NLL Insider

Everywhere you look, box lacrosse is referred to as a uniquely Canadian game — an offshoot of a sport developed to keep ice-less hockey rinks occupied in the summer, and maybe make the arena a little money in the process. What could be more Scottish Canadian than that? Common opinion is that it was Paddy Brennan who invented the indoor game and was the driving force behind the first Professional Box Lacrosse League, which officially launched in 1931.

However, in the process of doing a bit of research on Mr. Al Frick last night, I stumbled upon an old St. Catharines Standard article from 1955 that credited Australia with introducing the game to Canada in 1929.

Additionally, an old article from Maclean’s magazine written by Ted Reeve — no slouch of a player himself — mentions the Australian connection and credits the land from down under where women glow and men plunder with shortening the field to bring the nets closer together, thereby making the game faster and more exciting. So if these articles have their stories straight, Australia made it smaller and Canada brought it indoors? Outside of that David Bowie-Tina Turner duet, this might just be the greatest globe-spanning collaboration of all time.

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