In a sense, the Toronto Rush were lucky to escape D.C with only one loss on their record. They came on the trip missing one of their best and most important players in Andrew Carroll. Star young’un Ben Oort dislocated his thumb during a savvy, veteran catch in the endzone. An iffy continental breakfast felled star defender Bretton Tan, who could barely stand due to his sickness.
As I write the very first sentence of this Tuesday Toss, I’m already worried that the column will be too long. And for me, your verbose, long-form ultimate scribe, to be fretting about that this early, it’s troubling.
I have strived to embrace brevity more regularly this season—if you haven’t noticed, the 2018 Toss has been closer to 5,000 words than 7,500 each week—but sometimes there are just so many stories to be told.
Perfection in 2018 is off the table for the Toronto Rush, as the Breeze beat them 25-24 in overtime in D.C. The Rush lost a strange game, which saw three key offensive players no longer playing with the offence by the time the day was done. Andrew Carroll didn’t make the trip, Ben Oort injured his thumb, and Cam Harris switched to the D-Line during the second quarter.
Even though 2018 marks the sixth straight year of Toronto’s brash dominance over its East Division foes, it also denotes a slightly fresh, original era for the Rush. The Rush are better than their divisional rivals, just as they always have been. But the last undefeated team in the AUDL is conquering its opponents in ways new and old, tried and novel.
“Things are different, but things are the same,” said defensive captain Bomber Powell.