Lacrosse

(Redirected from Lacrosse (sport))

Categories: Lacrosse | Ball games | First Nations

For other uses, see Lacrosse (disambiguation).
Image:Womens lacrosse1.jpg
A women's lacrosse player carries the ball past a defender.

Lacrosse is a fast-paced team sport played by two teams of ten players each who use netted sticks (called crosses) in order to pass and catch a rubber ball with the aim of scoring goals by propelling the ball into the opponent's goal.

Popular mostly in North America's lacrosse is also the continent's oldest sport, and the fastest growing sport at all levels - youth, high school, college, and professional. Lacrosse is especially popular in the northeastern part of the US, and is Canada's national summer sport. It is expanding westward, with a burgeoning lacrosse community based in Denver, Colorado.

In its modern incarnation, lacrosse is played by three attackmen, three midfielders, three defensemen, and one goaltender on a grass or artificial turf field. Men wear helmets and other protective equipment as body checking is an integral part of the game. Women wear protective eyewear (except for the goalie, who wears an over-the-head goalie mask), but less overall equipment because hitting is not permitted in the women's game.

The sport has American Indian origins. Its name was dehuntshigwa'es in Onondaga ("men hit a rounded object"), da-nah-wah'uwsdi in Eastern Cherokee ("little war"), Tewaarathon in Mohawk language ("little brother of war"), and baaga'adowe in Ojibwe "The Creator's game". It was usually played over the range of 3-10 miles. Since there was only one ball, players would concentrate on injuring their opponent with the sticks. Sometimes the game would last for days. Lacrosse, played a significant role in the community and religious life of tribes across the continent for untold years. It is said that Native Lacrosse was characterized by a deeply spiritual involvement, and those who took part did so with dedicated spirit and with the highest ideals of bringing glory to themselves and their tribes, and honour to the participants and the tribes to which they belonged.

Lacrosse was named Canada's National Game by Parliament in 1859. The World Lacrosse Championship for men and women is played every four years. Variants of the game include field lacrosse (played outdoors), box lacrosse, indoor lacrosse, women's lacrosse and softcrosse.

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Evolution of the game

Modern lacrosse has witnessed great modifications since its origins in the 1400s, but many aspects of the sport remain the same. In the North American Indian version, each team consisted of about 100 to 1,000 braves on a field that stretched about 500 yards to half a mile. Sometimes, the fields were even several miles long. Rather than having traditional goals where the ball has to pass through the goal posts, many of the Indian teams used a large rock or tree as their goal. They would hit the deerskin ball against the goal to earn points. These lacrosse games lasted from sun up to sun down for two to three days. The games were played to settle intertribal disputes and also used to toughen braves in preparation for future combat.

The game became known to Westerners when a Jesuit Missionary, Jean de Brebeuf, saw the Huron Indians play it in the 1600s. By the 1800s, lacrosse evolved to become more of a sport and less violent as French pioneers adopted the game. In 1867, W. George Beers, a Canadian dentist, codified the game, shortening the length of each game and reducing the number of players to ten per team. The world's first official game was played at patrician Upper Canada College in 1867, as Upper Canada College lost to the Toronto Cricket Club by a score of 3-1. By the 1900s, high schools, colleges, and universities began playing, and even the Olympics included lacrosse.

Native Americans continue to play the game, and the Iroquois enter a team in the World Championships. The field game is also played in Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Japan, England and Scotland. Lacrosse is the official national summer sport of Canada since 1994, but it is popular chiefly in British Columbia and southern Ontario.

Canada and the Czech Republic differ from other lacrosse-playing countries in preferring the box lacrosse variant of the game. A recent variant of box lacrosse, indoor lacrosse, is played more widely; its first indoor world championship was held in 2003.

In the USA, the sport is popular in Maryland (where it became the official team sport in 2004), New York, New England and other areas along the eastern coast. In addition, its popularity has started spreading to the west coast and to the Midwest, spurred by the sport's increasing visibility in the media as well as the growth of college and high school programs and "pee wee" leagues throughout the country. This explosion has been made possible because of plastic crosse's which were invented by STX in the 1970's which has completely replaced the wooden crosse. In recent years, collegiate lacrosse at the Division I level has been dominated by a handful of universities, including The Johns Hopkins University, Princeton University, University of Maryland, College Park, and University of Virginia.

There are currently 57 Division I Men's Lacrosse teams. In the 2004/2005 year three more teams will play their innagural season; Robert Morris University, Bellarmine University, and St. John's University.

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Field lacrosse

Image:Mens lacrosse diagram medium.png
Diagram of a men's lacrosse field.

Men's lacrosse is the oldest sport in America. Lacrosse is most popular in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the USA. Outdoor men's lacrosse involves two teams of 10 players each competing to project a small solid rubber ball into the opposing team's goal. The field of play is approximately 110 yards (100 m) long and 60 yards (54 m) wide. The goals are 6 feet (1.8 m) by 6 feet and contain a mesh netting similar to an ice hockey goal.

Players line up with 3 offensive players called "attackmen", 3 "midfielders" or "middies", 3 "defensemen", and 1 goaltender, or "goalie." Each player carries a stick (the French settlers, on seeing the American Indians using the stick, called it la crossier (crozier); hence the name "Lacrosse"). Attackmen's and midfielders' sticks measure between 40 inches (1 m) and 42 inches (1.07 m), while defensemen and one midfielders carry a stick up to 72 inches (1.8 m) long. The sticks have a metal shaft and a plastic head, with either a string and leather or mesh basket called the "pocket". Goalie sticks vary in length but are typically between 50 (1.27 m) and 60 (1.52 m) inches long, and significantly wider than field players' sticks.

Players scoop the ball off the ground and throw the ball in the air to other players. Players are allowed to run carrying the ball with their stick. Unlike women's lacrosse, players may not kick the ball, as well as covering it with their sticks, provided they do not withhold it from play. Play is typically quite fast, and resembles a combination of soccer, basketball and ice hockey. Players are permitted to hit one another with their bodies and sticks, although rules govern the manner in which this may be done. For NCAA play, games consist of four fifteen minute periods, while at the youth and high school levels games are typically shorter. Considerably more goals are scored than in soccer or hockey, with typical games totaling 10 to twenty scores.

Intercollegiate lacrosse is rapidly growing in popularity in the USA, where crowds of over 40,000 have attended the national championships. Outstanding individual men's lacrosse players have included University of Maryland, College Park legend Frank Urso, Canadian brothers Paul Gait and Gary Gait of Syracuse, and the three Powell brothers.

The next two World Championships will be held in London, Ontario, Canada in the summer of 2006, and in Peterborough, Ontario at Trent University in 2007.

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Box and indoor lacrosse

Canadians most commonly play box lacrosse, an indoor version of the game played by teams of six on ice hockey rinks from which the ice has been removed; the enclosed playing area is called the box, in contrast to the open playing field of the traditional game. This version of the game was introduced in the 1930s to promote business for hockey arenas, and within a few years had almost entirely supplanted field lacrosse in Canada.

In box lacrosse the goal is smaller (4' X 4') than in outdoor lacrosse (and the goaltender usually bigger). The attacking team must take a shot on goal within 30 seconds of gaining possession of the ball, and play is rougher than in the field game (see below). It is also five on five with a goalie, intead of nine on nine as in field lacrosse.

A national senior men's lacrosse championship (the Mann Cup) has been awarded in Canada since 1901. It has been played under box lacrosse rules since 1935. A men's Jr. A championship (the Minto Cup) has been awarded since 1937 (the Minto Cup was also awarded to a senior men's champion from 1901 to 1934). The men's Jr. B championship (the Founders Cup) has also been awarded since 1972. Since 1908 all national senior and junior men's champions have come from either Ontario or British Columbia. The Canadian Lacrosse Association also holds tournaments to determine national junior and senior women's box lacrosse champions and junior and senior men's and women's field lacrosse champions.

Indoor lacrosse is a version of box lacrosse played professionally during the winter not only in regions where summer lacrosse is popular but also in regions where lacrosse is rarely played in summer. It was intended to be less violent than box lacrosse, although changes in box lacrosse rules have reduced some of its violent play and a change in indoor lacrosse rules to permit crosschecking (hitting another player with the stick with one's hands apart on the shaft) have made it more violent. The chief difference between the two forms of the indoor game now is that indoor lacrosse players may use only sticks with hollow shafts, while box lacrosse permits solid wooden sticks.

The inaugural World Indoor Lacrosse Championships, won by Canada, were held in 2003.

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Women's lacrosse

The rules of women's lacrosse differ significantly from men's lacrosse and are specifically designed to allow much less physical contact between players. As a result of the lack of contact, the women's game requires very little protective gear, although eye goggles are now required for all levels of women's competition. The pockets of a woman's stick are shallower than those of the men, making the ball harder to catch and more difficult to shoot at high speed. Women play with three attackmen, three defensemen, one goalie, and five midfielders.

The University of Maryland, College Park has historically dominated the American collegiate women's game, producing innumerable head coaches across the country and many U.S. national team players. The Lady Terps NCAA championship dynasty especially dominated the college game from the late 1980s through 2001. The game is also popular in Australia, and is commonly played in English girls' public (private) schools.

Women's intercollegiate lacrosse stars have included University of Maryland, College Park standouts Kelly Amonte-Hiller (coach of the 2005 national championship team from Northwestern University), and all-time scoring leader Jen Adams.

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See also

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External links

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References


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