For club and family

For all his personal accomplishments in the sport of lacrosse, New Westminster's Kevin Crowley is still looking for his first national indoor championship.

The hero of Canada's World Lacrosse Championship gold medal in 2014 over the United States with a five-goal MVP performance, including the eventual game-winning goal, Crowley has a bushel of other phenomenal firsts on his sporting resume.

Crowley played for the New Westminster junior A club and earned the top graduating player award in the B.C. League in 2009.

That same year, he was called up to the senior team for the Mann Cup against the Brampton Excelsiors and acquitted himself well, scoring five times and collecting 10 points in the seven-game series that eventually went the east's way after a memorable championship series that included four overtime periods at Queen's Park.

Crowley was made the No. 1 pick of the 2010 Western Lacrosse Association junior draft by the Burnaby Lakers but couldn't bring himself to play a game for the crosstown team.

A year later, Crowley was traded back to his hometown club, where he played for three seasons, from 2011 to 2013, before returning this year to again put on the red, white and blue of his beloved Salmonbellies.

During that time away, Crowley was a standout midfield field lacrosse player at Stony Brook University, where he was named a two-time USILA All-American.

As a junior at SBU, Crowley became just the fourth third-year student athlete since 1995 to win the Enners Award as the most outstanding Division I university field lacrosse player in the United States.

Crowley left behind a legacy of accomplishments at Stony Brook, becoming the only player in school history to record more than 100 goals and 100 assists in their university career.

The 6-4 right-hander still holds the record as the all-time career points leader at Stony Brook with 232 total points.

As a towering force in both the indoor and outdoor games, Crowley was made the first player to ever be selected No. 1 overall in both the indoor pro NLL and the outdoor Major Lacrosse League.

In 2013, Crowley was named the MLL field lacrosse league MVP with the Hamilton Nationals, scoring 38 goals and 55 total points. He also earned the nod as MVP in the outdoor league's All-Star game.

Crowley currently lives in Philadelphia, where he is the co-owner of Fusion Lacrosse, a sporting organization devoted to growing the game of lacrosse in the Pennsylvania area and beyond.

But despite all his individual honours, Crowley remains a man devoted to his family, his roots and his hometown Salmonbellies.

The sport of lacrosse runs in his blood.

His grandfather Stan Cowie, who passed away in 2015, won a pair of Mann Cups back in 1958 and '59 with the storied Queen's Park club.

With the Fishmen currently leading the championship best-of-seven series two games to one, Crowley would like nothing better than to help the Salmonbellies bring home a 25^th Mann Cup to the city of New Westminster and perhaps even selfishly share an inscription on the solid gold goblet together with his most ardent supporter and now departed Grampa.

Photos courtesy of Garrett James