pro lacrosse player attacks fan with stick
Tyson Bell is being sued for hitting a fan after a professional lacrosse game in Denver in 2024. YouTube
A professional indoor lacrosse player has been sued for throwing a punch at a fan and then stick-whacking another after a game at Denver’s Ball Arena in 2024. The player’s team and Kroenke Sports & Entertainment, which owns Ball Arena as well as the Denver Nuggets and Colorado Avalanche, are also defendants in the lawsuit.
When Tyson Bell, a defender for the National Lacrosse League’s Halifax Thunderbirds, was leaving the playing box after a 19-14 loss to the Colorado Mammoth at Ball Arena on December 21, 2024, a group of Mammoth fans started heckling Thunderbirds players as they exited. In a video that captured the action, a couple of the fans appear to target Bell specifically, with jeers and hand gestures; one fan is seen holding his phone up to the glass partition and pointing toward it as Bell walks off the box.
At this point, the lacrosse players and fans were only separated by a waist-high barrier fence, and Bell, listed at 6’2 and 212 pounds, had reached his limit.
Video footage from spectators shows Bell leaning over the temporary fence and throwing a punch at one fan, with the punch appearing to land on the side of the man’s head. A couple of arena staffers try (and fail) to restrain Bell, who then pushes the fence to advance toward the fan. Another man, who was also taunting Bell near the exit, then steps forward and pushes the fence back to block Bell, who responds by whacking the guy with his lacrosse stick on the upper-left side of his body. Teammates and arena staff are able to restrain Bell after that, and he’s escorted out of the walkway and into a private area.
Editor's Picks
Comments posted online discussd the behavior of Mammoth fans during the game, with lacrosse fans arguing over what Bell’s discipline should have been. Some called for a lengthy suspension or even a release for assaulting fans, while others shared sympathy. He ultimately received a seven-game suspension from the NLL, and still plays for the Thunderbirds.
In a statement last year announcing Bell’s suspension, NLL Commissioner Brett Frood mentioned a “thorough investigation” into the incident, which he called “inexcusable.” The NLL still hasn’t provided any details about what occured, but Frood added that NLL players are “expected to always demonstrate professionalism and self-discipline, regardless of whether extenuating circumstances exist.”
The NLL commissioner also said the league would continue to reinforce security between fans and players while “reaffirming our expectation of appropriate conduct from all attendees and participants to ensure a positive, professional and safe sporting environment at all our arenas.”
Bell was eventually charged with assault with bodily force. According to Denver County Court records, he agreed to a deferred judgment, a conditional guilty plea that allows the case to be dismissed if he completes or satisfies certain conditions by June 30 of this year.
But the incident still hasn’t gone away. Bell, along with the Thunderbirds and KSE, was recently sued by one of the fans involved in the post-game altercation.
According to Denver District Court documents, the lawsuit was filed on December 19, 2025, on behalf of Jordi Gonzalez, who says he and two friends were the young men chirping at Bell throughout the game. Gonzalez’s attorneys say he and his friends were simply “engaged in normal spectator cheering and bantering with their opposing team,” and that Bell “exchanged banter” with Gonzalez and “Friend One and Friend Two” during halftime.
Gonzalez’s lawsuit doesn’t detail what was said between his group and Bell. However, he does claim to have suffered a leg injury during the scuffle. According to Gonzalez, he was evaluated by Ball Arena medical staff ten minutes later but was never contacted by the Thunderbirds after the incident.
The lawsuit alleges that Ball Arena “failed to protect” Gonzalez and other fans from violent interactions, and points out that the stadium soon modified the entrance and exit routes for lacrosse players to separate them from spectators more effectively. Canadian media backed this assertion, with an article in the Chronicle Herald last year reporting that fans “couldn’t get close to the area where the opposing players leave the floor and there was added security in the area” for the next Mammoth game.
For many lacrosse fans, getting close to the players is part of the fun. According to the Chronicle Herald, it’s a key aspect of many indoor lacrosse games, and the Thunderbirds often host player autograph sessions after home games. However, the incident between Bell and the Denver fans, as well as another altercation between a Thunderbird player and a fan in Albany the previous season, pushed the NLL and some hosting arenas to further separate fans and athletes.
Gonzales’s lawyers claim the incident led him to suffer “bodily injury, pain and suffering, emotional distress, medical expenses, economic losses, and loss of enjoyment of life.”
“This case is not about an isolated moment or a misunderstood interaction. A professional lacrosse player physically struck a fan, conduct that has no place in sports or public life. Professional athletes are paid not only for performance, but for discipline and restraint,” say Gonzalez’s attorneys, Nathan McKibben and Steven Flaxman. “Equally troubling is the institutional failure that allowed this to occur to which the team and venue have yet to meaningfully address it. Teams and venues have an affirmative duty to prevent violence, to intervene decisively when it happens, and to ensure that victims are made whole.”
Gonzalez is asking for a jury to determine compensatory damages.
Neither the Thunderbirds or KSE responded to requests for comment. Bell, who has no listed attorney in the lawsuit, could not be reached for comment.