Al "Lurch" Lewthwaite - a podcast by FFM Audio Network

Al Lewthwaite was a giant on the lacrosse floor in stature, strength and talent.

But like Achilles of mythical antiquity, Big Al Lewthwaite had his weakness: a battered knee that hobbled his career.

Born in New Westminster on October 15, 1950, Lewthwaite developed his box lacrosse skills in the Royal City’s Sapperton district, but by age 15 he was considered too big to continue playing at the Juvenile level.

Instead, he lined up with the New Westminster Junior B team that captured the 1966 Canadian championship in Port Arthur.

The following year, Lewthwaite joined the Junior A Salmonbellies, which made unsuccessful challenges for the 1967 and 1968 Minto Cups.

Meanwhile, he found the Senior ‘bellies coveting his talents.

In his first Senior contest in 1967 (he was not yet 17 years old) he scored two goals.

After the 1968 Minto Cup series, he played a pivotal role in the ‘bellies’ National Lacrosse Association professional championship victory over Detroit.

By 1969, Lewthwaite was 6’3”, 230-lbs, fleet of foot, a deadly shooter, a natural play maker and a rib-crunching checker.

At the age of 18, he became a permanent member of the Senior Salmonbellies, registering 87 points in his first 27 games.

Between 1970 and 1974, Lewthwaite and his teammates captured 3 Mann Cups in 4 trips to the Canadian championships.

Nicknamed “Lurch” by his teammates after the character on TV’s Addams Family, Lewthwaite preferred floor time to the penalty box, but due to his imposing size, he often found himself in the role of team policeman.

Some of his confrontations with Vancouver’s Ward Sanderson and Coquitlam’s Kevin Parsons are fondly remembered by advocates of the lacrosse school of hard knocks.

In 1975, the upstart pro National Lacrosse League team in Boston drafted Lewthwaite in the first round, but traded him to the long Island Tomahawks where he accumulated 140 points in 47 games; however, he also seriously injured his knee.

Famed New York sports medicine specialist Dr. Morris Cowen rebuilt his left
knee, but the criss-crossing scars were mute evidence of the obvious: at the age of 25,
Lewthwaite’s playing career was virtually at an end.

He limped through just 27 more games over the next three years before retiring.

In 269 games with the Salmonbellies and Long Island, he scored 308 goals and 443 assists for 751 points.

After one season as co-coach of a Senior B team, he took over the coaching reins for the Salmonbellies in 1978.

Over the next 21 years, Lewthwaite held similar positions with Coquitlam, Richmond, Burnaby and Maple Ridge.

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