Paulo Brunoro Memorial Fund Raiser

In Paolo’s name, and on behalf of the Brunoro family and his friends, please help us fulfill one of his wishes.

If you knew Paolo ‘Creed’ ‘Pabs’ ‘Pizza’ Brunoro, you knew how passionate he was about lacrosse and his Italian heritage. After a stellar playing career, Paolo went on to coaching and assisting in developing the game in Canada, Australia, and Italy. Having the opportunity to be involved in developing lacrosse, in Italy, was a dream come true. Coaching and building bonds with his Italian teams was contagious and he recruited me and others. He was hoping my past fundraising skills could help bring in much needed funds for his team. With your help, we can fulfill that wish.

Team Italy is made up of players from the entire league and Paolo was coaching three of those players on his team. His team cherished Paolo and, he them. He inspired them to be as passionate about the game as he was and we need that passion to continue, especially so Italy can play Canada, in the worlds.

All donations will go to the Bella Venezia Lacrosse Club. Any donation you can provide is greatly appreciated and I know Paolo would say Thank you very much or Grazie Mille.

October 4-5, 2025 – Bergamo, Italy. A box lacrosse tournament is being dedicated to Paolo and it would be a great opportunity to present the team with this donation. If you are able to attend, let us know because the team would really like to meet Paolo’s family and friends.

A tribute to Paolo, from Italy’s Bella Venezia Lacrosse Club:

June 12, 2021

There was no lacrosse team in Castelfranco Veneto.

To be honest, there wasn’t one anywhere in Veneto.

More generally, in all of Northeast Italy, there were none.

At best, you could say that about five kids, no older than eighteen, had a few sticks, a few balls — most of them tennis balls — and a lot of curiosity to try out a new sport that a guy, who had just arrived in Veneto from out of nowhere, kept talking about. He had even played on real teams for the past seven years.

And for a month, they had been trying.

The equipment was few and worn out, the playing field was any public park space, bordered on one side by puzzled onlookers staring at this unknown game, and on the other by little future soccer players. Those kids were maybe even a little scared of these odd guys who sometimes passed the ball around and sometimes hit each other with their sticks… but they laughed a lot.

In that small patch of space, on the most unlucky days they had to dodge empty beer bottles and dog poop. On the luckier ones, they found a new teammate.

That Saturday, the most experienced player got a call from a friend in Milan: maybe, nearby them, there was a Canadian man, maybe a former box lacrosse player, maybe interested in helping out, maybe he knew someone…

There were basically only two certainties:

she had met him by chance, and not by chance they ended up talking about lacrosse;

she had his phone number.

The best-executed plans are those made calmly, so a few hours later they were all on the same field with fewer sticks than players, but at least someone was there who knew what he was doing. Maybe. Actually, he probably didn’t know exactly what he was doing either… but he knew lacrosse, and that was already a start.

His way of coaching was unlike anyone else’s. He never addressed the entire team, except to introduce a new drill. Then he immediately went back to what he did best: taking the players one by one, watching them calmly and, with just a few words — often ironic, sometimes sharp — making them improve without even realizing it. At first, it felt a bit strange to have someone who preferred to let the players experiment and manage themselves, while always being there when needed.

More than a coach, he seemed like a wise man handing out secret advice.

But in no time, no one would have wanted any other method. It felt like the only right way to learn.

Almost no one, however, had figured out who this man really was. To everyone, he was just “the Canadian coach,” the one who was fine with training in public parks with more holes than field lines (often created by flattening the tall grass), with no lights and no locker rooms. He never flinched: if a shaft broke, he replaced it with a broomstick, and off they went.

No one would have ever imagined that, just a few years earlier, this same person had been used to packed arenas, with people paying a ticket just to watch him play.

The truth about his past emerged little by little: first some rumors, then a suspicion, then the curiosity to type his name into Google. And there it was, undeniable: articles, photos, statistics. Page after page of a career that exceeded any story. Into the most improvised team ever heard of, a superhero had arrived.

When someone, with a mix of amazement and shyness, asked him if he had really been that good, he lowered his gaze and replied, with a touch of embarrassment:

“Well, I was ok.”

The deeper truth took even longer to come out. But inevitably, this kind giant, sober, uninterested in appearances and all about substance, with few words, won the affection of everyone who came into contact with him. He didn’t care about being praised for his past: he only wanted to help those kids build a team, and the fact that he did so without ever seeking recognition said everything about him.

August 16, 2025

We are the Bella Venezia Lacrosse Club, from Castelfranco Veneto.

The whole world knows it.

Everyone thinks we’re in Venice, but actually the name comes from the neighborhood where, less than four years ago, a special man directed the team’s very first practice on a real field.

We are one of the youngest teams in Europe, both by founding year and by average age. We’ve grown fast: today we have both a men’s and a women’s team, and we have won at least one game against every other Italian team. For international victories, we’re still working on it.

Last night we all gathered together to watch a Canadian league game, in a house in the middle of the soybean fields. It was 3 a.m., and we held each other tight. And every now and then, someone cried.

It was the championship final, with two of the best teams in existence. One of them we knew well: in rare moments of nostalgia, one of their former players had told us stories about their glory days. The game began with a painful announcement, a beautiful tribute, and a long minute of silence.

So many things have happened on this beautiful journey. Many boys and girls have joined, some have moved on.

We play both Field Lacrosse and Sixes — and in Sixes, we’ve truly become feared by everyone.

On October 4th we will step onto the field together in a Box Lacrosse tournament, to honor a teammate who loved that version of the game. The tournament will even bear his name.

Three of our players have worn the Italian national jersey in both European and World Championships, even winning a silver medal as part of the starting ten. At the U20 European Championship, more than half of the roster was made up of our players. Another three played for Italy at the World Box Lacrosse Championship. On the women’s side, six of our players were called up to the U20 national team, and two have already debuted with the senior national team. Some teammates have even been called up by other national programs, and some have coached national teams. One boy and one girl have earned scholarships to play in the NCAA, and another girl received a scholarship to a very prestigious High School.

Our coach must have done an excellent job.

But above all, we’ve had so much fun. And we’ve always learned something about lacrosse, or about life but always together.

Our coach did an excellent job.