the lowest-scoring championship game in league history. Not only did the Rock and K'Hawks smash the old record of seventeen goals (2001: Philadelphia 9, Toronto 8), they set new marks for the fewest goals scored by a title game winner (Philadelphia's nine in 2001) and loser (New England scored seven goals in 1990).

BOX SUMMARY
                                      1  2  3  4     TOT
Toronto Rock (13-5, 2-0)              5  1  2  0  --   8
Rochester Knighthawks (13-5, 1-1)     1  3  0  2  --   6

TORONTO ROCK                  ROCHESTER KNIGHTHAWKS
               G - A   PTS                   G - A   PTS
Toll           2 - 1     3    Grant          3 - 1     4
Ji Veltman     2 - 1     3    Co Bomberry    0 - 4     4
Driscoll       1 - 2     3    C Malawsky     1 - 1     2
Coyle          1 - 1     2    S Williams     1 - 1     2
Doyle          1 - 0     1    Soudan         0 - 2     2
Merrill        1 - 0     1    Hollenbeck     1 - 0     1
Finneran       0 - 1     1    D Malawsky     0 - 1     1
Manning        0 - 1     1    Schiller       0 - 1     1
K Squire       0 - 1     1    
Watson         0 - 1     1    

Shots on goal           36    Shots on goal           46
Saves made by           40    Saves made by           28
   Watson            40          O'Toole           28
Penalties               11    Penalties                5
Penalty Minutes         22    Penalty Minutes         10
Power Play Chances       3    Power Play Chances       9
Power Play Goals         1    Power Play Goals         2
   Ji Veltman         1          Grant              1
                                 S Williams         1
Shorthanded Goals        2    Shorthanded Goals        0
   Toll               2          (None)
Loose Balls             53    Loose Balls             70
   Toll               9          Grant              8
   Ji Veltman         8          C Malawsky         8
   Watson             7          Cougevan           7
                                 D Malawsky         7
Faceoffs Won             7    Faceoffs Won            11
   Toll         ( 4- 4)          Co Bomberry  (11- 4)
   Merrill      ( 3- 7)          Thorpe       ( 0- 3)

 *** STATS OFFICIAL BY VERIFY WITH ROCHESTER K'HAWKS ***

Quotes have previously appeared in Canadian Press, Rochester Democrat & Chronicle, and Toronto Sun articles.