Toronto – Toronto Rock General Manager Terry Sanderson announced today that veteran forward Blaine Manning will return Saturday night against the Edmonton Rush.
Manning broke his collarbone in Toronto’s 2nd game of the season on January 14th in Buffalo and has been on the injured reserve for 12 weeks, which was longer than the originally anticipated 8-10 weeks of recovery.
“It’s been pretty discouraging,” said Manning who had never missed a game in his NLL career prior to the injury. “Taking so long to heal, and watching when we weren’t winning was discouraging. As a player, you just want to be out there and contributing. I’m very excited to be back.”
In that stretch, the Rock have endured several injuries that have sidelined other key offensive stars including Josh Sanderson and Colin Doyle for much shorter stretches.
“I’ve never seen anything like this in my 11 years with the Rock,” said Manning. “I’ve never seen a injury bug like this, however it’s been interesting to see how as a team we responded when Josh and Colin went down. It was good to see how we handled it as a team and we did a good job. I hope this is the end of the injuries and we stay healthy as a group for the rest of the season.”
With the move of Manning to the active roster, the Rock have placed forward Jamie Rooney on the physically unable to perform list as he is suffering from a lower body injury sustained off the lacrosse floor.
The Rock host Edmonton on Saturday night at 6pm at Air Canada Centre in their final regular season home game. The game will be televised live on TSN2 and will also be available on TSN Mobile TV.
