The Greatest Lacrosse Goalie

I heard the sad news last night from my brother Jon. Dallas Eliuk has been traded from the Philadelphia Wings to the Portland Lumberjax.

Here's a little bit from this article at insidelacrosse.com: "Eliuk has won four world championships (1994, ’95, ’98, 2001), nine All-Pro and two championship MVP awards. He has spent his entire indoor lacrosse career with the Wings, making him the longest tenured athlete in Philadelphia history. He decided to make the move to Portland in order to be closer to his family in Vancouver, BC."

Jon and I are diehard indoor lacrosse fans. I was introduced to the game by my brother back in the mid 70's when the first Philly Wings team played in a pro league that lasted 2 seasons. He had season tickets and I fell in love with the game then and there. I could tell you some great stories about those years, the amazing John Grant, Doug Favell (a Flyers goalie) who played for the team, halftime entertainment that included "The Human Bomb" who got in a box with dynamite and blew himself up setting fire to the astroturf and stumbling around after the explosion. Ahhh, memories!

When a new league started many years later, and the new Wings got a goalie named Dallas Eliuk, the magic began. Many championships, many great performances. The best part of all of it started with an unhappy moment when my Mom (who had season tickets with us) got knocked down in the concourse of the arena prior to the start of a game and got a pretty bad head injury. She spent some time in the hospital and took a long time to recover. An ex sister-in-law of mine (thanks Mary) later contacted a Philly sportscaster (Ukie Washington) who then contacted some of the Wings about what a fan my Mom was. By then she had started going back to games. Well, you guessed it, Ukie brought Dallas and another Wings player, Chris Flynn, down to Wilmington and they did a story about my Mom that appeared on the TV news. We all got to meet Dallas (and Ukie and Chris) and he autographed one of his game jerseys for her. It was so cool. She wore that jersey to every game after. Needless to say, I love Dallas, not only for his playing ability, but also for what he did for my Mom. What a great guy! I wish him luck in Portland and I know all Wings fans will miss him dearly. Portland visits Philadelphia for a game Saturday, February 18th at 8:00PM local time. Go out and cheer the greatest indoor lacrosse goalie of all time!