Toronto Rock Battle Adversity, Lack of Popular Attention through Championship Run

At 36 years of age, Brandon Miller is still chasing his first championship ring.

Stories of aging athletes going late into their careers to win that elusive first title are nothing new. Paul Molitor captured his first World Series at 37 years old as a member of the 1993 Blue Jays. Ray Bourque, one of the greatest defenseman in NHL history, waited until he was a grizzled 40 years old to hoist his first Stanley Cup.

Miller's story, however, is different from that of the two Hall of Famers.

The Toronto Rock's two-time National Lacrosse League All-Star goalie is not raking in millions of dollars in contract earnings. At an age when most athletes start to show signs of wear, Miller's been as good as ever. But in a league that had an average salary of $19,135 in 2013, his route towards an NLL championship must first go through his full-time occupation as a Hydro One employee.

"It's the one hurdle we deal with a lot," Miller says of players balancing their lacrosse requirements and outside work. Most players must work full-time jobs while playing games on the weekends.

"There's a lot of good players I know who aren't playing in this league because you have to have an understanding boss. You have to work a job that will let you do it. I do and I'm lucky. But we give up a lot. I use most of my holiday time on lacrosse and we sacrifice our summers. My family and I don't travel as much as I'd like to."

While lacrosse is one of Canada's national sports, you might not have heard of Miller. Heck, if you're outside of the lacrosse community, you probably weren't aware that the Rock are vying for their seventh NLL Champion's Cup.

In a city so desperately starved not just for a championship team but one that can contend annually, the Rock's place far at the bottom end of the totem pole of Toronto sports franchises is confusing and angering to some.

But not for Rock owner Jamie Dawick, who accepts his team's place in Toronto's pecking order of sports. After six years of being an owner, he's used to it.

"This is a Leaf town," he says. "If anything happens, even minor, it makes news. I've come to accept that from the beginning and you just deal with it."

Roughly two years into his ownership, Darwick broke ground on the two-pod Toronto Rock Athletic Centre in nearby Oakville, which acts as both a training ground and team offices. He says his three major expenses with the Rock are the use of the Maple Leafs Sports and Entertainment-owned Air Canada Centre, team travel and salaries.

It may be that first expense that is most glaring. Dawick estimates he needs to sell approximately 12,000 tickets per game to break even in a building with a capacity of 18,800.

For Saturday's Game 1 of the best-of-three Champion's Cup final against the Edmonton Rush, with neither of the Leafs, Raptors, Blue Jays or Argonauts to compete against at that time, announced attendance was 9,257.

"We've got to find a way to get more people down there. It's a challenge," says Dawick. Despite fighting for a championship, one that many might assume Toronto sports fans are hungry for, Dawick admits the Rock's challenges are different than other teams.

"We're not competing with the Leafs or the Raptors, we're competing against a family of four going to a movie or to a nice dinner. I believe if we get them out, they'll come back," he says.

If fans aren't going to make it out for what could very well have been the Rock's last game at home this season, you have to wonder if and when they will. There was a pervading sense throughout the team's 15-9 loss in Game 1 that not only were they the underdogs against the Rush, they were underdogs within their own city.

The team's howling announcer called repeatedly, if not incessantly, throughout the game while play was on: "You know the boys need you," he would say. He'd later ask, "Are you with me Toronto? Let's make some noise for the boys!" To begin the second half, he yelled, "Let's start this one off loud and proud!"

Music blares throughout play, a no-no at Leafs games. The lights drop to near total darkness pre-game, before scantily-clad cheerleaders take to the box. A Rock game feels more like a party than a sporting event. If you cannot have mass appeal and an audience, then it seems to be the Rock's M.O. to create a product that separates itself from the Toronto sports herd.

Through their championship run, players are not concerned by the lack of attention their team receives.

"We don't talk about it much," says 33-year-old Rock veteran Bill Greer. "We're hoping that being in a championship we might get some other fans on board. We're the only team in this city besides the Argos that win."

"Hopefully word gets out there. If it takes a season like this, a big run like this to get people on board, that's fine."

Even with the challenges that NLL vets like Greer, a full-time physical education teacher who was recently legislated back to work, face in balancing two careers, he's not losing sight of the bigger picture.

This Rock team is fighting for former general manager and assistant coach Terry Sanderson, who passed away in November.

"It's been a very special year. Obviously with (Sanderson) passing it was very tough for us. But it really brought us together," says Greer. "We've talked about how this is one of those once-in-a-career type of teams. Through every game we've come together as a team and we've been on a mission. We had our backs against the wall last weekend and every guy pitched in. It's been an emotional year."

It's where the emotion and business meet that we find the 2015 Rock.

They've got a shot to deliver their second championship and third to the city of Toronto since 2005 (the Argonauts won the CFL's Grey Cup in 2012). Still, you have to wonder who will be watching.

"You want to operate a business," says Dawick. "There's a lot of passion and I want to win but no one likes to lose money. It's the constant focus of the business side of the Rock."