Philadelphia Wings at Wells Fargo Center
The City of Brotherly Love has had a love affair with indoor lacrosse for nearly half a century, and the Philadelphia Wings continue this tradition of excellence. The Wings play out of the Wells Fargo Center, which opened in 1996 as the CoreStates Center, and seats up to 19,346 for hockey and lacrosse. They are coached by Paul Day, who has 22 years of experience as a player and a coach, in addition to 27 years experience off the field as a law enforcement officer.
Philadelphia Wings History
The original Philadelphia Wings played two seasons in the original National Lacrosse League, playing their first game at the Spectrum on May 19, 1974, mere hours after the Philadelphia Flyers won their first Stanley Cup on home ice. The original Wings featured such players as John Grant Sr., and former Flyers goalie Doug Favell, and were one of the more stable teams in the league, which only lasted until 1975. When the Eagle Pro Box Lacrosse league formed in 1987, the Wings were the only team name to be revived, and John Grant Sr. would become the only player to have played for the first two iterations of the Philadelphia Wings. Many legends of lacrosse would play for these Wings, including twins Gary and Paul Gait, player and coach Tony Resch, and Jake Bergey, the son of legendary Eagles linebacker Bill Bergey.
The Wings dominated what would become the Major Indoor Lacrosse League and finally the NLL throughout the '90s, winning six titles from 1989 to 2001, and forming bitter rivalries against such teams as the Buffalo Bandits and Toronto Rock. In 2014, the Mohegan Tribe purchased the franchise and moved them to Uncasville, Connecticut, to become the New England Black Wolves. Philadelphia was without indoor lacrosse from 2014 to 2017, when Comcast Spectacor (the owner and operator of both the Wells Fargo Center and the Philadelphia Flyers) formed an expansion franchise which played their first game on December 15, 2008. After finishing 4-14 in the 2019 season, the Wings equaled their previous season's win total six games into the 2020 NLL season. After returning from the Covid-19 hiatus, the modern franchise earned its first playoff berth in the 2021-2022 season and now has its sights set on securing a league-leading seventh championship.
