Lacrosse

Lacrosse is a team sport in which players use a long stick with a netted pocket, called a crosse, to catch, carry and pass a ball and to shoot it into the opponent’s goal. The game began with the Indigenous peoples of North America and is governed today by World Lacrosse. A six-a-side version called sixes returns lacrosse to the Olympic Games at Los Angeles in 2028.

History of lacrosse

Lacrosse has a history of more than 1,000 years and is rooted in Indigenous traditions of North America. Before European settlement it was called baggataway or Tewaarathon, and various First Nations played it for spiritual, ceremonial and diplomatic purposes. Games sometimes involved hundreds of players over long distances.

French settlers named the game la crosse because the stick resembled a bishop’s staff. In 1637 the Jesuit missionary Jean de Brebeuf watched Wendat men play it in what is now Ontario. By the 1840s games between Mohawk players and townspeople were popular, and in 1859 lacrosse was declared Canada’s national game.

The dentist William George Beers founded the Montreal Lacrosse Club in 1856 and codified the game in 1860, reducing teams to 12 players. The National Lacrosse Association, formed in 1867, is described as the first national sport governing body in North America. Women’s lacrosse began at St Leonards School in Scotland in 1890.

Lacrosse was an official men’s medal sport at the 1904 St. Louis Games and the 1908 London Games, and Canada won both golds. At St. Louis the Winnipeg Shamrocks won the gold and a Mohawk team from near Brantford, Ontario, took the bronze. In 1908 Canada beat Great Britain in the only match of the tournament after South Africa withdrew. Lacrosse was a demonstration sport in 1928, 1932 and 1948.

Rules and how lacrosse is played

Lacrosse has several formats. In men’s field lacrosse, each team has ten players: three attackers, three midfielders, three defenders and a goalkeeper. A game lasts 60 minutes in four 15-minute quarters. Women’s lacrosse uses 12 players per team, with no body contact and a draw instead of a face-off.

Box lacrosse, introduced in Canada in the 1930s to fill arenas outside the hockey season, is played with five runners and a goalkeeper in an enclosed box, usually an ice rink with turf laid over the ice. A 30-second shot clock applies.

Sixes is the format chosen for the Olympics. It has six players per side, five runners and one goalkeeper, with no specialist positions. Games have four eight-minute quarters, a 30-second shot clock and no body checking. There are no face-offs: after a goal, the team that conceded passes the ball from behind its net. A tie is settled with three-minute overtime periods.

Equipment and venues

The crosse is about one meter long in sixes, with a head that forms a pocket. In men’s field lacrosse, short sticks are 40 to 42 inches long, while long sticks for defenders run 52 to 72 inches. The men’s ball is made of rubber, is usually white and weighs 5 to 5.25 ounces, or 142 to 149 grams. The women’s ball is yellow.

Protective gear differs by format. Men’s field players wear gloves, helmets, shoulder pads and elbow pads, and goalkeepers add chest and neck protection. Women’s players have protective gear limited to eyewear and a mouthguard, and goalkeepers wear a helmet and pads. The way contact rules shape equipment is related to wider questions of concussion in sport.

Field lacrosse is played on a field of 110 by 60 yards, about 101 by 55 meters, with goals 6 feet by 6 feet. Sixes uses a smaller field of 70 by 36 meters and the same goals as field lacrosse.

Governing bodies and major competitions

In August 2008 the men’s and women’s international federations merged to form the Federation of International Lacrosse, which was renamed World Lacrosse in May 2019. As an international federation, in the sense described under sports governance, World Lacrosse holds six quadrennial world championships: men’s field, women’s field, men’s under-20 field, women’s under-20 field, box and sixes. The Haudenosaunee Nationals are a full member and competed at The World Games in 2022.

The men’s World Lacrosse Championship was first held in the late 1960s and the women’s World Cup in 1982. The NCAA men’s championship was first awarded in 1971. The National Lacrosse League, a box league, was founded in 1987 and took its present name in 1998, and the Premier Lacrosse League began in 2019. How federations and leagues organize events is part of sport event management.

Records and notable moments

Canada has won three Olympic lacrosse medals, the most of any country: the golds of 1904 and 1908 and the Mohawk bronze of 1904. The United States has won most of the men’s world championships and nine women’s World Cup titles.

The sixes format came into being in 2020 and had its global debut at The World Games in 2022. IOC members approved sixes for the Games at the 141st IOC Session in October 2023, after lacrosse had been shortlisted as a proposed sport in August 2022.

According to the Canadian Olympic Committee, the Los Angeles tournaments run from 24 to 29 July 2028 at Exposition Park Stadium, with a six-team round robin followed by a gold medal match and a bronze medal match. World Lacrosse said in 2023 that at least six teams per gender had been approved and that it hoped for at least eight.

Global reach of lacrosse

The Olympic rules for team eligibility usually require United Nations recognition and a National Olympic Committee, and 206 committees are listed. World Lacrosse says it is committed to finding ways for the Haudenosaunee to take part within the framework of the Games.

Lacrosse was declared Canada’s national game in 1859 and officially recognized as its national summer sport in 1994, and it is popular in the United States, where college and professional leagues operate. The 2025 World Games in Chengdu, China, included sixes, which shows how the sport is spreading beyond North America.

Editorially reviewed by Specialty Digest Editorial TeamLast reviewed November 4, 2026Researched and drafted with AI assistanceReport an issue