By Clark DeLeon, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
The morning newspaper compared last night’s Major Indoor Lacrose League championship game between the Buffalo Bandits and the Philadelphia Wings to the third Ali-Frazier fight, and afterward, “The Thrill of the MILL” proved worthy of its epic billing.
Like two hungry, gifted heavyweights on a mission, the Bandits and the Wings traded punches, both figurative and literal, in a nerve-racking game that fans for both teams could hardly bear to watch.
And in the end, it was the defending champion Bandits who scored the last and most important goal with less than 29.9 seconds remaining to emerge with a 13-12 victory and the Major Indoor Lacrosse League championship before 16,325 at Buffalo’s Memorial Auditorium.
A goal by Buffalo’s Rich Kilgour ended the agony that started 20 seconds earlier when the Wings’ Chris Flynn entered the penalty box in tears after being given a two-minute penalty for tripping.
The game was tied at 12-12 and both teams had battled back from two-goal deficits to take the lead, only to lose it again. Screams from the Bandits fans in the sold-out Buffalo Auditorium drowned out everything, but managed to get even louder when Kilgour delivered the knockout from the left side about 20 feet from the goal.
Dave Evans, who coached his final game for the Wings, said a power-play goal was a terrible way to decide a championship game.
“Referees shouldn’t be making calls like that in the final minutes of a game like this,” he said of the penalty to Flynn. “(Flynn) played his heart out, and to see him get nailed with the game on the line…. It wasn’t one- sided. I think (the Bandits) got more bad calls against them than we did.”
The Wings held a 12-11 lead with 1:58 remaining before Buffalo rallied for the title.
It was a finish that duplicated the result of last year’s championship game between the two teams at the Spectrum, which Buffalo won by a 12-11 score.
Last night’s contest did not begin well for the Wings.
The game’s first goal was disallowed after a Buffalo protest of Paul Gait, whom the Bandits contended was wielding an illegal stick. “That’s the cheapest call I’ve seen in seven years,” fumed Wings general manager Mike French. “They all have illegal sticks out there.”
The Bandits poured pine tar on the two-minute penalty by immediately scoring on the power play. Paul Gait responded on his first shift after emerging from the penalty box by almost scoring a one-punch TKO over the Bandits’ John Tavares, who happens to be the league’s leading scorer. Paul Gait is second.
Tavares led the Bandits with four goals and was named MVP.
The Wings were ahead on bodies bruised, but Buffalo’s revenge was on the scoreboard. The Bandits led, 2-0, before Paul Deniken put Philadelphia on the scoreboard on a power-play goal with a little over five minutes remaining in the first.
Gary Gait tied it less than two minutes later, and the Wings were beginning to look in control, especially when Buffalo’s Paul Meagher was given a two- minute penalty for holding that handed the Wings a power play that would cover the remainder of the period.
Instead, Buffalo used the time wisely and spectacularly by scoring two short-handed goals within a minute, the second of the pair by Tavares.
(Philadelphia Inquirer, April 11, 1993)