Lacrosse originated in North America and was confined to that region for a long time. The speed and excitement of lacrosse, however, has made it popular around the world. In the beginning, lacrosse was played mostly in Canada and the USA (plus a few places in the United Kingdom and Australia). Today, however, you can watch lacrosse games in a good number of cities in Europe and East Asia.

Every four years a World Championship of lacrosse is held. The highest international tournament for lacrosse, it holds competitions in four categories: Senior Men, Senior Women, Men under 19 and Women under 19. Up until 1986, participation in the World Championship was limited to teams from the United States, Canada, England and Australia (with women’s teams from Scotland and Wales). Reflecting the burgeoning popularity of lacrosse, the 2006 World Championship had 26 countries fielding teams and the 2009 Women’s World Championship saw 16 countries participating.

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Putting aside the differences between men’s and women’s lacrosse, there are several variations to the lacrosse game. There’s field lacrosse and box lacrosse. There’s also collegiate lacrosse and international lacrosse. All of these have differences in rules and procedures which one must be familiar with in order to appreciate the entirety of the sport or of a specific type.

Men’s field lacrosse is the most physically demanding form of the lacrosse game requiring superb fitness, excellent stick handling and smooth eye-hand coordination. Each team has 10 players: 1 goalie, 3 defenders, 3 midfielders and 3 attackers. The goalie’s role is to prevent the opposing team’s ball from entering the goal. The defenders are there to stop the opposing team’s attackers from attempting to make a goal; the midfielders help with the defense and set up the play for a goal attempt by getting the ball to the attackers while the attackers are responsible for making the attempts to score by getting the ball into the opposing team’s goal.

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