Is it true lacrosse is Canada's national sport? I played a bit at school in England but I read how it's becoming more popular in colleges in us and canada. Does it depend which province you live in what sports your kids will play in school? Baseball seems pretty popular in Ontario .

It is the national sport but is played for fun only by Indians (native Indians, I don't know if it's popular in India) and scions of rich families attending expensive colleges in the US. Different styles are played by the two groups, one's called box, one is not.

There is a professional league, Toronto has a team. The one person I know who attends the games was some sort of "fan of the year" as he'd been to two away games. They were in Rochester NY.

Lacrosse has a role in the national life of Canada in the same manner as, say, polo does in the UK.

I'd say it's dependent on your region. Kids and adult lacrosse leagues here are very popular and well attended. Nothing to do with demographic or social status.

http://kamloopsvenomlacrosse.org
http://www.kamloopsrattlers.ca

Lacrosse was invented (is that the word?) in Canada (by natives, as dbd pointed out). It's behind hockey, football, baseball and basketball in popularity, but is played by youngsters (especially in the hockey off season).

This is one of the most ridiculously uninformed posts I have ever seen here.

Lacrosse is not Canada's national sport, it is Canada's national summer sport with hockey being the national winter sport:

http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/a....7/page-1.html


http://www.canlii.org/en/ca/laws/sta...OF_CANADA__913


Lacrosse is played all over the country, and not just by Indians. There are leagues all over the place and they are not the reserve of rich families.

Please refrain from commenting on things you know nothing about. I knew there was a reason I had you on ignore.

As I mentioned above, it is the national summer sport with hockey being the national winter sport.

You seem to pour an enormous amount of vitriol and righteous indignation into your posts, without very much in the way of merit to either. Chill.

Fur sure, Canada's parliament, under pressure from First Nations representatives, amended the Act in 1994 that declared hockey and lacrosse to be the two seasonal "national sports." The very fact that Canada deemed it necessary to have an Act of Parliament declaring what the national sports are, is illustrative of how pointless the designation is.

Lacrosse is played by fewer people than curling. It is not even in the top 30 sports in Canada in terms of adult participation (for the record, the top ten in 2010 was golf, hockey, swimming, soccer, basketball, baseball, volleyball, skiing, cycling and tennis). For children aged 5-14, lacrosse was the 19th most popular participation sport, just below badminton and way, way behind the likes of soccer, basketball, baseball, volleyball or Canadian football. Even in terms of spectating rather than participating, it is the poor cousin amongst the professional leagues.

http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/81-595-...008060-eng.pdf

In no way, other than because Parliament deemed it so, can lacrosse be considered a true national sport of Canada. In that regard, dbd's assertion that it is no more relevant to the life of Canadians than polo is to the British is probably closer to the mark than even his tongue-in-cheek remark intended.

In the 60's they taught us that lacrosse was the national sport, just because it was invented here, but everyone knows hockey is more popular. History class included the Ottawas' invasion of Ft. Mackinac in 1763 using a lacrosse match as a diversion. Here's a local team from Richmond Hill, (Novo 2nd from left, kneeling).

I wasn't saying it was relevant to the lives of all Canadians, just that it is relevant to far more people than just the rich. The number of lacrosse leagues across the country is clear evidence of that.

And Parliament didn't declare it a national sport merely to appease natives, they did so to clear up the debate that had gone on for decades about whether it was Canada's national sport and, if not, what sport was.

As for vitriol, DBD's posts are usually filled with misinformation and are often ridiculous. There is a good deal of excellent info that is provided by members here and it is more than a little irritating to be reading through a decent thread only to see his dumb comments ruining an otherwise informative and helpful thread. For that reason I had him on ignore, and will happily place him there again, and only saw his post because another member had quoted it.

Your ignore button has malfunctioned madam. For the record I disagreed with your every post on the thread about second hand goods but couldn't be bothered to argue about the price of milk or the state of the cars in Ontario. My car for a start could not pass an MOT in the UK but is perfectly legal here.

That makes it the national sport does it not? (OK most countries don't have two so that complicates matters but I suppose that's a consequence of bilingualism or semi-metrification.) Here are some rough urchins lacrossing: http://ucc.on.ca/page.aspx?pid=1835 http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/stor...evil-lacrosse/

I'll continue to quote him, in order to provide balance

Yeah but his posts are a damn sight more interesting than yours are.

just for your benefit, Colchar, I thought I'd multiquote you and dbd in the same post so you can get more intimate.

I think you are arguing against yourself. It's a fact that Lacrosse is a national sport of Canada. However, I maintain it is a national sport in name only. It was absolutely as a sop to the First Nations (delivered by Albina Guarnieri, then a parliamentary secretary to the Minister for Canadian Heritage) that it ever attained that status in law. To say otherwise is to misrepresent the events of the parliamentary debate in 1994. Reference to lacrosse was added as an afterthought, and barely debated in the rush to finish second reading, whole house committee, and third reading of Nelson Riis' private member's bill within the space of an hour and a half. Here's the record of debate, if you're interested http://openparliament.ca/debates/1994/4/27/?page=9

I've already provided reference to the comparatively tiny number of people who play lacrosse. For sure, it's a fun game to watch (I've only played once, in a co-ed game to women's rules, 20-odd years ago, so am not in a strong position to comment on participation) but it's not a "national sport" in the way that anybody outside Canada would understand that concept.

I don't find dbd's comments unhelpful in the least. He often injects a note of jaded cynicism into otherwise rather anodyne discussions, and while I often wildly disagree with his perspective, he's seldom demonstrably factually inaccurate. Most people on here, being as how this is a site for British expats, recognise his hyperbole and ironic whimsy for what they are. If you do not, that's your loss.

+1 and well said