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Adjutant
 
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Post 03 Apr 2016, 9:57 pm

Anyone watch lacrosse, or follow it? Going to college in MD you can't help but notice it.
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Post 05 Apr 2016, 5:31 am

Yes and no.
Living in Western New York(where the game originated!) this is one of the hotbeds. Syracuse is always in the running for the national championship and we have some major league teams in the area that usually do well. I do not follow the sport all that much and never played it (it was never offered when I was in high school.... I was on the west side and it was an east side sport)

But when my girls, yes GIRLS were in middle school they took it up and both played VERY well.
From watching them play softball (incredibly B O R I N G) to Soccer (much more fun to watch), lacrosse was a sudden change of pace. Let me tell you, there is no better sport to watch your kids play than Lacrosse.
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Post 05 Apr 2016, 3:35 pm

I can understand your softball boredom. I was never much of a sports fan, see. I never played them (band geek, SGA President). Sports would bore the hell out of me. "And he throws to first base..." Yeah wake me when he's on home plate. I cannot understand how that's America's favorite pastime. (Japan's perhaps, but not the United States).

Mostly I just like things that not as many other people like. So if I'm going to finally start watching sports, it's not going to be Ravens/Redskins football (one or the other in Maryland, take your pick). Speaking of which, it was once a cliche that gay dudes didn't used to be into football and other manly things like that--a stereotype mostly. I wish that were still the case; because, this one "date" I was on with a guy, I had to watch a Ravens game--a WHOLE Ravens game, mind you--with him and his roommate. Everybody gay watches football and, even worse than that, talks about it all the time, these days. It was by the grace of God that I didn't chew the arm of the sofa.

I was once invited to a super bowl party. My friend was very understanding, however, and was OK with my playing solitaire the whole time.

It's also partly that I have ADHD I like it better than football/baseball/basketball. If you miss some of a football game, it's like "what the hell just happened?" Ditto for baseball. "Wait, when did they score that one? Who struck out and when?" Since lacrosse is constant action, and you miss a bit, it really doesn't matter, since no one can quite explain what just happened anyway since it happened so fast. It's constant action so if you miss some, you can make up for it by watching the next bit. One play does not build on another. Or maybe it does, just not the way it does in football.

And since I'm not English or european, soccer [oh, excuse me, FOOTBALL, foot-football] doesn't interest me. Sorry.

I'm not saying that I actually love watching sports at all, just saying that, if I did, it would be lacrosse. I do occasionally watch some of this or that game, but again, with the ADHD it's not much. It's usually five minutes at a time, come back to it in a few minutes. Lacrosse is more suitable for that.

I've never watched hockey before. But that sounds a little more like lacrosse than US football, to be sure.

I went to a school that had no football team, but a division I lax team. But then again I never got much into the "college culture" being a perpetual, part-time, commuter student, not a live-in 4 year.

I ask no pardon of the football crowd for what I said above. Like Donald Trump if he was a sports commentator instead of a presidential candidate, I'm telling it like it is!
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Post 05 Apr 2016, 3:39 pm

Addendum, I haven't watched women's lax before. But I understand that it's not as violent, but still full of second-to-second action as men's lacrosse.

A redscape member from Ireland once said it was a womany sport. I told him that, if he ever comes to college in MD, please--for his own safety--don't repeat that. I also said that he obviously hasn't seen it played in the US or by men.
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Post 06 Apr 2016, 8:14 am

Lacrosse is a funny game in that the Men's and Women's games are so very different. The men's game is VIOLENT, anything short of actual murder is no problem (or so it seems).

The ladies game is more nuanced, just as fast but far less violence (though not my younger daughter, she led her team in penalties by a wide margin every year). Even the stick is different, the women in some ways have the more "manly" stick, it has a smaller pocket that requires more skill to catch, to throw and to run with (men can simply run with the ball, if a girl did that without "cradling" it would fall out of the netting. But the deeper pocket for the guys allows them to throw a much faster shot, they can really wind up and launch a rocket...not so for the ladies!
And because of this, the guys have more padding and "armor", women have no helmets, no pads, nothing more than lightweight gloves much like isotoners and a face mask. The reasoning is they do not want them to feel invincible and have an advantage!?

But the guys, damn, it's brutal! (My Godson is all-county up here so we watch a few games each year) no way can anyone call it "womanly" with a straight face.

And the horror, having to watch a Ravens game? what torture!?
Sounds like the two of us are polar opposites! I could (and often do) watch football all day long!
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Post 06 Apr 2016, 8:53 am

Exactly: it's like Canadians playing hockey :razz:

Oh God, the people who talk about football all the time. And I love how some of my co workers would say "Oh, when WE played Denver" (for example). Like they were actually part of the team themselves. Oh, dear Lord...forgive the religious references.

Now if they were talking about college football and they actually went to that particular university...that would be different. Referring to their team in the first person plural (inclusive) would be more appropriate.

Dunno why I pointed that out, it just seems to be the norm among football fans. Thank God I didn't go to a college with a football team. Even though I didn't, it is still full of Marylanders arguing over whether the Redskins or the Ravens were better.

Yes, that armor seems to be there for a reason. But I think lacrosse also has the disadvantage of being considered an uppity, affluent white people's sport to a lot of people. This is deeply unfair, especially to the people who INVENTED the thing. But I digress.

I'm told the crazy a** m***** f****** are the goaltenders/goalies. Pietramala's book says that a goalie will have about 40 to 50 shots fired at him during the average game which he has to try to block, typically with his body. Wow. That's ballsier than I am! Then again I'm a pussy and I've never played a sport in my life. If I had a ball hit me at 90 mph, as the book claims (probably accurately) I'd cry...for quite a while.

I understand that an American team (or maybe it was a Canadian team, I can't recall what i read exactly) visited the UK to demonstrate the sport in front of Queen Victoria in the 1890s. She called it "very pretty to watch." One wonders what Her Britannic Majesty would have considered "ugly" to watch; in fact, one shudders to think.
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Post 21 Apr 2016, 10:57 am

Oh God, the people who talk about football all the time. And I love how some of my co workers would say "Oh, when WE played Denver" (for example). Like they were actually part of the team themselves. Oh, dear Lord...forgive the religious references.

Now if they were talking about college football and they actually went to that particular university...that would be different. Referring to their team in the first person plural (inclusive) would be more appropriate.


It's really no different to saying "when we invaded Iraq" or "when we put a man on the Moon". Chances are the people who say it had no involvement personally other than contributing through their taxes, but they were still a small part of that collective effort and felt included.
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Post 21 Apr 2016, 4:20 pm

True. guess there's a feeling of...inclusion, yeah. And if you're really into something you're watching on TV or in person I guess. Maybe you're right.

Still, though. I never got football and the whole culture surrounding it.