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12/21/01
A few words with Kaleb Toth prior to Calgary's 20-13 win over the Columbus
Landsharks, their second win of the season. Kaleb sat down with PLPA
correspondent Ty Pilson.
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What's it like coming back to play your second home game here at the
Saddledome. You guys had a great reception in the first game and then you
headed out on the road for three games. What's the feeling come back in here?
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Well, it's exciting. Our first game was a little disappointing for our
players and for the fans but we got to gel a bit as a team on the road and
got our first victory so we're looking forward to coming back home and
hopefully putting on a good show tonight for our home fans.
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Being a hometown boy, how much have you enjoyed getting to come back to
professional lacrosse in Calgary?
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It's been great. I got a good response from the fans and the office
here has been great to me and the teammates have been great. Just getting
the opportunity to come back home and play lacrosse in Calgary is awesome.
I haven't played here in Calgary for a good six or seven years so it's
great to come back home.
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What's it been like losing more games in the last two weeks than you
lost in your first two seasons in Toronto (Kaleb laughs). It's obviously a
big adjustment coming from a championship team to an expansion team?
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Yeah, it is for sure. But I'm looking forward to this team, over the
next two or three years, being a competitor. Right now, I still think
we're underachieving but we just have to practice more as a team and bind
the systems and we'll be fine.
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What's it like playing with such a solid offense here in Calgary
(including Chris Panos, Ben Prepchuk, Jason Wulder and newcomer John
Kilbride). All the guys out there, from right side to left, are scorers,
much like Toronto.
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It's great because it takes a lot of pressure of me and it takes a lot
of pressure of the other guys, too. The right side can score goals and the
left side can score goals either way, so the defense has to work hard
against us and play smart. They can't just key on one guy so it spread the
floor out and gives everyone the opportunity to get some points which
we've been doing.
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After the games you've played this season, is it good coming back here
tonight and playing one of the weaker teams in the league in Columbus or
would you have rather had the game be against another strong team, like
New York, to see if you guys could rise to the challenge?
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It's good to play another basically expansion team because they're
fairly young and have a lot of new players but we can't take this game for
granted. We did that against Montreal and they had a lot of veteran guys
and we figured they'd kind of be an expansion team and wouldn't be too
good and they pretty much kicked the s#&@ out of us so we're just going to
come out tonight flying, like we did in Ottawa, and carry that for the
rest of the game.
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Speaking of Montreal, they were a team that was obviously seen as an
expansion team prior to the season but now, after these first few games, a
lot of people are thinking they've gone from an expansion team to a
championship contender. How surprising was their play?
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They had a lot of the guys from Columbus, all the top guys, and they
went out and got some other key guys as well. They got Teddy Dowling,
who's a great player in this league. He struggled a bit last year but the
season before he led the league in goals. So, they have a great team but
we didn't play our best obviously. The periods we played well we were
right there with them and outscored them. But we didn't play a full 60 and
we have to do that to win.
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And finally, Kaleb. This team has struggled early, much the Calgary
Stampeders (CFL football) who played poorly early in the season, got their
bad games out of the way and then went on to win the championship. I guess
you guys would love to play out a similar script?
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It's better to go on a losing streak early in the year and then go on
the winning streak right before playoffs but it's just going to take the
confidence a while to build. We still have to get to know each other as a
team and we have a lot of fly-in guys which hurts us because we don't get
to practice a lot as a team. We'll just keep working hard, though, and it
will all come together for us.
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