Re: Speaking Of National Sports
<span style="color:red;font-family:comic sans ms;font-size:medium;"> Kara Bear :
Your boyfriend is correct! It is Lacrosse. That is Canada's national sport. Everyone thinks it is hockey. I guess because we are hockey fanatics. The Aboriginal people or is it natives (I never know) invented Lacarosse and they were here first. Here is a little history:</span>
Early in the 19th century, Europeans in Canada began playing the game. Montreal's Olympic Club organized a team in 1844, specifically to play a match against a Native American team. Similar games were played in 1848 and 1851.
However, the first step toward turning lacrosse into a genuinely organized, modern sport came when the Montreal Lacrosse Club, founded in 1856, developed the first written rules.
George Beers of the MLC rewrote the rules thoroughly in 1867. His rules called for 12 players per team, and named the positions: Goal, point, cover point, first defense, second defense, third defense, centre, third attack, second attack, first attack, out home, and in home.
Beers, who is now known as " the father of lacrosse," also replaced the hair-stuffed deerskin ball with a hard rubber ball and designed a stick that was better suited to catching the ball and throwing it accurately.
Canada's National Lacrosse Association, which was also established in 1867, quickly adopted the new rules. The same year, a team made up of Caughnawaga Indians went to England and played a match for Queen Victoria. The sport became quite popular in Bristol, Cheshire, Lancashire, London, Manchester, and Yorkshire, and the English Lacrosse Union was organized in 1892.
Ladskater
