Key Takeaways
- Stan Shillington was a renowned lacrosse statistician and historian who spent over half his life recording numbers and preserving the history of the sport.
- He worked as an official scorer for over 971 games, including playoffs and Mann Cup championships, and was credited with setting a standard for sports statistics that is unmatched by any other sport.
- Mr. Shillington was also a police reporter and spokesman, covering the police beat for Vancouver’s largest daily newspaper and later serving as a manager and spokesperson for the Coordinated Law Enforcement Unit.
- He was inducted into the Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame in 1977 and received numerous awards for his contributions to the sport, including the Art Daoust Merit Award and the Norm Kowalyk Trophy.
- The regular-season champion of the Western Lacrosse Association is now awarded the Stan Shillington Trophy in his honor.
Introduction to Stan Shillington
Stan Shillington was a man with a passion for numbers and a love for the sport of lacrosse. As a young man, he was pressed into service as a scorekeeper for box lacrosse, a rough-and-tumble indoor game also known as boxla. On the West Coast, he became the sport’s official statistician and unofficial historian, logging numbers as well as lore. Mr. Shillington spent over half his life recording shots, goals, assists, saves, turnovers, faceoffs, and penalties at boxla games, working as an official scorer on the timekeeper’s bench or high in the rafters of overheated arenas.
Preserving the History of Lacrosse
Mr. Shillington was the Boswell of boxla, preserving the stories of contemporaries and reviving anecdotes about the stars of yore. In doing so, he was vital in preserving the history of one of Canada’s two official sports. His "Down Memory Lane" columns profiled Ontario and British Columbia lacrosse greats, including Jack Bionda, Archie Browning, and Jim (Peewee) Bradshaw. He also made it his ambition to collate statistics from games played even before he was born, leafing through yellowed newspaper clippings and enduring the nausea-inducing practice of scrolling through rolls and rolls of microfilm.
A Career in Journalism and Law Enforcement
Away from the arena, Mr. Shillington spent 21 years as a reporter covering the police beat for Vancouver’s largest daily newspaper. There was no shortage of stories in a port city with organized gangs and a history of police corruption, as well as a growing youth subculture keen on exploring marijuana use. He later served as a manager and spokesperson for the Coordinated Law Enforcement Unit, a joint RCMP and Vancouver police operation targeting organized crime. Mr. Shillington’s work in journalism and law enforcement earned him numerous awards and accolades, including the Art Daoust Merit Award and the Norm Kowalyk Trophy.
Legacy and Impact
Mr. Shillington’s legacy extends far beyond his own lifetime. He was inducted into the Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame in 1977 and received numerous awards for his contributions to the sport. The regular-season champion of the Western Lacrosse Association is now awarded the Stan Shillington Trophy in his honor. After his passing, his boxes of statistics and game sheets were donated to the B.C. Lacrosse Association, preserving the records of the 20th century for the 21st and, hopefully, beyond. It took three people many hours to input his work into computers, a testament to the meticulous care and attention to detail that Mr. Shillington brought to his work.
Personal Life and Later Years
Mr. Shillington was born in Vancouver on January 21, 1935, an only child for the former Annie Fedychyn and George Stanley Shillington. He lost his right eye at age nine in a playground accident, but despite this injury, he played softball, as well as both field and box lacrosse. After graduating from Britannia High, Mr. Shillington took a job as a copy boy for the Vancouver Sun, earning $24.25 per week and augmenting his earnings by writing lacrosse game accounts at 25 cents per column inch. He married his wife, Barbara Ann Nyberg, in 1955, and they had three daughters together. Mr. Shillington passed away on December 8 at the George Derby Centre in Burnaby, B.C., leaving behind a legacy of dedication, hard work, and a love for the sport of lacrosse.