A lacrosse stick or crosse is used to play the sport of lacrosse. Players use the lacrosse stick to handle the ball and to strike or "check" opposing players' sticks, causing them to drop the ball. The head of a lacrosse stick is roughly triangular in shape and is strung with loose netting that allows the ball to be caught, carried (known as "cradling"), passed, or shot.
History of lacrosse sticks
Indigenous stick history and variations
Modern day lacrosse descends from and resembles games played by various Native American communities. Many of those games closely resemble what is now known as stickball.
Many early stickball sticks were essentially giant wooden spoons with no netting. More advanced sticks featured one end being bent into a 4 to 5-inch diameter circle. This circle would have netting made of wattup, and later on deer sinew. The tension in the netting of the stick allowed for players to strike the ball as someone would do in tennis. These sticks were typically 2 to 5 feet long and were bent into shape after being softened with steam. This variation was played by many Great Lakes tribes.
Some tribes would use two sticks to play. The player would carry the ball by sandwiching it between the two sticks. This two-stick variation was played by many southeastern and southwestern tribes.
The modern one-stick version of lacrosse is most closely modeled after the Iroquois. The sticks used by the Iroquois featured a U-shaped head rather than a circular one closely resembled the wooden sticks used today.
Traditions and decorations
Lacrosse sticks were often very treasured by their users. Players received a stick when they were born and were buried with their stick when they died. The practice still exists today to some degree, but Native Americans are not to be presented with or buried with a plastic modern lacrosse stick.
Many stickball players decorated their sticks with the hair animals like horses or raccoons hoping to match that animals speed and agility.
During grand matches or special events some players would decorate their sticks with feathers or dye their sticks different colors as a form of customization.
Some sticks would have elaborate carvings on them for spiritual reasons.
Early production of lacrosse sticks (1880's-1968) Sometime between 1884 and 1893, Frank Lally started the first lacrosse stick factory. He hired various native stickmakers to facilitate the assembly line style process. This company would close during World War Two and sold their equipment to the Chilsholm Lacrosse Manufacturing Company. During the great depression Colin Chisholm, and the Roundpoint brothers (who had worked in the Lally factory previously) started a competing lacrosse manufacturing company known as the Chisholm Lacrosse Manufacturing Company. This company operated on Cornwall Island, part of the Akwesasne Mohawk reserve, and had dozens of Mohawk stick makers working for it. At one point the Chisholm factory was believed to be producing as much as 97-percent of the worlds lacrosse sticks. They also supplied college teams and major lacrosse companies such as Brine with sticks. In 1968, the Chisholm factory burnt down. The ensuing shortage of lacrosse sticks likely sped up the transition to plastic lacrosse sticks.
In 1937, Robert Pool designed the first double walled stick head, it was not used at the time but the design influenced the creation of today's plastic lacrosse heads.
Production of the modern lacrosse stick
Pre-1970
Throughout the 1950's and 1960's companies such as Brine and STX began experimenting with different materials to develop lacrosse sticks. The Brine company was founded in early 1920's and had developed other wooden sticks. It also experimented with materials such as laminated wood, fibreglass, plastic, and aluminum. STX was founded in the 1960's in Baltimore by lacrosse players working for WT Burnett, a plastics company. They were experimenting with various lighter synthetic materials. Brine settled on a Dupont plastic called "Surlyn", while STX settled on Dupont "Adiprene" urethane rubber.