Sunday, March 4, 2012

My First time of watching Lacrosse – Calgary Roughnecks vs Minnesota Swarm


Introducing Lacrosse players - Picture taken by Keiyan Ng
Saturday’s night, I went out with my friend to watch Box Lacrosse. This was an exciting experience for me. Before I went to game, I had no expectation. I didn’t even know the name of this sport and the rules of the game. The first time I kind of noticed this sport was long time ago while I got off the ferry to Vancouver, I saw few people taking lacrosse gears along their ride. Recently, I watched the Lacrosse advertisement on sport channel. It seems like a pretty exciting sport for me.

I found few interesting things in this game. Many kids were on the seated to watch  the game. Unlike Calgary Flames, Calgary Roughnecks has a group of cheerleaders, and they cheered their team at the beginning and between break time. There was a DJ playing musics during the game. All the audiences played the wave around the stadium. It was a dance competition during the game, and five kids won the competition. It’s more like enjoying party rather than watching a sport game. On site sport reporter was very mean to the away team. It had many scores in one game; this is what I like the most. After the game, they opened the field for people who wanted signature from the players, cheerleader and even the mascot. With only $20 for the ticket, and full of all different kinds of entertainment. I think this $20 was worth more than that.  
During the game - Picture taken by Keiyan Ng

If you like watching hockey, I highly recommended give it a try to Lacrosse. You may enjoy it.

Some background about Lacrosse that I found in Wikipedia:
- Lacrosse is a Native American sport game, and it may have developed as early as AD 1100. By the seventeenth century, Lacrosse had been documented
- In the traditional Native Canadian version, each team consisted of about 100 to 1000 men on a field that stretched from about 500 meters to 3 kilometers long
- These games lasted from sunup to sundown for two to three days and mainly played as part of ceremonial ritual to give thanks to the master
People were waiting for signature - Picture taken by Keiyan Ng
- The name of Lacrosse came from the French word la crosse means “the stick”
- In 1994, Canada declared lacrosse its national summer sport
- There are two types of lacrosse: field lacrosse and box lacrosse (The one I watched)
- The highest level of pro box lacrosse is in National Lacrosse League (NLL)
- For NLL, each game plays four fifteen-minute quarters. To make the style of the game quick, attacking team require to take a shot within 30 seconds. Within 10 seconds, players must advance the ball from their defensive side to the offensive side.
- The playing area of box lacrosse is 55m (180ft) to 61m (200ft) in length and 24m (80ft) to 27m (90ft) in width.
- The 9 feet (2.7 m) to 9 feet 3 inches (2.82 m) diameter area surrounding the net is called the "crease".
Box Lacrosse Field Overview - Diagram from Wikipedia

- The game rules and gears are very similar to hockey. Except, box lacrosse doesn’t have offside, it has shot clock, player cannot enter the "crease" while playing the ball and they can use the stick to hit the player who holding the ball (this was what I observed).
- Lacrosse stick is between 1m (40 in) and 1.2m (46 in) in length, and it made by wood, aluminum or other metal. However, in NLL game wooden stick is not allowed.
- The best pro lacrosse players make around $20,000 per season. The rookie players make around $4000 to $8000 per season. The average salary per season is around $13,000

Some more information about Lacrosse game
National Lacrosse League game rule: http://www.nll.com/page/show/389125-lax-101

Calgary Roughnecks got the score in this clip. You can hear the background was very loud due to the music.

Minnesota Swarm got the penalty shoot, but they missed it. 




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