The Binghamton Bombers defeated the Elmira Renegades by a score of 15-14 at the Visions Veterans Memorial Arena in Binghamton this past Friday and I was in attendance and had an incredible time.
I bought 2 season tickets and my 9 year old son defeated his sister in a best of three paper-rock-scissors deathmatch to win the seat for the first game of the year.
First off, right from the start, we walk in the building and I’m greeted by people I know, first the Dunham family and within 15 seconds later, a former player from Whitney Point, Adam Compeau. I picked up my tickets and then got Eli a bit of preferential treatment thanks to Josh Williams, a former player of mine at Broome CC that took Eli into the penalty box so he could see the guys warming up at which point I got a big bear hug from Brian Conzola, another former player of mine at Broome that plays for his home team Bombers.
We went from there into the video room and Josh let Eli push some buttons, gave him some pizza and a soda, and from there we grabbed me a beer and hit our seats.
The “seeing of people that I’ve known through lacrosse” never stopped and Eli kept asking me, almost annoyed, “Dad, why do people keep stopping us to talk to you”. My explanation was simple…. “When you’re old like me and you’ve been playing and coaching lacrosse for this long, you end up knowing everyone”. It felt that way and it was like a big ass family reunion. We couldn’t walk more than 10 steps without running into someone else I had to hug or shake hands with. We all probably got Covid.
BUT NOW TO THE GAME…. I’m going to be short on stats and specifics, so instead, as part of this podcast video, I’m just going to roll the highlights and watch them with you and ramble, thanks to @TyCunningtonTV. If you want to see some really solid PBLA coverage, at least for Binghamton, give him a follow on Twitter because this highlight cut is all him (he’s an anchor for WICZ Fox 40, our local news station).
In the end, Ty Hill scored the historical “Bombers first goal” and Ty Thompson and Cam Simpson combined for 7 goals, while Jake Laxore came up with a handful of huge stops to help propel Binghamton to the 15-14 win.
The game winning goal was scored by Cody Kilcoyne and everyone in my section was in the sauce and juiced up.
I can’t recommend this league enough if you have a team in your area. SUPPORT THEM. Without people actually getting off their asses and going to games, this league won’t make it, and holy shit do I want the league to succeed because that is by far the most fun I’ve had at “The Arena” in my entire life.
Audio version…
