Sincerely, Miss Canada

Thursday, July 07, 2005

Lacrosse Times: Fighting Words

Lacrosse Times: Fighting Words - Lacrosse - Canadas offical sport

It seems I've offended someone. As any good Canadian would, I'd apologize if I could only find Ed Dale's email address.

As it turns out, Hockey and Lacrosse are both Canada's National Sports. In 1994 Canada passed the National Sports of Canada Act declaring that the game commonly known as ice hockey is hereby recognized and declared to be the national winter sport of Canada and the game commonly known as lacrosse is hereby recognized and declared to be the national summer sport of Canada.

So what of this sport, lacrosse?

Lacrosse predates hockey by a long shot, having been played by Native Americans for years before anyone decided to strap knives to their feet and brandish long flat sticks. It entered onto the scene to become a truly organized and modern sport in 1856 when the Montreal Lacrosse Club developped the first set of written rules. Nowadays Lacrosse is played by women and men worldwide. The International Lacrosse Federation boasts the membership of 14 "full-member nations" (Australia; Canada; Czech Republic; England; Germany; Ireland; Iroquois Nationals; Japan; Korea; New Zealand; Scotland; Sweden; United States; and, Wales) and 6 "affiliate-member nations" (Argentina; Denmark; Hong Kong; Finland; Italy; and, Tonga).

As a spectator sport Lacrosse is also growing. There are a number of professional lacrosse leagues emerging, all of which are building a fan base that rivals that of curling, another of Canada's beloved sports. So it turns out that my flippant observation that "no one watches [lacrosse] anyway" was absolutely false.

I hope that Ed Dale, wherever in the world (Tonga, perhaps?) he may be, will forgive my "fighting words" and merely acknowledge my point as I meant it: That hockey is only our favourite sport when we are talking to Americans or when we are someplace other than Canada, and that Lacrosse is our favourite sport... well... hardly ever.

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