December 19, 2022 – Professional Box Lacrosse Association (PBLA) News Release
Fans can be a part of sports history by attending the first ever game in the new Professional Box Lacrosse Association (PBLA) by purchasing tickets, which are on sale as of 10:00am Eastern Time this morning. The game will take place at the Iroquois Lacrosse Arena in Hagersville, Ontario (Canada) as the Jim Thorpe All-Americans take on the Syracuse Spark on December 29 at 7:00pm.
“This is truly a Field of Dreams meets Lambeau Field type setting for our inaugural game,” PBLA Commissioner Steve Donner said. “Thanks to our host, Curt Styres, we can honor the Founder with having a game played in the country where indoor lacrosse was created AND have one of the participating teams represent the territory in the United States where the Native Americans originated the sport itself. As a league that is doing exactly that – embracing the origins of the lacrosse – it’s fitting, then, that the ‘home’ team be the one that is named for a great Native American athlete who excelled at more than one sport, including ours.”
“The Jim Thorpe team was created as our barnstorming team to pay homage to the history, the creation, and the tradition of the sport” said PBLA President of Business Operations John Livsey. “It allows us to go celebrate the sport’s creation and take our league out to new and emerging markets while celebrating Jim Thorpe, a Native American and arguably the greatest ever American athlete.”
All tickets are twenty dollars and can be purchased through pbla.com or in-person at Arrow Express Sports at Iroquois Lacrosse Arena. All fans attending will receive a commemorative inaugural PBLA game ticket.
While the Syracuse Spark will play their home games in the The Oncenter, the Jim Thorpe All-Americans will call Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania, home, but go “on tour” to showcase the sport in a variety of markets for their home games, starting with the opening game on the 29th. Jim Thorpe was the first Native American to win a gold medal for the United States in the Olympics, doing so at the 1912 Summer Olympics (one in classic pentathlon and one in decathlon). In addition to competing in track and field and lacrosse, Thorpe played in Major League Baseball and the National Football League. He was inducted in the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s inaugural class in 1963. The Associated Press ranked him as the “greatest athlete” from the first 50 years of the 20th century.
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