What lacrosse is, as its rule books describe it.

The object of the game

World Lacrosse's men's field rule book (2025-2027, version 1.0, in force from 1 January 2025) opens with a short description of the game in its section called The Game. Two teams of ten try to put the ball into the other team's goal and to stop the other team from getting the ball and scoring. The ball is carried, thrown or batted with the stick, and it may also be rolled or kicked. Only a goalkeeper standing inside their own crease may touch the ball with a hand.

That description belongs to the men's field game. Each of lacrosse's four disciplines has its own rule book, and the details below are always given with the book they come from. A later version of the men's field book (version 1.1, uploaded January 2026) is linked from World Lacrosse's site but was not read for this page, and the same is true of version 1.1 of the women's field book (uploaded March 2025).

The stick, the ball and the goal

The stick has a shaft and a netted head, and the rule books control its length, the size of its head and how deep its pocket may be. The women's field rule book (2025-2026, version 1.0) uses the name "crosse" for the stick, in its Rule 3. The figures differ by game: World Lacrosse's men's field Rule 15.1 allows a short stick of 101.60 to 106.68 cm or a long stick of 132.08 to 182.88 cm, while the women's field book's Appendix H sets a field crosse of 90 to 110 cm. These are separate rules for separate games, and the men's sticks and women's sticks pages set them out in full.

The men's field book calls for a rubber ball and the women's field book for a solid, smooth elastomer one. World Lacrosse's men's field Rule 14.1 sets it at 7.75 to 8 in (19.69 to 20.32 cm) in circumference and 5 to 5.25 oz (141.75 to 148.83 g), and the women's field book's Rule 4.A uses the same size and weight ranges. Colour rules differ by code; the ball page covers them.

In men's field lacrosse the goal is 1.83 m (6 ft) wide and 1.83 m high, measured inside, painted orange, and set 12 m from each end line (Rules 2.1 to 2.3). It stands in a crease, a circle of 3 m radius (Rule 3.1). The women's field book also marks a 3 m circle around the goal but calls it the Goal-Circle, not the crease (Rule 1.A.6).

Four disciplines

World Lacrosse, the international federation, lists four disciplines on its playing rules page (read 23 October 2026), each with its own rule book:

World Lacrosse also publishes suggested wheelchair rules dated 3 May 2016 and mixed field rules. The disciplines page compares the four games side by side.

Why the men's and women's games are kept apart

Men's and women's field lacrosse share a name and a field size, but they are written as different games with different rules, and this site never merges them. A few differences show how far apart they are under World Lacrosse's current books:

• Restarts. Men's field play starts each period and restarts after each goal with a face-off (men's Rule 34.1). Women's field play uses a draw in the Center-Circle instead (women's Rule 13.A.1).
• Body contact. The men's book permits a body-check only on an opponent who has the ball or is within 2.74 m (3 yd) of a loose ball or a ball in flight, and only from the front or side, above the hip and below the neck (men's Rule 41.1). The women's book lists a check to the head among the major fouls that carry a mandatory warning card (women's Rule 23.A.2).
• Protective equipment. The men's book requires every player to wear a lacrosse helmet with a facemask and a chinstrap fastened on both sides (men's Rule 17.1). The 2025-2026 women's book does not permit field players to wear headgear or face masks (women's Rule 6.A.2). World Lacrosse announced on 12 May 2026 that soft-shell headgear will be permitted in women's field lacrosse at its events from the 2029 Women's U20 Championship; both statements are correct for their dates. The helmets and women's headgear pages give the detail.
• Team size in other codes. In US college play the women's game is 12 a side, which the NCAA's 12 August 2026 release implies when it describes a fall 2026 experiment with 10 a side instead of 12; the NCAA rule book itself was not read. World Lacrosse's women's field book allows up to ten.

Who governs it

World Lacrosse governs the international game and writes the four rule books above. Each rule book says that a national governing body may set its own date for bringing the rules in and may vary them for national play. In the United States, the NCAA writes college rules and the NFHS writes high school rules, separately for boys and girls, and USA Lacrosse writes youth rules; the college and high school rules page explains who writes what. Canada's National Sports of Canada Act (S.C. 1994, c. 16) declares lacrosse the national summer sport of Canada, alongside ice hockey as the national winter sport. The national bodies page covers each country's body.

The game's own people

The Haudenosaunee Nationals, the national team programme sanctioned by the Grand Council of the Haudenosaunee, describe lacrosse on their own history page as one of the Haudenosaunee's most important traditions, tied to health, strength, courage, leadership and fair play, and as a medicine game with a spiritual meaning. That is their own account, in their own words, and it applies to the Haudenosaunee; the origins of the game and the accounts of other nations belong to the history section of this site, which is written from the nations' own bodies, museums and historians.

Lacrosse and the Olympic Games

World Lacrosse records that lacrosse was an official Olympic sport in 1904 and 1908 and a demonstration sport in 1928, 1932 and 1948. On 16 October 2023 the IOC Session in Mumbai added lacrosse in its sixes form to the programme of the Los Angeles 2028 Games as an additional sport proposed by the LA28 organisers. The Olympic path page gives the full sequence.

What this section does not cover

These pages explain rules, governing bodies and standards. They do not teach how to play, and they say nothing about technique. How the game's injuries are handled is a matter for doctors; the safety section reports what the governing bodies and medical researchers publish, and the glossary explains the vocabulary.