Chris Sanderson was a lacrosse coach and member of the Canadian team defending their world championship. Sanderson was an assistant coach for the
Philadelphia Wings in the
National Lacrosse League
The National Lacrosse League (NLL) is a professional box lacrosse league in North America. The league comprises 14 teams8 in the United States and 6 in Canada. The NLL is headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
...
from
2005
2005 was designated as the International Year for Sport and Physical Education and the International Year of Microcredit. The beginning of 2005 also marked the end of the International Decade of the World's Indigenous Peoples, Internationa ...
to
2007 season. Sanderson played for parts of five seasons as a
goaltender
In ice hockey, the goaltender (commonly referred to as goalie or netminder) is the player responsible for preventing the hockey puck from entering their own team's net, thus preventing the opposing team from scoring. The goaltender mostly plays ...
.
Chris was a member of the Sanderson family of
Orangeville, Ontario. He was the cousin of current NLL players
Josh and
Phil
Phil may refer to:
* Phil (given name), a shortened version of masculine and feminine names
* Phill, a given name also spelled "Phil"
* Phil, Kentucky, United States
* Phil (film), ''Phil'' (film), a 2019 film
* -phil-, a lexical fragment, used as ...
, as well as former NLL player
Nate, and was the nephew of both former Wings GM Lindsay Sanderson and Toronto GM
Terry Sanderson. Lastly, but definitely not least, he was the son of multiple Mann Cup championships winner and hall of fame inductee, Bill Gerrie. He played for multiple MSL teams such as Six Nations, and Brampton Excelsiors, as well as the NLL team Buffalo Bandits.
Sanderson led the University of Virginia Cavaliers to two NCAA Final Fours. He has played in four world championships with the Canadian National Team, and has coached the U-19 Canadian team to a world championship. He also taught at the Pennington School in Pennington, NJ, and owned a lacrosse company and club team known as True North Lacrosse Company.
He was originally diagnosed with a grade IV malignant brain tumor called Glioblastoma Multiforme in December, 2008. The 2006 ILF gold medalist fought back, skipping a month of chemo therapy to miraculously represent Canada at the 2010 FIL World Championships in England, helping the Canadians to a silver medal. Sanderson was named to the All-World Team at the goaltender position in the 2010 FIL WC, becoming the first (and only) person in the history of the sport to have been named All-World goalie three times ('98, '06, '10).
Sanderson died of brain cancer on June 28, 2012 at the age of 38.
Statistics
NLL
References
Year of birth missing
2012 deaths
Canadian lacrosse players
Lacrosse people from Ontario
National Lacrosse League coaches
Sportspeople from Orangeville, Ontario
Philadelphia Wings players
Hamilton Nationals players
Virginia Cavaliers men's lacrosse players
Deaths from brain cancer in New Jersey
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