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National Game Not LacrosseBy FRASER MacDOUGALL: OTTAWA (CP)—It looks as It the -idea that'-Parliament once declared lacrosset to be Canada’s national game is a myth.Certainly, there Is - no documentary support, for the assertion in Menke's; Encyclopedia of Sports tlijit: 1867 -;:4 'saw the, formal adoption by Parliament as the..national^game of Canada.”A research study carried outi for Jack Roxburgh, Liberal MP ; for .Norfolk .and/former pres-jdent of thp Canadian Amateur H o :C; k e y : Association shows there is; no record/that. Parlia-ment ever . cna cted a law- declaring, lacrosse tp be the country’s national game. r :The study covered the Journals of the House of Commons,, the legal record of proceedings. It took in the weekly - Canada Gazette in which. , all laws passed by Parliament are reported. It - went- further^ into Britain’s London Gazette on the chance -that in-, the . early .;days of Confederation Canadian laws might be reported in it. .There is no mention of lacrosse in the Statues of Canada . where it would appear if a biil were enacted into law.The whole . study’ indicates that the lacrosse “myth-*origin-i ated in a book, .Lacrosse, the • National Game of Canada, wriU | ten by William . George Beers,a Montreal lacrosse enthusiast, and published in 1869. .Mr. Beers wrote:. “I believe I was the first to propose the game of lacrosse as the national game of Canada in 1859; and a few months preceding the proclamation of Her Majesty uniting the . provinces of Canada, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, into one Domi-. nion, a letter headed Lacrosse — our .National Field Game, published by me in the Montreal Dally News, in April, 1867, was printed off and distributed throughout the whole Dominion,and was copied into many ofthe public papers. . . .“On the day which created* the greater - part * of British North America a dominion, thegame of’lacrosse was adopted as the national game. ..Possibly what really happened was summed up in 1873 by William K. McNaught, a former president of the National• • * M • VLa crosse Association of Canada,in Lacrosse and How to Play It.“On the day when the provinces united to form one great Dominion, ' the. patriotic youth of Canada adopted lacrosse as the national game of their native. country. This game .has on account of /its own .intrinsic merits been adopted by young Canada as the national -game of our rising. Dominion.” Another likely factor in the lacrosse belief is that the National Lacrosse Association of Canada was formed, in 1867.Why Mr. Roxburgh's special interest?He plans to introduce a’bill in Parliament to declare hockey Canada’s national sport and he wanted to be sure a measure about lacrosse would not stand in his way.WILMINGTON — Delaware Park track has opened its new $3:5 million clubhouse;
Newspaper Details
Winnipeg Free Press
Winnipeg, Manitoba, CA
Tue, May 19, 1964
Page 26
Full Page
Clipped by
Jason P.
USA 18 Dec 2018
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