1993 MILL Championship Game: Buffalo Bandits vs Philadelphia Wings
Uploader: GetBenched
Original upload date: Tue, 31 Dec 2013 00:00:00 GMT
Archive date: Wed, 01 Dec 2021 18:28:18 GMT
Hey Bench Warmers! For my last video of 2013 I bring to you the most requested game to date, from the AUD in Buffalo, it's the 1993 MILL Championship Game.
Perfection.
In the history of professional
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sports few teams have ever achieved an unbeaten season. The 1972-73 Miami Dolphins, (NFL), the 2003-04 Arsenal Gunners, (English Premier League,) and the 1993 Buffalo Bandits. It is the only perfect season in pro lacrosse history and it was capped by a game many feel is one of the greatest MILL/NLL championship games in history.
The 1993 Bandits and Wings may have been the most loaded lineups in pro lacrosse history as there has never been so much Hall of Fame calibre talent on one floor in the MILL/NLL for a championship game.
SOME of the names in this one:
The Bandits had mostly the same lineup that won the 1992 MILL Title in OT the year before. Tavares, Veltman, Keenan, Alexander, the Kilgour brothers, Ross Cowie and they were coached by the late Les Bartley.
The Wings had a simply stacked team, maybe the greatest to not win the big one. The Gaits, Flynn, Marechek, Shek, Gabrielsen, Finneran, Dallas Eliuk in his second of many MILL finals, and coaching his last game for the Wings, Dave Evans.
This game could be considered the beginning of the end of single entity ownership in the MILL as accusations of "team stacking" could be heard from many after the controversial trade that sent Gary and Paul Gait from the Detroit Turbos to the Wings for the Wings' entire draft in 1994. The move would completely devastate the Turbos and 1994 would be their final season in the MILL. To this day many fans from that era claim this move caused them to stop taking the league seriously until the MILL/NLL merger of 1997.
This game is also known for the infamous "illegal stick" incident. Following what looked to be the first goal of the game Bandits' coach Les Bartley broke what was considered an "unwritten rule" in lacrosse and called for a stick check on the scorer, Paul Gait. The referees ruled the stick illegal, the goal was taken off the board and Gait was penalized. While the Wings would stay in the game all night and even take the lead in the late stages, the Gaits were never the same, frequently losing their cool and played like a shell of themselves the rest of the evening.
One thing to note, for all the hate Lief Elsmo has gotten over the years, his broadcast partner on this evening, John Horton was FAR worse. The guy gleefully knew NOTHING about lacrosse and spent so much time trying to push his awful goal call, "TO THE BACK OF THE NET" down the viewers' throats that he couldn't call the game properly. Lief was forced to correct him on many errors of almost every kind throughout the game. It was really embarrassing. Makes you really appreciate how good Larry Rosen was as a play by play man for the Wings.
This was the first attempt to call the MILL Finals the "World Championship", something that would be used to describe the game throughout their ESPN2 contract, which began the next season.
John Tavares, the game MVP with 7 points, is still playing for the Bandits today at 46 years of age!!!
The commercials are included which include a hilariously bad STX commercial starring Gary and Paul Gait. For all their success on the floor, this didn't translate well in TV commercials. Then again the 90s "extreme closeup" shaky cam footage didn't help either.
As always, if you have any memories from this epic contest, be sure to post them in the comments section. Enough of my yapping, enjoy the game!!!