Saturday 18 August 2018

Toronto Wolfpack 22, Hull Kingston Rovers 28, Lamport Stadium, Toronto, ON

The Toronto Wolfpack RLFC is a Canadian professional rugby league club, based in here Toronto, which competes in the British Rugby Football League system.  In 2018, the club is competing in the Championship, having begun to play in 2017 in League 1 and won a promotion in its inaugural season.  The club is noted as being the first North American team to play in the Rugby Football League system, the first fully professional rugby league team in Canada and the world's first transatlantic rugby league team.  Their home stadium is Lamport Stadium (aka "The Den"), which is just a couple blocks from where Gord and I live.  We are season ticket holders (and we renewed for 2019 this week).

Today the Wolfpack were playing the Hull Kingston Rovers (who are in the Super League).  It was round two of the qualifiers ... the top four teams in our Betfred League (the Wolfpack were first in the Betfred League) play the bottom four teams in the Super League to see who moves or stays in the leagues. As part of the Super 8s qualifiers middle tier format, it was the first visit of a club from the top division onto Canadian soil.

Here are me and Gord before the game began.


Here come the Wolfpack players ...


God Save the Queen and O Canada were sung before the game.


And the game began ...


 At the end of the first half, Hull was winning 14 - 6.


SuperKick'd provided entertainment during the intermission.

This wrestler said the Wolfpack sucked :(
And then it was on!
Poor Jefferson, the Wolfpack mascot!
Then it got out of control!
The wrestlers brought it to our section!
He was trying to toss the other guy over the wall!
Jefferson got involved and got slapped around
Jefferson took control
Victory!

During all this ... who wants a hot dog?!


The second half began ...


The attendance was 7,430.


Alas, the Wolfpack lost 28 - 22.  So the Wolfplack and Hull are now one win, one loss in the qualifiers.   Three more home games to go!


Our friend, Trish, surprised us by coming to the game.


After the game, the Wolfpack players huddled and then most disappeared while the Hull players hung out and drank beer and socialized.


The beer gardens was a popular spot after the game.  SuperKick'd was setting up to do a show.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Great pictures was an amazing day there.