Wings Fourth Straight Loss Highlighted by Ugly Crowd Reaction

The Philadelphia Wings are still winless. Although the home team put up a valiant second half effort, they still came up short. And Lyle Thompson proved once again why he is regarded as best player in the world. However the Wings play in the 1st half was not the only ugly behavior on display at the Wells Fargo Center.

First Half

The Wings open the scoring against the Swarm with back to back goals in the first quarter. Josh Currier scored the first goal game. That was followed by another from F Blaze Riorden a minute later  and the Wings were off to seemingly a hot start.  However its was all down hill from there. The Swarm let by Thompson scored 8 unanswered goals to take a commanding lead. The Wings added 3 more in the 2nd quarter and trailed 9-5 at the end of the half.

Thinking back to better times…#WeFlyTogether pic.twitter.com/cqGXg0eOcT

— Philadelphia Wings (@NLLwings) January 13, 2019

Second Half

Philadelphia outright dominated the second half of play. And at one point they had outscored Georgia 6-1. But, key goals late in the 4th quarter proved to be the difference. The Swarm managed to stretch the lead on multiple occasion and keep the Wings just out of reach. Thompson would be the subject of fan and announcer taunting  throughout the game. However it was worse  after he put the Swarm up three late in the fourth quarter. Georgia would hold and win by score of 13-11 and drop the expansion storm to 0-4 on the year.

Conclusion

The worst part about the Wings latest loss is the callous insensitive remarks from Wing Public Address announcer Shawny Hill. Hill made derogatory comments through out to Swarm F Lyle Thompson. Thompson is of Haudenosaunee decent and proudly displays his heritage with his physical appearance and hairstyle.  Hill repeatedly made reference to clipping Thompson’s pony tail. And it was the catalyst for the home crowd to start yelling at Thompson they wanted to scalp him. In all my years of covering sports I have never witness something so heinous. It has no place in the sport or in our society. And should be dealt with immediately. as of this morning The Wings, The NLL and Hill himself have issued statements but I’m not sure it is enough.