Celebrating a milestone of lacrosse’s cultural and spiritual impact
As Canada celebrates its 150th birthday, the lacrosse community is marking the 150th anniversary of the modern game — a gift from the First Nations to the fledgling country.
“Nobody knows how far back the game goes, but it’s a part of our cultural and spiritual life,” said Louis Delisle, a Mohawk educator and former star lacrosse player who is organizing a re-creation of an 1867 game between the Kahnawake Lacrosse Club and the Montreal Lacrosse Club.
The game, to be played on the lower field at McGill University on June 17, is the focal point of a weekend-long celebration organized by the Canadian Lacrosse Foundation.
Delisle has enlisted students from the Kahnawake Survival School and the McGill University team to present two staged games. The first will demonstrate the game as played by the First Nations and the second will use the codified rules introduced during the 1860s.
“It will be an authentic look at the way the game was played,” said Delisle. “We have a woman in the community making the breechcloths that were worn in those days and we have stickmakers recreating the sticks from that era. The players will be wearing traditional paints and we’ll incorporate the spiritual elements associated with the game.”
Jim Calder, the chief organizer of the weekend events, credited Montreal dentist George Beers for popularizing the sport.
“He thought the new country needed a sport that reflected its new status; he didn’t want to see everyone playing cricket,” said Calder. “The rules he established provided the basis for other sports. James Naismith played lacrosse when he studied at McGill and he used the rules when he invented basketball. Hockey also borrowed rules from lacrosse.”
Beers first advanced the idea of lacrosse as Canada’s national sport and a decades-long debate was ended in 1994 when Parliament passed the National Sport of Canada Act, which established lacrosse as Canada’s national summer sport and hockey as the national winter sport.
While the game spread from Canada to other parts of the British Empire, there has been an explosion of interest during the past two decades in Canada and around the world. The world championships, which were first contested as part of Expo 67, have grown from a four-nation affair to 38 countries at the most recent championships in 2014.
One interesting twist to the lineup for international events is the inclusion of an Iroquois team representing First Nations players from Canada and the U.S.
Canada won the 2014 title, followed by the U.S. and the Iroquois.
Lacrosse was played at the 1904 and 1908 Olympic Games and as a demonstration sport on three other occasions.
Calder said he sees a permanent return to the Games in the near future.
“There are more than 60 countries where men and women are playing the game and I can see it as an Olympic sport in 10, 12 years,” said Calder, who helped Canada win a world championship in 1978.
Closer to home, Delisle sees a growing interest among the youngsters in Kahnawake.
“Back in the 1960 and 1970s, there was a lot of box lacrosse indoors, but the young people are back on the field and we see more players going to the U.S. to play college lacrosse,” said Delisle.
The weekend celebrations will feature a number of lectures on the history of the game, its significance to the First Nations communities and its cultural impact. A full schedule of the weekend events can be found at 150.lacrosse.ca.