National Lacrosse League to Celebrate 20th Season

[Sonny]

National Lacrosse League to Celebrate 20th Season

The National Lacrosse League's 2006 season will mark the 20th season of professional indoor lacrosse. The league has unveiled a special logo in honor of the upcoming season, which starts on December 30th. Professional indoor lacrosse got its start in 1987, when the league was known as the Eagle Pro Box Lacrosse League. The league began with four teams in the Mid-Atlantic region, each playing a six-game regular season schedule. Nineteen seasons later, the league has grown to eleven teams across North America, each playing a sixteen-game regular season schedule.

"We're pleased to unveil this special logo for our 20th season," said NLL Commissioner Jim Jennings. "As excited as we are about the future of this game, we always take time to reflect and honor all of the great teams and moments of the first nineteen seasons. We will be looking back and honoring the greatness of the past throughout the 2006 season."

"We've seen all of North America become alive and awake to the game of lacrosse over the past twenty years," said league co-founder and Philadelphia Wings owner Russ Cline, who incorporated the league with business partner and Wings co-owner Chris Fritz in March of 1986. "This season is a tribute to everyone who put their own personal block into a building that is now almost twenty years old—players, coaches, referees and all of our loyal fans around the league. The best part is yet to come—I think the league will grow faster in the next five years than it did in the first twenty."

The league was known as the Eagle Pro Box Lacrosse League for the 1987 & 1988 seasons. The name changed to the Major Indoor Lacrosse League (MILL) in 1989. Nine seasons later, the league became the National Lacrosse League (1998 to present).

[Sonny]

[CyLaxKeeper00]

I wonder how many franchises will fold in the 20th season of the NLL.