Very good article about growing the game of lacrosse in Montana.
Cultivating the Creator's Game
Montana's fastest growing sport is the oldest in North America
Rain was spitting and a cold wind had the few dozen
sideline spectators pulling their winter coats tightly around themselves
as they watched the Hellgate Knights lacrosse team play its home opener
against the Big Sky Eagles. Lacking access to high school facilities,
the teams played at DeSmet School, west of the airport. The tiny
schoolyard was barely big enough to accommodate a regulation lacrosse
field and one sideline was just six inches from the asphalt basketball
court.
The whistle blew. A Hellgate midfielder won the face-off and quickly
ran the ball upfield. He passed to a waiting attacker, who was
immediately confronted by an Eagle defender. Panicked, the attacker
fired the ball toward the far sideline, hoping a teammate was there.
Five yards off the corner of the goal, Hellgate's Spencer Schultz
leaped high into the air to spear the ball with his stick and save it
from sailing out of bounds. As he came down, he rotated toward the goal
and curled his stick down low, sneaking a shot an inch or two beneath
the goalie's stick and into the goal. Schultz pulled off the move in one
seamless motion that left jaws gaping both on the field and along the
sidelines.
After a moment of stunned silence, the crowd went nuts. If only more people had been there to see it.
Lacrosse is still an anomaly in western Montana, an exotic "prep
school sport" they play Back East. The West is catching up, though, with
high school and college programs thriving in Washington, Oregon and
Colorado. Even the University of Montana has a club team with a national
championship under its belt. But it's taken more than 400 years for the
oldest game in North America to make steady inroads throughout the
Treasure State.
Lacrosse's origins are hard to pin down. European explorers and
missionaries first witnessed American Indians playing in the 1630s, but
different precursors of the game, such as shinny and double ball, were
part of Native culture for centuries. The age of lacrosse is usually
placed between 400 and 1,000 years, but many tribes familiar with the
sport believe it has been around longer than they have, a game that was
played by the animals before man even existed.
The Native version of the game was a deeply spiritual undertaking; it
is still referred to by tribal members as "The Creator's Game."
American Indian lore tells of games sometimes lasting for days. The
playing field frequently stretched for miles, involving as many as one
thousand players on each side. Games were played to entertain the
Creator, but also to heal the sick, train and strengthen warriors and as
an alternative to war itself. PLEASE GO
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