Lacrosse is a popular sport in Canada, North America, France, England and other parts of Europe. This exciting sport is a combination of soccer, basketball, and hockey and played with a small, hard ball and stick called the crosse. The crosse has a basket-like scoop on one end used to catch and throw the ball.
Lacrosse is primarily an amateur sport played at the high school and college level by both men and women. Intercrosse, the co-ed version of lacrosse, is even part of the physical education curriculum of many U.S. elementary, junior and high schools. lacrosse is a sport that requires stamina, as there is a great deal of running, but does not require its participants to be especially big or strong, as is required by basketball or football.
Each game begins with a center face-off, and as in soccer, only the goalie can touch the ball with his hands. Although lacrosse is considered a contact sport, players can commit technical and personal fouls for unusual roughness and stick checking.
Modern-day lacrosse has been greatly influenced by the record of a game made by a Jesuit Missionary named Jean de Brebeuf. The game was played in 1636 in what is now Ontario, Canada and followed a pattern similar to lacrosse’s current game.