Longest single-franchise careers

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There are players in the NLL who seem to move around almost every year. Callum Crawford and Mat Giles played for 12 teams each, and Ryan Benesch is running out of body space for the tattoos he gets of each team he plays for. But there are others who have played every game of their NLL career with the same franchise. Today we’re going to take a look at the top ten single-franchise players in NLL history.

Just to be clear, we’re talking about franchises here, not necessarily teams. I’m not going to penalize players who have played for a team that relocated.

I wrote a similar article way back in 2013, but there have been a few changes to the list in the intervening eleven seasons.

Longest careers with one franchise – non-active players

As of March 15, 2026, there are 50 non-active players in the league who played at least 50 games and spent their entire career with a single franchise.

For each player, I’m showing the number of games played with that franchise, both regular season and playoffs.

  1. John Tavares, Buffalo Bandits, 344 games
  2. Andrew McBride, Calgary Roughnecks, 227
  3. Curtis Hodgson, San Jose / Washington / Vancouver Stealth, 226
  4. Rich Kilgour, Buffalo Bandits, 225
  5. Regy Thorpe, Rochester Knighthawks, 217
  6. John Gallant, Washington Power / Colorado Mammoth, 209
  7. Blaine Manning, Toronto Rock, 199
  8. Curtis Manning, Calgary Roughnecks, 197
  9. Rob Marshall, Toronto Rock, 176
  10. Tom Marechek, Philadelphia Wings, 161

John Tavares

Longest careers with one franchise – active players

As of March 15, 2026, there are 90 active players in the league who have played at least 50 games and spent their entire career with a single franchise.

  1. Steve Priolo, Buffalo Bandits, 287 games
  2. Cody Jamieson, Rochester Knighthawks / Halifax Thunderbirds, 256
  3. Dhane Smith, Buffalo Bandits, 246
  4. Jordan MacIntosh, Minnesota / Georgia Swarm, 242
  5. Shayne Jackson, Minnesota / Georgia Swarm, 231
  6. Robert Church, Edmonton / Saskatchewan Rush, 223
  7. Dillon Ward, Colorado Mammoth, 221
  8. Robert Hope, Colorado Mammoth, 206
  9. Jordan Gilles, Colorado Mammoth, 187
  10. Eli McLaughlin, Colorado Mammoth, 183

Amazing: every one of the active players on the second list (plus four more: Graeme Hossack, Lyle Thompson, Mike Messenger, and Ryan Keenan) would be in the top ten of the first list if they retired today.

Steve Priolo

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