By Gene Ward - NY Daily News - 1/16/1975
A grand old name returned to the New York sports scene yesterday as Bruce Norris, the late Big Jim’s younger brother, came to town as the owner of a new team, the Long Island Tomahawks, who will be playing an old game invented by the American Indian and called lacrosse, in Nassau Coliseum.
Jim operated old Madison Square Garden, including the Rangers, Knicks and the International Boxing Club. But Bruce, actually a half brother, long has been a big-timer in sports as owner of the Detroit Red Wings, the Olympia Arena, etc.
So, with Norris money going for them, neither the Tomahawks nor the six-team league in which they play, the National Lacrosse League, is apt to do a quick fold.
Toronto, Rochester, N.Y.
There was some typical Norris wheeling and dealing as a prelude to his appearance as owner of the Tomahawks yesterday at a media gathering in the Coliseum at Uniondale, L.I. A year ago, he was owner of the Toronto Tomahawks, who finished second in the league’s first year of operation and who then knocked off the Philadelphia Wings in a six-game playoff for the championship.
Norris sold the Toronto franchise, which went to Boston. He then bought the Rochester franchise, which he moved to Long Island while keeping the name of his Toronto champions, the Tomahawks.
Always a hockey buff—his father came out of Montreal to found the famed Chicago Black Hawks—it was perfectly natural for Bruce to become interested in lacrosse, which is very much like hockey.
“It’s virtually the same game,” he explained, “hockey without skates, and it’s rough.”
The indoor variety, called box lacrosse, is played on a wooden floor and in a hockey-sized (rink) area, 210 feet. The rules and penalty infractions are almost identical to hockey . . . The scoring, with goals and assists, the same . . . there are six players to a side, including three forwards, two defensemen and a goalie . . . three 20-minute periods, and a club is allowed to dress 20 players.
The ball is solid rubber, slightly smaller than that used for tennis. The stick, or racket, has a small, leather basket for catching and throwing at one end.
1975 Long Island Tomahawks
Fastest Sport on Foot
As for speed and continuous action, Bruce claims it’s the fastest sport on foot. “We don’t have any such thing as an offside as in hockey and we have a 30-second rule for getting off a shot, as in basketball.”
High scoring? “You bet,” he added. “Averaged out to 17-15 per game last season.”
The other five teams in the NLL are the Montreal Les Quebecois, Quebec City Les Caribous, Maryland Arrows, Philadelphia Wings and the unnamed Boston team. A 56-game schedule will be played, starting April 20 (a target date) and ending the first week of September, just before the start of the NFL season.
NLL President Gerald Patterson says there will be television revenue generated this year—national coverage via five Games-of-the-Week as well as additional exposure on an independent station in New York.
The Tomahawks have a couple players from Long Island—Bill Tierney of Levittown, former ace for the Long Island AC’s national champions, and Ray Rostan of Copiague. Morley Kells, the team’s coach and GM, rates both as real comers along with Penn’s John Sheffield, the only black in the league so far.
