NLL Insider

Every few days it seems we’re hearing some good news out of the Knighthawks camp. Barring the John Grant Jr. injury report, of course. New marketing vehicles, debts being paid up, life-size lacrosse statues, and a win a car promotion for season ticket holders. These days it is good to be a lacrosse fan in Rochester. It wasn’t always. Long before Rochester became the Green Bay of the NLL, it was…well. The San Jose of the league, with the lifespan of the Charlotte Cobras.

Few though they were, the Rochester fans were ecstatic. They mobbed Marshall in a communal check against the board as he tried to escape to the cramped, steamy basement locker room that Rochester’s minor league hockey team had forced the Griffins to use. The place turned even more humid than usual as a shower of champagne doused everyone. It was the kind of celebration Rochester probably will not see again.

It wasn’t for lack of trying that only 2,525 fans showed up to the War Memorial to watch the Griffins squeak by the Philadelphia Wings 14-12 in the sixth and deciding game of the league’s first championship playoffs in 1974. Rochester head coach Morley Kells did whatever he could to give his team the edge in the finals, including sending a NO TV PERMUTED FOR SATURDAY GAME telegram to the Wings owner after he accused Philadelphia’s Channel 29 of interrupting the final period of game four eight times. He was even rumoured to have been involved with a break-in to the Philadelphia dressing room in which 13 pairs of shoes went missing along with a chunk of the visitors’ gear, though his involvement was never proven to be anything more than a rumour. And after Dave Wilfong had to be restrained from physically confronting the timekeeper?

“In the NHL they call that ‘color,’ ” Kells said. “Here they call it attacking.”

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