Toronto, Halifax square off in second-ever All- Canadian NLL Finals!
The 2026 NLL Finals are here, and this year’s Finals participants are both fighting to reclaim their place in NLL history! With an electric home win in Game 3, the Halifax Thunderbirds have punched their ticket to the big show, making their first NLL Finals appearance in franchise history! Joining them on the big stage, the Toronto Rock make their return to the NLL Finals; their first since 2015 when they took on the Edmonton Rush in their final season before relocating to Saskatchewan. Coincidentally, the last time the Rock made it to the show was also the last time the Finals featured two Canadian participants, making this year’s title match the second All-Canadian Cup in League history!
After forcing a Game 3, the San Diego Seals were sent packing by the Rock, largely due to Nick Rose’s 53 saves, setting a new playoff career-high in the Toronto tender’s 16th season. The Toronto vet has led his squad to the playoffs in nine of his 14 seasons with the Rock, and remains one of two players still in Toronto from the Rock’s 2015 Finals appearance, joined by active Rock defender Billy Hostrawser. Rose’s efforts in net have placed him at the top of the leaderboard with 180 saves.
While veterans are always players to watch in the playoffs, the Toronto rookie class has been a hard bunch for opponents to handle in the postseason. In Game 3 of their semifinal series against San Diego, the Rock’s rookie trio amassed six goals on 11 points in their 14-8 win. Transition player Sam English led his classmates with five points (2G, 3A) against the Seals, with Rookie of the Year nominee CJ Kirst right behind him with four points of his own (2G, 2A). Their fellow first-rounder, Owen Hiltz, though a few steps behind on points, easily kept up with the other rookies with his two goals scored in Game 3.
But the Rock aren’t the only ones bringing heavy artillery into the Championship series. On top of a much-needed turnaround in net by Warren Hill, stopping 37 shots in the Thunderbird’s 15-11 Game 3 win against the Georgia Swarm, Halifax’s Clarke Petterson and captain Cody Jamieson netted six goals on 30 points in last weekend’s semifinal doubleheader. Petterson’s back-to-back nine-point games this past weekend awarded the top spot on the NLL statsheet for playoff assists and points (26A, 32 PTS). Additionally, Halifax’s Jason Knox has also snuck into the upper rungs of the playoff leaderboard, with his seven goals and ten points in Games 2 and 3 bumped to first in the League in playoff goals (15G, 22 PTS).
While Toronto has a storied history in the League as both challenger and champion, the Rock have come up short for a decade and a half. Their last Finals appearance may have been in 2015, but the Rock haven’t brought home the Cup since 2011, beating out the Washington Stealth to secure their sixth NLL League title.
View this post on Instagram
The Thunderbirds have similarly spent a great deal of their five seasons of activity in the postseason as well, making the playoffs every year post-COVID, but their playoff efforts have yet to take them past the regional conference or through the semifinals. Though their Nova Scotian incarnation is still searching for a cup to call their own, their previous incarnation, the original Rochester Knighthawks, were not only frequent flyers, but also regular contenders in the NLL Finals, with multiple championships and the League’s first three-peat still attached to the team after their relocation.
View this post on Instagram
With so many years of postseason competition under these team’s belts, the two have a similarly long history of playoff matchups against each other as well. Since 2020, the Rock have only lined up against Halifax twice since the team’s rebrand, in which Toronto took down the Thunderbirds in both the 2022 and 2023 Eastern Semifinals. Pre-relocation, however, the Rock and Knighthawks (Thunderbirds) have met 11 times in the postseason, with the Rock leading the all-time series 7-4. Their previous run-ins include the 1999, 2000 and 2003 Championships matches, each a Toronto title win, a smattering of Eastern Semifinal matchups, and a final meeting in the 2015 Eastern Conference Finals, preceding the Rock’s last League finals appearance against Edmonton.
The first two games of the NLL Championship Series kick off Friday, May 15th, in Ontario, with the higher-seeded Toronto hosting the first and third bout if necessary. While the Thunderbirds will have the opportunity to put a win back at home the following Sunday, home-field advantage here in the Finals could be a major difference maker. In the postseason, Toronto is currently 2-0 at home, and went 6-3 at home during the regular season. With that said, the case could be made that the Rock’s two home games in the Finals give them a competitive edge. Conversely, the visiting Thunderbirds are 2-0 on the road in the playoffs, eliminating the Warriors at Rogers Arena and taking the first win against the Swarm in Georgia.
With combating strengths on the home and away turf, and with each squad carrying a number of offensive stars and standouts, the likelihood of a two-game sweep could come down to goalie play and defensive performance. While Halifax’s Hill has been a constant clutch player, Toronto’s Rose is on the lookout for his first ring in 16 seasons and is in no position to take the weight of this weekend’s games lightly. Additionally, Rose has support on the backend not only from rookie standout Sam English, but Defensive Player of the Year nominee Brad Kri, who has been instrumental to the Rock’s defensive presence in the postseason. Similarly, Hill has once again had the support of defender Graeme Hossack and transition star Jake Withers. Withers’ 24 loose balls in Game 2 and 29 loose balls in Game 3 set a new NLL Playoff record for loose ball recoveries, tying him for 2nd (with himself) for most recoveries in a single game, behind former Calgary Roughneck Geoff Snider’s 32 pickups.
But with all the chips on the table, and Game 1 of the NLL Finals just a few sleeps away, the Rock and the Thunderbirds are sure to pull out all the stops and pull no punches.
