Was this the original article published by the Hamilton Spectator? And has since deleted.
The Toronto Rock will be moving back to the city of their birth, the Hamilton Spectator has learned.
The professional lacrosse team of the growing National Lacrosse League has played in Toronto since 1999, first at Maple Leaf Gardens and then at the Air Canada Centre, which is now Scotiabank Arena, home of the NHL Maple Leafs and NBA Raptors.
But the franchise originated with one season in Hamilton, 1998, when they were known as the Ontario Raiders before they were bought by a group led by Bill Watters, then an executive with the Toronto Maple Leafs, which moved them into the Gardens.
Jamie Dawick of Oakville is the current Rock owner after purchasing the team before the 2010 season. The Rock won the 2011 NLL championship, the most recent of their six titles and are credited with creating dramatic upswing in lacrosse interest in Ontario over the past 20 years.
When reached by The Spectator, Dawick said he could not make any comment.
Lacrosse sources told The Spectator that Hamilton’s FirstOntario Centre would be home to the Rock in time for the 2021 season.
The NLL cancelled its 2020 season — the indoor pro league schedule runs from December into May — but plans to resume to action in December with all 13 teams returning and a 14th, in Fort Worth, Texas joining as an expansion team. Hopes are to add two more teams within the next two or three years. There are teams in Saskatchewan, Vancouver and Calgary and another 10 in major U.S. markets.
While the Rock regularly drew more than 15,000 per game for several years, according to NLL statistics attendance has hovered around just under 10,000 per game in recent years.
No details are yet available, but FirstOntario Centre would likely be a much cheaper option than Scotiabank Arena. In Hamilton, The Rock would also be closer to the Kitchener, Guelph and London markets, and geographical rival Buffalo Bandits, although further from lacrosse hotbeds east of Toronto, such as Whitby-Oshawa and Peterborough.
The Rock’s current roster includes Hamilton native Jamison Dilks, star Johnny Powless of Six Nations and Burlington resident Dan Dawson, a longtime veteran of the pro game.
The franchise started life as the Ontario Raiders in early 1998 in what was then called Copps Coliseum. They were owned by a partnership led by Kansas City businessperson Chris Fritz, who had been a co-owner (with Russ Cline) of the Major Indoor Lacrosse League, which had operated for 11 years before accepting expansion teams in Hamilton and Syracuse and increased private ownership for existing teams. They amalgamated all that and rebranded into the National Lacrosse before the start of the 1998 season.
The Ontario Raiders played the first NLL game in Canada on Jan. 3, 1998 before 7,536 fans at Copps Coliseum, and were edged 15-14 in overtime by the visiting Rochester Knighthawks. Rookie Colin Doyle scored four goals for the Hamilton team and went on to become one of the NLL”s all-time stars. But the team averaged only 4800 for its six home games that season, despite being highly competitive with a 6-6 record and barely missing the playoffs on a tiebreaker format.
Fritz said the team had lost $250,000 that season. He had hoped to be joined by new investors but those fell through so he sold the team to the Toronto group which moved it.
LaxScoop 