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Lacrosse, Lacrosse

The head of the lacrosse stick is strung with loose netting that is designed to hold the lacrosse ball. Offensively, the object of the game is to use the lacrosse stick to catch, carry, and pass the ball in an effort to score by ultimately hurling the ball into an opponent's goal. Defensively the object is to keep the opposing team from scoring and to dispossess them of the ball through the use of stick checking and body contact or positioning. There are three main versions of the sport; men's lacrosse, women's lacrosse and box lacrosse.

Legend tells of games with more than 100 players from different tribes taking turns to play.It could be played on a field many miles in length and width; sometimes the game could last for days. Early lacrosse balls were made of deerskin, clay, stone, and sometimes wood.

The modern Ojibway verb 'to play Lacrosse' is baaga'adowe (Baggataway [1] ).

By the 1900s, high schools, colleges, and universities began playing the game. Lacrosse was contested as a demonstration sport in the 1928 and 1932 Olympics. On each occasion, a playoff was held to determine the American representative to the Olympics and on each occasion the playoffs were won by the Johns Hopkins Blue Jays.

This innovation reduced the weight and cost of the lacrosse stick. It also allowed for faster passes and game play than traditional wooden sticks.

The owners of Canadian hockey arenas invented a reduced version of the game, called box lacrosse, as a means to make more profit from their arena investments. In a relatively short period of time, box lacrosse became the dominant form of the sport in Canada, in part due to the severe winter weather that limited outdoor play. More recently, field lacrosse has witnessed a revival in Canada as the Canadian University Field Lacrosse Association (CUFLA) began operating a collegiate men's league in 1985. It now includes 12 varsity teams. In 1994 Canada declared lacrosse its National Summer Sport with the passage of the National Sports Act.

This league changed its name to the Major Indoor Lacrosse League, then later to the National Lacrosse League and grew to encompass lacrosse clubs in twelve cities throughout the United States and Canada. In the summer of 2001, a professional field lacrosse league, known as Major League Lacrosse (MLL), was inaugurated. Initially starting with six teams, the MLL has grown to a total of ten clubs located in major metropolitan areas in the United States. On July 4, 2008, Major League Lacrosse set the professional lacrosse attendance record: 20,116 fans attended a game at Invesco Field in Denver, Colorado. In 2006 a field lacrosse league was developed in Quebec, Canada. Composed of the English colleges, this league came together to become the first official college field lacrosse league in Quebec.

It is the most common version of lacrosse played internationally. The modern game was codified in Canada by Dr. William George Beers in 1856. Scott, p. 8 The game has evolved from that time to include the protective equipment and lacrosse sticks made from synthetic materials.

Most penalties last for 30 to 60 seconds. Occasionally a longer penalty may be assessed for more severe infractions. The team that has taken the penalty is said to be playing man down while the other team is on the man up . Teams will use various lacrosse strategies to attack and defend while a player is being penalized. Offsides is penalized by a 30 second penalty. It occurs when there are more than six players (three midfielders/three attackmen or three midfielders/three defensemen) on one half of the field. The zones are separated by the midfield line. Defensemen and attackmen can cross the midfield line, however the team must assure that a midfielder "stays back" in order to avoid an offsides penalty (a midfielder will raise his crosse to signify they are staying back).

The World Lacrosse Championship began as a four-team invitational tournament in 1968 sanctioned by the International Lacrosse Federation . Lacrosse at the Olympics was a medal earning sport in the 1904 Summer Olympics and the 1908 Summer Olympics.

In the National Lacrosse League and Major Series Lacrosse the dimensions are slightly larger at wide by tall.

Most penalties last for two minutes, unless a five minute major penalty has been assessed. Fighting is illegal in box lacrosse, however what separates box lacrosse (and ice hockey) from other sport is that at the top levels of professional and junior lacrosse, a five-minute major penalty is given and the players are not ejected for participating in a fight.

Although women's lacrosse does not allow much physical contact, it does allow stick to stick contact when in the right body position (though limited in younger age groups). Players are able to hit the opponent's stick to try and obtain possession of the ball. This is commonly known as checking. In younger groups lower than 7th grade no checking is permitted. In 7th grade to 8th grade checking is only permitted if the opponent's stick is below the shoulders. Players are able to lightly push the player if their stick is a certain angle on the oppositions body.

Mens and womens lacrosse were played under virtually the same rules, with no protective equipment, until the mid-1930s.

There are currently 59 NCAA sanctioned Division I men's lacrosse teams, 35 Division II men's lacrosse teams, and 131 Division III men's lacrosse teams. There are also currently 88 Division I women's lacrosse teams, 37 Division II women's lacrosse Teams, and 154 Division III women's lacrosse teams. Almost 200 collegiate men's club teams compete at the Men's Collegiate Lacrosse Association level, including most major universities in the United States. Another 100 schools have club teams in the National College Lacrosse League.

Lacrosse had been introduced in upstate New York in the 1860s. Lacrosse was further introducedto the Baltimore area in the 1890s. These two areas continue to be the hotbeds of college lacrosse in the U.S. The first intercollegiate lacrosse tournament was held in 1881, with Harvard beating Princeton, 3-0, in the championship game.

Until 1986, lacrosse world championships had only been contested by the United States, Canada, England and Australia, with Scotland and Wales also competing in the women's edition. The expansion of the game internationally saw the 2005 Women's World Cup competed for by ten nations, and the 2006 Men's World Championship was contested by 21 countries.

Held for both men and women, the European Lacrosse Federation (ELF) has been running the European Championships since 1995. Before 2001 the Championships were an annual event, but in 2001 the ELF changed the format to every four years between the World Championship. Before 2004, only 7 nations had ever participated, but in 2004 there was a record number of participating countries, with 12 men's and 6 women's, which made it the largest international lacrosse event of 2004. The last European Lacrosse Championships were held in Lahti, Finland in 2008, with 18 competing countries. England placed first with the Netherlands and Germany placing second and third, respectively. right|200px|thumb| A player taking a "dive shot".|right The World Lacrosse Championships have been dominated by the United States, particularly in the men's game, where the only world championship game losses at either level was in the 1978 final to Canada and 2006 final to Canada. The USA has won 8 of the 10 senior men's and all six under 19 men's tournaments to date. The next Men's World Lacrosse Championships will be held in Manchester, England, in 2010.

The team was admitted to the International Lacrosse Federation (ILF) in 1990. It is the only Native American team sanctioned to compete in any sport internationally. The Nationals placed fourth in the 1998, 2002 and 2006 World Lacrosse Championships. In 2008, the Iroquois were admitted as the Haudenosunee Nation to the International Federation of Women's Lacrosse Associations (IFWLA) as one of that governing body's final acts.

Source: Wikipedia > Lacrosse