For the past eight weekends, making a trip to Ricoh Coliseum has been a part of my routine. After all, the Marlies have scheduled themselves to be at home for one or two games in all of those weekends. This time around, however? It’s a road trip, their last of the season. It’s fun for me; this afternoon, I got to go to the Exhibition grounds as a fan and catch a Toronto FC game (they lost). For the Marlies, however, it still meant hockey, but a few hundred kilometres away. The game was against the Syracuse Crunch, and it turned into a physical event and a 6-3 loss.

The bleeding started just a minute into the first period, as Mike Angelidis chipped in a garbage goal in front of the net to open the scoring. Former Leafs prospect Philippe Paradis widened the gap around the midway point, and before the period ended, lead was further extended to 3-0.

Sam Carrick brought Toronto a little closer with his 11th of the season, but two more goals by the Crunch put the game far out of reach. Tempers flared shortly after the 5-1 goal, and a mini-brawl occured. A bit of instigation occured, and both Korbinian Holzer and Brad Staubitz were tossed from the game. Steve Spott gave the refs a piece of his mind in defense of his players, and also got thrown out of the game in the process. With forty seconds left in the period, TJ Brennan fired a wrister that was enough to keep things interesting, bringing the score back within three.

Early in the third period, Greg McKegg added his 18th of the season to make it a two goal game. It didn’t last, however, as Brett Connolly scored the game’s final goal. Frazer McLaren made the last notable play of the game, getting tossed for charging with eight minutes to go.