Lacrosse Equipment

To play a game of lacrosse, one would only need a specialized stick called crosse and a ball and a game can begin. However, due to the game’s temperament as a rough and full contact sport, some other specialized gears are intrinsically needed, such as the need for helmets and padding. Here’s a brief summary of the most common lacrosse equipment.

Lacrosse Sticks

Lacrosse sticks, called properly as crosse, are the specialized and most important lacrosse equipment for use in the game, and that they are unique you can’t use them to play other sport games other than lacrosse. In any case most people just refer them as lacrosse sticks.

Lacrosse sticks have two distinct parts, the head and the handle, and these are bought separately, allowing a modicum of variation, whether tactical or taste. The head portion is typically a rounded portion where meshes of leather or nylon are strung to form a pocket. The head is used to capture and cradle the ball. Before, it used to be that the head comes in standard design and shape. Until lately however, with the advent of better malleable materials, especially synthetic materials, lacrosse stick heads began sporting unique and innovatively designed heads.

In the past, too, when wooden sticks are the norm, most lacrosse sticks come in one piece. Today’s technology allowed each to be separately sold and therefore deeper customization is allowed. For shafts, several makes are already available, from different metals and alloys like graphite, aluminum, scandium and titanium to some times lighter materials like plastic or the traditional hardwood. The idea of the lacrosse shaft is to maintain an amount of rigidity and strength while also sporting important characteristic like lightweight and balance.

There are players that prefer the use of traditional wood crosse, though it’s farther in between. Wood as lacrosse equipment material has become exotic and products, lacrosse sticks made of wood are usually expensive.

The term crosse came from when Jesuit missionary and pioneer Jean de Brébeuf watched a Huron game going on and observed how the head of the sticks used looked much like a shepherd’s crosier. Another account however claimed that the term crosse simply came from the French term crosse, which basically means “stick” for use in any type of game.

Lacrosse Ball

When played during the ancient times, lacrosse balls, if not the heads of enemies, are usually made of filled deerskin, or leather ball made up of wounded up leather strips. Now, lacrosse balls are made up of solid rubber that should be 2.5 to 4 inches in diameter and has the weight of 5 to 6 ounces. The lacrosse ball has been standardized by the International Lacrosse Federation to be orange or white, covered or made of solid rubber, that when dropped on a hard surface would bounce to the height of 45 to 49 inches, when dropped at the height of 72 inches away from the floor.

On professional and national level leagues, it is the home team’s responsibility to provide the ball to be used for the game. And after the end of the game, the winning team is awarded the lacrosse ball, hereby making the ball an important memorabilia for the game.

Helmet And Protective Gears

Even in the modern, codified game of lacrosse, with the exception of women’s lacrosse its still very much a rough, full contact sport. Body checks using the sticks are allowed and very much an integral feature in the game. So that makes helmet and protective gears among the indispensable lacrosse equipment.

In women’s lacrosse, protective lacrosse gears only include eye goggles and mouth guards. But even then, hard fouls on the head and other body parts do occur. In the women’s league, it’s only the lacrosse goalie gear that has the use of protective pads.