Lacrosse players in N.S. hope Olympic inclusion will boost sport

A professional lacrosse player in Halifax hopes the sport will grow in Nova Scotia after it was announced last month that it will be added to the 2028 Summer Olympic Games in Los Angeles.

Halifax Thunderbirds forward Clarke Petterson said the historic moment could build a greater foundation for the sport in Atlantic Canada.  

"I think as soon as that was announced it kind of became every lacrosse player's goal. Like OK, boom, I want to play in the Olympics," Petterson said. 

Petterson, 26, who is originally from Ontario, was drafted by the Thunderbirds in 2020 and represented Canada last summer at the world championships in San Diego. Now he's thinking about 2028.

"I was talking with my mom and joking around like, 'Hey, am I still going to be playing in my prime?' Is it realistic? Who knows? Why not set that goal and do what you can to achieve it," he said. 

Additional sports added to the 2028 Games by the International Olympic Committee are baseball, cricket, flag football and squash.

History of the sport

Lacrosse was first played in the 1904 Olympics in St. Louis, then in London in 1908, and was a demonstration sport in Amsterdam in 1928, Los Angeles in 1932 and in London in 1948.

The sport dates back centuries and was originally played by the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, an Indigenous group in Upstate New York and Canada that includes the Mohawk, Seneca, Oneida, Cayuga, Onondaga and Tuscarora.

While the Haudenosaunee have fielded teams for the world championships, they are not recognized by the International Olympic Committee. The IOC told the New York Times that only national Olympic committees recognized by the organization can enter teams in the Games.

Cody Jamieson, 36, captain for the Thunderbirds and Mohawk from Six Nations Ontario, hopes that will change. 

"It's still a work in progress there, we're still trying to be admitted by the IOC," he said. "I'm optimistic that there's a way to be included."

To be recognized as an Olympic sport, a new format called sixes was adopted to use fewer players for both men and women categories, Jamieson said.

The format blends the concepts of six-player box lacrosse, which is closer to hockey, and 10-player field lacrosse, which has similarities with soccer.

"It was always disheartening when you see other sports in the Olympics and lacrosse wasn't," Jamieson said. "I think lacrosse is right on par with all the other Olympic sports in terms of creativity and competitiveness."

Donna Goguen, executive director for Lacrosse Nova Scotia, a not-for-profit provincial sport organization, said the new sixes format is a great opportunity to introduce people to the sport.

"When you're a small sport in a small province, sometimes introducing your game can be a challenge," Goguen said. 

She compares the sixes format to rugby, which became an Olympic sport in 2016 in Rio. While rugby is traditionally played with 15 players, the fast-paced rugby sevens, which has fewer players, was adopted for the Olympics.

She believes the news will encourage youth and parents to look into lacrosse and pick up the game. 

"The passion for lacrosse is something that I find very different from other sports," she said. "We're going to be dealing with a lot of growth in the next five years."