The National Lacrosse League has announced that Pat Coyle and Chris Hall have been voted into the NLL Hall of Fame as inductees of the Class of 2014. Coyle becomes the first defenseman in league history to win induction while Hall was elected in his first year of eligibility. Coyle and Hall will become the 22nd and 23rd members of the Hall of Fame and mark the first multi-member class since 2010.
Coyle played 12 seasons in the league including seven seasons with the Toronto Rock from 1998-2004 and four years with the Colorado Mammoth from 2005-2008. The defender played in 156 career regular season games, recording 940 loose balls and 133 points (28+105). The Orangeville, Ontario native won the league’s Defensive Player of the Year Award in 2002, the first year in which the award was given. Coyle’s teams made it to the playoffs in 11 of his 12 seasons where he posted 12 points (3+9) along with 116 loose balls in 18 games played and won five championships (Toronto 1999-2000, 2002-2003 & Colorado 2006) in six Championship Game appearances. Coyle currently serves as an associate head coach with the Mammoth.
Hall served as a head coach in the league for 12 seasons, first with the Calgary Roughnecks from 2002-2007 before finishing his coaching career with the Vancouver Stealth franchise from 2009-2014. Hall’s 85 regular-season wins ranks third all-time behind Darris Kilgour (121) and Les Bartley (93). With an 11-6 career record in the postseason, Hall’s 11 playoff wins rank fourth all-time behind Bartley (22), Troy Cordingley (12) and Kilgour (12). In 2010, Hall became just the second coach in NLL history to win the Champion’s Cup with two different teams as he led the Stealth to its first-ever title after winning it all with Calgary in 2004. The Stealth reached the championship game in three of four seasons from 2010-2013 and Hall was a co-recipient of the 2010 NLL Head Coach of the Year award. Following his retirement from coaching at the end of the 2014 season, Hall enters his first year as Senior Advisor to the President with the Stealth.
The five finalists for the Class of 2014 were selected last month by the league’s Hall of Fame Committee. The other three finalists included Jake Bergey and two automatically returning from last year’s ballot in Pat McCready and Kaleb Toth.Hall received votes on over 77 percent of the overall ballots, followed by Coyle (58%), Bergey and McCready (45%), and Toth (39%). Coyle won induction by appearing on 77 percent of ballots cast by Hall of Fame members.
Hall of Fame ballots were cast by the teams, current members of the NLL Hall of Fame and senior members of the league’s covering media. Voters were able to select up to three of the five nominees on the ballot. To win induction into the Hall of Fame, nominees must be selected on a minimum of 75 percent of the overall ballots cast or 75 percent of ballots cast by Hall of Fame members.
Plans for the NLL Hall of Fame Class of 2014 induction ceremony will be announced at a later date.
