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A Special To: The St.Catharines Standard

WEDNESDAY AUGUST 12, 1931

TORONTO -- While professional box lacrosse is finding great favour among sports fans in its early evolution, opinions concerning certain phases of the game are still at great variance and will, in all possibility, involve change in the game that will make the concentrated stick game even more popular than it has been to the present. The reduced form of what used to be Canada’s national game, that popped up in Australia, caught the public’s fancy and with an exciting game in the making, the International Professional League has undertaken the primary presentation on a big scale.

Essentially the game is interesting. The questions of how to make the game reach it’s maximum in entertainment are numerous and are provoking considerable discussion.

Modified murder that pushed the twelve-man game practically off the map, is a factor that had to be met with. To check the roughness and make the box game fast, player’s sticks were cut down. Since the game has been in progress, it has been the case in the majority of instances that the big scores threaten monotony. From certain quarters comes a cry for longer sticks for the defencemen.

This move has not been prompted with the intention of making the game rougher but of providing the goalkeepers with more protection. As it is now a defenceman must practically block an attacker head on in order to halt a rush with his abbreviated stick. Those with an eye on the injury lists are inclined to buck such an extension for the rearguardsmen.

Coach John Dennenay of the Cornwall Colts is against the lengthening of the clubs of the defenders. He figures that the present length of the stick is satisfactory.

IMPORT AMERICANS

With the importation of two tall, shifty, and heavy-checking rearguardsmen from St. John’s College, Baltimore, Dennenay evidently figures that his defence players are long-geared enough to look after their duties in their section.

While on the subject of the Cornwall Colts, it is interesting to note some of the attitudes of the Lotz and Boucher, defencemen and Bobby Poole, forward who played with the United States team that drubbed the Canadian representatives in the international lacrosse series at Baltimore last spring.

From the players standpoints, the hemmed in game had it all over the twelve-man struggles.

“There is no comparison in the games when action is considered. I just took my eyes off check for a short time on Thursday,” says Boucher, “and he was away like a shot.”

“This box game surely surprised me. While speed looks to be the big factor this business of watching a man is equally as important. In the second and third period I rather found my bearings but as I had lost my mind I was as badly off as before.”

“In the twelve-man game, I used to have oodles of time to catch my check, but now, it’s a case of get your check and stick with him closer than a brother.”

Both Lotz and Boucher were football players at St. John’s College and their clever performances in the international series marked them as having possibilities when they became accustomed to the small-scale game.

COMPARED TO HOCKEY

The recent change in hockey that has done away for a large part with the tear-leather tactics of outracing opposition will more likely hit the box lacrosse game. The present players adhere firmly to the old style of running wherever they are going when a pass would take the play to where it should go equally as easily.

Some advocate a zone passing idea similar to that in vogue in the National Hockey League. Suggestions have been made to make the players pass the ball similarly to the way the amateur hockey players do. That is to have all onside passing with the exception of the defence area.