OAKVILLE, ON – The Rock City faithful have cast their ballots and the results are in! Toronto Rock fans voted both through the official Toronto Rock App and via the team’s Instagram account (@thetorontorock) to crown the best of the season both on and off the floor.
On social media, fans were asked to select the Best Dressed, Goal of the Year, Play of the Year, and Speech of the Year with those behind the scenes moments taken from this season of Rock City Unplugged.
The winner of the Best Dressed Award was Latrell Harris with 33 percent of the votes. Harris always arrives in Rock City delivering a splash of style and truly owns the Game Day Fit scene. He carries that over to the turf with his elite shoe game that is unmatched in the NLL.
The Play of the Year, earning 55 percent of the votes, was CJ Kirst’s multi-fake-then-dish to Owen Hiltz who dropped the hammer into a yawning cage against San Diego during the playoffs. The play was a true representation of how much respect Kirst has already earned as a goal scorer who can fake a goalie out of his drawers, but he then flipped the script by delivering a pass to a wide open Hiltz for the goal.
When it comes to the Goal of the Year, it’s always difficult to narrow down the nominees in this category but there were certainly a few that stood out. With 40 percent of the vote, Hugh Kelleher’s lefty-goal against San Diego, also in the playoffs, was the winner. There are so many great things about this diving dagger that Kelleher delivered, but biggest of them all is that he’s a right-handed shot and he switched hands and finished the play left-handed, all while on the run and under pressure from the opposing defence. A goal like that from a defender gave the Rock a ton of juice on their way to an important postseason victory.
The Speech of the Year was a new category added this year and rightfully so with all the terrific moments that were captured on this year’s championship-winning season of Rock City Unplugged. In the end, it was assistant coach Dan Dawson’s halftime speech in Ottawa that capture 51 percent of the votes. Dawson’s line of, “I address you as men, and I trust you will respond as men,” will raise the hair on the back of your neck every time.
For the traditional core Fan Choice Awards, fans utilized the official Toronto Rock App to vote.
The Fan Favourite Award, for the second year in a row, went to Rock defender Elijah Gash with 19.3 percent of the vote. Not far behind were Latrell Harris (17.7%) and Chris Boushy (10.2%). Gash’s physical style of play and willingness to stand up to opponents has endeared himself to Rock City from day one.
The Defensive Player of the Year Award was the closest vote of them all. Latrell Harris with 31.7 percent of the votes edged out Brad Kri who garnered 31.1 percent of the vote. With this award, you can’t go wrong with either of the top two. Harris is a past NLL Defender of the Year Award winner and Kri was the runner-up for the 2026 league distinction and a 1st Team All-NLL selection this season.
Shifting to the other end of the floor, rookie phenom CJ Kirst was the winner of the Offensive Player of the Year Award with 43.5 percent of the votes. Kirst burst upon the scene scoring the first goal of his NLL career, in his first game and ironically the first game of the NLL season. He was the first overall pick in the 2025 NLL Draft and wears number 1 on his back. Definitely see a theme developing for K1rst.
The contribution of the Rock rookies to this year’s historic championship run was nothing short of amazing. While one rookie certainly stood out, the group played a massive role in the team’s success. Kirst received more than half the votes with 57.5 percent of fan approval. Sam English (18.6%) and Owen Hiltz (16.1%) were the runners-up. The Big 3 were only part of the rookie story in the end with Hugh Kelleher, Lucas Hucal, and Isiah Moran-Weekes all contributing throughout the season.
When talking about this team, sometimes you just can’t get away from the rookie storyline and the Unsung Hero Award takes us there once again. First-year pro Kelleher had 42.2 percent of the vote, less than 3 percent more than runner-up Nick Rowlett.
The MVP of the regular season went to Kirst as well with 50.6 percent of the votes with Mark Matthews finishing in second spot with 15.4 percent of the votes. It is somewhat fitting that these two players were the top two vote getters in the regular season MVP category as Kirst and Matthews finished tied for the team lead in points at 71.
To the postseason we go and the Playoff MVP. There were several correct answers here when you consider the MVP-like performances of several players throughout the team’s run to the championship. But in the end, the fans agreed with the NLL’s Playoff MVP selection as Sam English received 40.4 percent of the vote. The runner-up was Nick Rose with 31.1 percent of the vote.
The winner of the signed Challen Rogers jersey is Derek MacDonald who was randomly selected from all voters who participated in the voting through the official Toronto Rock App.
For more information on Toronto Rock tickets, please contact a Toronto Rock account executive by phone at 416-596-3075, by email at tickets@torontorock.com or visit torontorock.com.
