John Tavares (lacrosse)

John Tavares
Born September 4, 1968 (1968-09-04) (age 43),
Toronto, Ontario, CAN
Position Forward
Height
 5 ft 11 in (1.80 m)
MSL Team Peterborough Lakers
NLL Team Buffalo Bandits
Nationality  Canada
Pro Career 1992–present
Shoots Both

John Tavares (born September 4, 1968 in Toronto, Ontario) is a professional box lacrosse player in the National Lacrosse League and mathematics teacher at Philip Pocock Catholic Secondary School in Mississauga Ontario, Canada. He attended D'Youville College in Buffalo, NY.

Tavares has played his entire career with the Buffalo Bandits since their inaugural season in 1992. He was acquired from the Detroit Turbos in exchange for Brian Nikula in October 1991. John is also the Professional Lacrosse Players' Association Representative for the Bandits.

Tavares is an uncle of ice hockey player John Tavares, the first overall pick of the 2009 NHL Entry Draft, a forward with the New York Islanders of the National Hockey League and has also won the CHL Rookie of the Year Award and the OHL Rookie of the Year for the 2005–06 OHL season.

Contents

Playing career

NLL

Tavares is first in NLL career points, goals and assists. On Saturday February 18, 2006, the Buffalo Bandits defeated the Minnesota Swarm by a score of 14-9 in front of 12,458 fans at HSBC Arena in Buffalo, New York. In that game, John Tavares tied the NLL Career Points (goals + assists) record at 1,091 points held by Gary Gait, who had retired after the 2005 season.[1]

On Saturday March 4, 2006, 10,961 fans witnessed history. On that night, the Buffalo Bandits played their 7th regular season game again hosting the Minnesota Swarm, and Tavares scored two points in an 11-8 loss. The first was his 1,092nd career point, the record-breaker, which was an assist to Mark Steenhuis who scored a power-play goal at 11:57 in the second period. (The second point, Point 1,093, was also an assist to Steenhuis in the third period.) Play was stopped, and Tavares was given the game ball.[2][3][4]

On Saturday January 20, 2008, Tavares scored his 597th career goal in a win over the New York Titans, passing Gary Gait and becoming the NLL's all-time leader in goals scored.[5] May 17, 2008 Tavares won his fourth championship and first since 1996. The Bandits beat the Lumberjax in the championship game with the help of two Tavares goals.

During the 2009 NLL season, he was named to the All-Star Game.[6]

OLA/WLA

Tavares is a six-time member of a Mann Cup champion team, winning in 1992 and 1993 with the Brampton Excelsiors, 1994 through 1996 with the Six Nations Chiefs (both of the Major Series Lacrosse), and in 2002 with the Victoria Shamrocks of the Western Lacrosse Association. He is a three-time winner, in 1992, 1993, and 1996, of the Mike Kelly Memorial Trophy as most valuable player in the Mann Cup competition.[7] Tavares also won the Major Series Lacrosse scoring title eight times, and the MSL's Most Valuable Player award three times.[8]

NLL accomplishments

Career totals

As of 2011 season.

NLL awards

Weekly and monthly awards, as of 2007 season.

NLL milestones - points

Statistics

NLL career

    Regular Season   Playoffs
Season Team GP G A Pts LB PIM GP G A Pts LB PIM
1992 Buffalo 8 21 22 43 66 26 3 12 12 24 29 8
1993 Buffalo 8 35 23 58 93 28 2 4 3 7 6 2
1994 Buffalo 8 27 20 47 74 14 2 6 8 14 19 9
1995 Buffalo 8 24 21 45 66 21 1 2 1 3 6 0
1996 Buffalo 10 41 40 81 102 4 2 4 7 11 20 2
1997 Buffalo 10 37 29 66 104 18 2 7 9 16 30 0
1998 Buffalo 9 31 25 56 80 8 1 2 5 7 9 0
1999 Buffalo 12 33 34 67 112 35 -- -- -- -- -- --
2000 Buffalo 12 34 49 83 123 10 1 2 1 3 18 0
2001 Buffalo 14 51 64 115 159 14 -- -- -- -- -- --
2002 Buffalo 16 42 46 88 145 12 -- -- -- -- -- --
2003 Buffalo 16 49 58 107 155 25 2 5 8 13 16 0
2004 Buffalo 16 49 44 93 118 25 3 7 13 20 21 4
2005 Buffalo 16 43 59 102 126 9 1 2 3 5 9 0
2006 Buffalo 16 32 53 85 95 12 3 7 4 11 13 0
2007 Buffalo 15 42 61 103 77 6 2 5 5 10 12 2
2008 Buffalo 16 29 58 87 91 23 3 5 14 19 22 0
2009 Buffalo 16 51 43 94 98 6 2 2 6 8 10 0
2010 Buffalo 10 28 21 49 57 22 1 0 2 2 5 0
2011 Buffalo 16 32 46 78 59 10 1 3 4 7 3 0
2012 Buffalo 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
NLL Totals 252 724 (a) 823 (b) 1547 (c) 2000 328 32 75 105 180 228 27
(a) 1st in career goals
(b) 1st in career assists
(c) 1st in career points

CLA career

    Regular Season   Playoffs
Season Team League GP G A Pts PIM GP G A Pts PIM
1983 Mississauga Tomahawks OLA Jr B 1 4 0 4 0 2 0 0 0 4
1984 Mississauga Tomahawks OLA Jr B - - - - - 2 7 4 11 0
1985 Mississauga Tomahawks OLA Jr B 4 7 2 9 9 10 17 15 32 4
1986 Mississauga Tomahawks OLA Jr B 17 132 44 176 14 15 71 28 99 16
1987 Mississauga Tomahawks OLA Jr B 23 128 56 184 25 11 42 23 65 12
1987 Bay Area Bengals OLA Jr A 1 3 2 5 0 - - - - -
1988 Mississauga Tomahawks OLA Jr A 23 77 72 149 36 - - - - -
1989 Mississauga Tomahawks OLA Jr A 24 70 61 131 35 - - - - -
1989 Orangeville Northmen MSL 1 2 2 4 0 - - - - -
1990 Vancouver Burrards WLA 16 32 28 60 30 15 20 23 43 35
1991 Vancouver Burrards WLA 24 46 48 94 80 4 5 6 11 14
1992 Brampton Excelsiors MSL 16 44 46 90 47 13 30 26 56 25
1993 Brampton Excelsiors MSL 16 53 40 93 39 13 34 29 63 22
1994 Six Nations Chiefs MSL 13 44 45 89 42 18 42 46 88 32
1995 Six Nations Chiefs MSL 20 55 53 108 50 14 31 36 67 20
1996 Six Nations Chiefs MSL 24 69 71 140 45 14 39 24 63 38
1997 Six Nations Chiefs MSL 20 46 57 103 27 4 9 5 14 8
1998 Akwesasne Thunder MSL 16 33 48 81 27 - - - - -
1999 Akwesasne Thunder MSL 18 36 43 79 25 16 26 29 55 28
2000 Akwesasne Thunder MSL 16 45 66 111 45 - - - - -
2001 Akwesasne Thunder MSL 14 26 52 78 10 - - - - -
2001 Victoria Shamrocks WLA 8 20 32 52 6 11 25 27 52 13
2002 Victoria Shamrocks WLA 7 9 23 32 15 17 34 39 73 6
2003 Victoria Shamrocks WLA 8 14 22 36 11 14 27 26 53 21
2004 Akwesasne Thunder MSL 18 38 51 89 7 3 5 4 9 0
2005 Akwesasne Thunder MLS 17 31 55 86 8 3 7 0 7 4
2006 St. Regis Indians MSL 13 16 40 56 11 3 2 7 9 0
2007 St. Regis Indians MSL 10 10 25 35 2 10 7 21 28 9
2008 St. Regis Indians MSL 17 34 59 93 6 9 17 24 41 4
2009 St. Regis Indians MSL 12 16 29 45 2 9 14 22 36 7
Junior B 45 271 102 373 48 40 127 70 197 36
Junior A Totals 48 150 135 285 71 - - - - -
Senior A Totals 324 719 935 1654 535 190 374 394 768 286

References

  1. ^ "Bandits Beat Swarm 14-9, Tavares Ties Record". NLL.com. February 18, 2006. http://nll.com/article.php?id=589. Retrieved 2007-05-28. 
  2. ^ "Tavares Breaks Points Record, Bandits Fall". NLL.com. March 7, 2006. http://nll.com/article.php?id=556. Retrieved 2007-05-28. 
  3. ^ Wheeler, Brian; Zita McKenna (March 4, 2006). "Tavares Breaks Scoring Record". Bandits.com. Archived from the original on 2007-09-28. http://web.archive.org/web/20070928200951/http://www.bandits.com/newsarchive.cfm?id=360. Retrieved 2007-05-28. 
  4. ^ "Tavares breaks NLL scoring record". TSN.com. March 4, 2006. http://www.tsn.ca/tsn/news_story.asp?id=157181. Retrieved 2007-05-28. 
  5. ^ "Tavares Breaks Goal Scoring Record". NLL.com. January 19, 2008. http://nll.com/article.php?id=3246. Retrieved 2008-01-20. 
  6. ^ "All-Star reserves announced". NLL.com. February 19, 2009. http://www.nll.com/article.php?id=3811. Retrieved 2009-03-05. 
  7. ^ "Historical Stats of the Mann Cup". Bible-of-Lacrosse.com. http://bible-of-lacrosse.com/newstats/manncup.txt. Retrieved 2007-08-15. 
  8. ^ "Player Profiles: John Tavares Stats". Bible-of-Lacrosse.com. http://bible-of-lacrosse.com/newstats/players.txt. Retrieved 2007-08-17. 

External links

See also

Preceded by
Gary Gait		 MILL Championship game MVP
1992, 1993		 Succeeded by
Paul Gait
Preceded by
none		 MILL MVP
1994		 Succeeded by
Gary Gait
Preceded by
Gary Gait		 NLL MVP
2000, 2001		 Succeeded by
Paul Gait