This column appears in the December edition of US Lacrosse Magazine. Don’t get the mag? Join US Lacrosse today to start your subscription.

You may have noticed that US Lacrosse announced the publication of box rules. This development was led by a task force representing a cross section of stakeholders charged with standardizing box play.

Of particular emphasis was the focus on player safety and the principles of the Lacrosse Athlete Development Model (LADM), which advocates a redesign of the youth lacrosse experience around the physical and cognitive development stages of a child. This includes an emphasis on small-sided versions of the sport that are better-suited for developing bodies. Based on the research we’ve conducted, younger kids and their coaches think small-sided play — indoors or outside — is just more fun.

The box game was born in Canada in the early part of the 20th century. Coincidentally, the motivations behind its creation — keeping the ball in play, increasing the pace of play and minimizing the number of players required for a game — are directly aligned with those driving our LADM movement almost 100 years later.

Proponents of field or box lacrosse have debated the relative merits of each discipline for decades. Field lacrosse is entrenched as the preferred discipline in the U.S., while the box game still dominates in Canada. However, there has been a growing appreciation on the value of both disciplines to player development.

What took so long for US Lacrosse to more formally embrace the box game? Quite simply, we didn’t have the bandwidth to commit more meaningfully to box lacrosse until recently given so many priorities with limited resources. But our increased investment in and management of the U.S. indoor team and publication of domestic box rules represent the first meaningful steps of what will be a growing commitment to box lacrosse.

— Steve Stenersen, President and CEO, US Lacrosse