Lacrosse has been legally recognised as Canada’s national summer sport since 1994, but it existed for centuries before any government put it in writing. It began as a ceremonial game among Indigenous nations, was renamed and rewritten by a 19th century dentist, and then spent more than a century locking out the people who invented it. Here is the documented history, with the sources attached.
Every summer, thousands of Canadian kids lace up for box lacrosse in hockey rinks turned over for the warm months, most of them unaware that the sport has a legal status few other games can claim, or that its origins have nothing to do with the rink at all.
