Box lacrosse: the indoor game Canada made its own.

Four accounts of how it started

The Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame's own page on 1931 calls box lacrosse's origins "somewhat shrouded". The sources give four accounts, and all of them place it in Canada, with the organised game in place by the early 1930s:

• Ontario players in empty rinks. One account on the Hall of Fame's 1931 page has the game evolving around 1929 or 1930 in Ontario, as players used hockey rinks that stood empty in summer.
• Jim McConaghy. The same page gives a second account, from Cleve Dheensaw's 1990 book Lacrosse 100. It credits Jim McConaghy of British Columbia, who is said to have read a report of seven-a-side indoor lacrosse in Australia and taken the idea of a boxed game to the Canadian Amateur Lacrosse Association in 1931. The Hall of Fame page adds that there was no truth in the Australian report.
• The Montreal arena owners. The Manitoba Lacrosse Hall of Fame says sports entrepreneurs led by Joe Cattarinich (spelled Cattaranich on its page) and Leo Dandurand of the Montreal Canadiens created an indoor version of lacrosse to fill hockey arenas in the summer, played six a side on the rink floor.
• Paddy Brennan. Wikipedia, seen only as a search summary, credits the Montreal player and referee Paddy Brennan with indoor experiments at the Mount Royal Arena in the early 1920s. This account is unconfirmed.

The first league: 1930 or 1931?

The Hall of Fame's comprehensive timeline says the first box lacrosse league was formed in 1930, with two Ontario and two Montreal clubs, and that box was first played around 1931. The Hall of Fame's own 1931 page, and Wikipedia, point to 1931 for the first professional league and the first play. Wikipedia names that league as the International Lacrosse League, formed by the arena owners with four teams (the Montreal Canadiens, the Montreal Maroons, the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Cornwall Colts), and says it lasted two seasons; those details are Wikipedia's alone. Which year is right has not been settled.

The timeline adds that the first box games in British Columbia were played at the PNE and the Queens Park Arena in 1931, and that the Canadian Amateur Lacrosse Association adopted box as its official game the same year.

"Quick and complete"

Lacrosse Canada's history page says the field game had lost ground to hockey and baseball in the 1920s, and that box lacrosse, introduced in the 1930s to revive interest, quickly became the dominant form in Canada. The Manitoba Lacrosse Hall of Fame quotes the historian Donald Fisher describing the move from field to box as "quick and complete". It says Manitoba adopted box in 1932 under pressure from the rest of Canadian lacrosse, and that the 1932 Mann Cup, Canada's national amateur trophy, was played under the new format and won by the Hamilton Tigers over the Winnipeg Argos.

The Manitoba Hall of Fame says the Vancouver broadcaster Leo Nicholson coined the promotional line "the fastest game on two feet", and the Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame's timeline says Nicholson made the first radio broadcasts of box lacrosse in Vancouver in 1933.

The timeline also records, as the only source for them, that Robert Pool introduced the first double-walled wooden stick in 1937, and that a professional box International League formed in 1939 with Vancouver, New Westminster, Seattle and an Indigenous team. Both are unconfirmed.

Haudenosaunee players and box

The Onondaga Nation says that after Native teams were barred from field lacrosse as "professionals", Haudenosaunee players turned to box lacrosse, the game Canadians had started in indoor hockey rinks. That exclusion is described on Montreal and the first rules and the Haudenosaunee Nationals.

Professional box

The National Lacrosse League says attempts at professional box lacrosse go back to the 1930s, and that a different league called the National Lacrosse League played in 1974 and 1975. Today's NLL dates itself to 1986. Its history is on professional leagues.

Box goes international

The historian Allan Downey says the Iroquois Nationals' first competition was a one-time entry at Nations '80 in British Columbia, where they finished second. The team as such was formed in 1983, so his wording may refer to an earlier Haudenosaunee squad; that point is unconfirmed. The Onondaga Nation calls the 2015 championship it hosted the first world championship held on Indigenous lands.

Box today

World Lacrosse now governs box as one of its four disciplines. Its Box Lacrosse Official Playing Rules 2026-2028, version 2.0 (May 2026), set six players a side indoors on a floor enclosed by boards (Rules 1.1.1 and 3.1.1) and a 30-second shot clock (Rule 6.6.1). The current game is explained on box lacrosse, and box sticks on box sticks.