Lacrosse in Canada: the national game question and the national body.

Was lacrosse declared the national game in 1859?

The sources split on this:

• Yes, say the lacrosse bodies. Lacrosse Canada's history page says lacrosse was declared Canada's national game in 1859. The Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame's timeline says Parliament proclaimed it the national game of the Dominion in 1859.
• No, say the reference works. The Dictionary of Canadian Biography, in its article on William George Beers, calls Beers's claim of a parliamentary declaration a long-held myth, while noting that lacrosse did become the national game in practice by the end of the century. The Canadian Encyclopedia says Beers campaigned without success in 1867 to have lacrosse made the national game, and that it was not made the national game by law.

No source in the research cites the text of any 1859 act. No law found names lacrosse a national sport before 1994. This site therefore gives the 1859 declaration as the claim of Lacrosse Canada and the Hall of Fame, disputed by the Dictionary of Canadian Biography and The Canadian Encyclopedia, and not as an established fact.

The National Sports of Canada Act, 1994

The confirmed law is the National Sports of Canada Act (S.C. 1994, c. 16), which received assent on 12 May 1994. Its long title is An Act to recognize hockey and lacrosse as the national sports of Canada. Section 2 recognises and declares ice hockey the national winter sport of Canada and lacrosse the national summer sport. The Act has a short title and that one operative section; it contains no preamble about lacrosse's history.

The national body: 1867 or 1925?

Lacrosse Canada and other sources give different founding years. The difference is about lineage, not an error on either side.

• 1867. Lacrosse Canada's page on the Kingston commemorative display says the National Association of La Crosse, formed at Kingston on 26 September 1867, went on to become today's Canadian Lacrosse Association, and its own description gives 1867 as its founding year. The Kingston convention is described on Montreal and the first rules.
• 1925. The Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame's timeline says the Canadian Amateur Lacrosse Association was formed in 1912 under the Amateur Athletic Union of Canada and re-formed in 1925 to revive amateur lacrosse, and that the Canadian Lacrosse Association was founded in 1925 as the sport's governing body in Canada. The Cornwall Sports Hall of Fame says Joe Lally founded the Canadian Lacrosse Association in 1925. The Manitoba Lacrosse Hall of Fame says Winnipeg hosted the national association's meeting in 1925, at which Abbie Coo was elected president.

Put together: Lacrosse Canada traces its roots to the national association of 1867, and the Canadian Lacrosse Association in its modern form dates from 1925.

The bodies in between

The Hall of Fame timeline also records two earlier changes, which rest on that timeline alone and are unconfirmed: the National Lacrosse Association was renamed the National Amateur Lacrosse Association in 1882, and an earlier body called the Canadian Lacrosse Association was formed in 1887, after the Toronto club left the national amateur body.

From the Canadian Lacrosse Association to Lacrosse Canada

The new name, Lacrosse Canada, is dated to 29 March 2021 in a search summary of the body's own announcement, which now returns an error. That day is unconfirmed. Lacrosse Canada as it is today is described on the national bodies page.

Decline and the move to box

Lacrosse Canada's history page says the game lost ground to hockey and baseball in the 1920s, and that box lacrosse was introduced in the 1930s to revive interest and quickly became the dominant form in Canada. The Manitoba Lacrosse Hall of Fame quotes the historian Donald Fisher calling the change from field to box "quick and complete". The competing accounts of who started box lacrosse are on the box lacrosse page.

The national trophies

The founding dates below come mostly from the Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame and are not confirmed by a second source. Recent winners are in box lacrosse trophies.

The Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame

The Hall of Fame's own timeline says it opened in New Westminster, British Columbia, on 17 May 1967, after its first inductions in 1966. Its timeline is one of the main sources for this section, and where it is the only source for a fact, the page says so.

Canada's part in the early Olympic tournaments is on the Olympic years, and every date here is in the timeline.