By Cleve Dheensaw - Times-Colonist staff - 4/6/1992
After years of slogging away in sweaty, virtually empty arenas where his genius for the game of lacrosse went unnoticed by most in this country, Kevin Alexander has finally made the big time leap to big time crowds. Lacrosse is a sport indigenous to Canada, but it took American showmanship to display it to best effect.
Forget about all those mostly empty arenas in the Western Lacrosse Association where Alexander was a scoring star for so many years with Victoria Payless. Two weeks ago, he was performing in front of a standing room only crowd of 17,000 in the Buffalo Auditorium. The week before that it was in front of 15,000 at the ‘Aud.’
In the weeks before, it was in front of 14,000 at the Spectrum in Philadelphia, 9,000 in the Boston Garden and 7,000 in Detroit at Joe Louis Arena. For those who don’t think the World Cup of soccer will go over in 1994 in the United States, guess again.
The Americans can turn anything into an event and make you want to pay to watch it. When it comes to pop culture marketing genius, nobody touches them. From the country that gave you Ringling Bros., the WWF, arena football and indoor soccer, comes the Major Indoor Lacrosse League and all those fans you couldn’t attract for lacrosse in Canada even for a Mann Cup final.
The Buffalo Bandits, owned by the NHL’s Sabres, fly Alexander between Victoria and Buffalo every weekend. MILL teams play only 10 regular-season games and only on weekends.
Alexander has 28 goals in nine games for Buffalo, in-between trying to sell real estate in Victoria from Monday to Thursday. “It’s been a little bit wearing,” said Alexander, about his travel schedule since January.
“It depends if you get a good flight or a bad flight,” added Alexander. “But it’s great just to be a part of this league. It’s an example of what good marketing can do. The product is more colorful and entertaining than the WLA and it’s sold that way.
They advertise heavily in the papers and cable carries all the games on television (the championship final between Buffalo and Philadelphia at the Spectrum will be broadcast live U.S.-wide on ESPN on Saturday).
“There are cheerleaders, the nets are six inches wider and there’s always music blasting. The fans have a hoot. They’re selling entertainment to them. I’ve never played in front of this many people indoors. A fan I was talking to told me that if you go to a Sabres game, people sit quietly with their arms crossed.
But at the lacrosse, all the fans are hooting and hollering and having a great time. It’s like having the Buffalo Bills’ (football) fans indoors.” Most of the players are former NCAA field lacrosse stars from the U.S. eastern seaboard, although there are several other Victoria players in the league.
Gary and Paul Gait and John Hamilton play for the Detroit Turbos, which lost 19-16 to Buffalo on Friday in the semifinals, while goaltender Bob Heyes plays for the Pittsburgh Bulls. The players are paid between $125 to $350 a game, which points out another ingenious American business practice — the low wage. While somebody might be making some money from all this, Alexander said most players are happy right now not to press money matters and just be content with playing lacrosse at such an emotionally intoxicating level.
At 36, Alexander is the oldest player in the league. But his reputation was too much for the league to ignore and Buffalo came calling. “I’m kind of old for everybody to be calling a rookie, that’s for sure,” he laughed.
It’s strange, but it took American showbiz to give new life to Alexander in the sport he helped revolutionize with his incredible scoring numbers in junior with Victoria McDonalds and in senior with Payless.
As for his future, Alexander said he wouldn’t mind playing for another two years to take part in the 1994 Commonwealth Games at home, where field lacrosse is the demonstration sport. It would be Alexander’s second Games.
He took part in the 1978 Edmonton Commonwealth Games where box lacrosse was the demonstration sport at Northlands Coliseum.
Box lacrosse taking U.S. market by storm
Associated Press
BUFFALO — Box lacrosse is turning into boffo box office. The sport is booming in the United States’ traditional field lacrosse hotbeds along the Eastern seaboard. Attendance in the seven-team Major Indoor Lacrosse League has averaged about 12,000 a game, according to league president Christopher C. Fritz, who said between 350,000 and 400,000 fans will have attended a league game this season. It isn’t the first attempt at an indoor lacrosse league.
The National Lacrosse League operated in a number of cities in the northeastern U.S. and Canada in 1974-75. Its undoing, Fritz said, was the high salaries it was paying. The league left behind a video, which is how Fritz got interested in lacrosse. A former record store owner and truck-show promoter, Fritz saw the video and was overwhelmed. “It’s a real promotable product,” he said. Indoor, or box lacrosse as it’s often called, is a high-scoring, hard-hitting hybrid sport which is mostly played — to little attention — in the provinces of Ontario and British Columbia. It was, however, a prime sport in those provinces in the 1950s.
“It’s got everything basketball has and everything hockey has,” Fritz said. “It’s a higher-scoring game than soccer.” “Somebody who wants to watch curling, they’re not going to like it,” Fritz said. “Somebody who likes football or boxing, this is perfect for them.”
The emphasis on hitting is one quarrel field lacrosse purists have with the indoor game. Players have full-time jobs away from lacrosse, are allowed to practice only once a week and are paid on a sliding scale depending on their years in the league. Rookies get $125 a week; six-year veterans $325.
“To play in front of 16,000 fans is just unbelievable,” said player Jim Veltman, a substitute teacher from Brampton, Ont. “I’d pay to play, but don’t tell the coaches that.”
