By Clark DeLeon
More than 13,000 sports fans turned their collars up against the damp Sunday night wind and trudged through treacherous ruts of refrozen slush covering the Spectrum parking lot just so they could cheer for the only Philadelphia pro sports team this year with a winning record.
The Philadelphia Wings of the Major Indoor Lacrosse League continue to draw big numbers at the Spectrum even in lousy weather on lousy nights. The team’s two home games so far have been on snow-bound Sunday evenings, but the fans have turned out. Jesse Rendell is a fan, and his father the mayor sat beside him for the entire game after appearing for the ceremonial pre-game face-off (see photo) during the season opener against the New York Saints.
After Sunday night’s record-high scoring barrage against the Baltimore Thunder, the Wings are back over .500, their only loss being to the two-time defending champion Buffalo Bandits in Buffalo.
Eleven Wings players scored in the 25-goal avalanche against Baltimore. ”That’s exactly what we’re going to have to do to beat Buffalo,” said team captain Scott Gabrielsen. “We’re going to have to spread the scoring around because the Bandits are going to smother the Gaits whenever they’re on the floor.”
If you were Buffalo, you’d want to smother the Gait brothers, Paul and Gary, the Canadian twins, eh? who have done for scoring what Michael Jordan did for gravity. The fan reaction is the same in both sports: “Did he just do what I saw him do?”
Gary Gait scored one of those “Huh?” goals in the first period on a shot with more quick fakes than a hummingbird’s wing could make before the ball emerged in a blur from behind his back over his opposite shoulder and into the net. It was so fast and surgically efficient that if he’d been holding a saber instead of a lacrosse stick, he could have carved a jack-o’-lantern on the goalie’s face before the poor guy knew he had a pumpkin for a head.
(Philadelphia Inquirer, February 15, 1994)