Men's lacrosse sticks: what each rule book allows.

Which books this page uses

The men's field figures come from World Lacrosse's Men's Field Lacrosse Official Playing Rules 2025-2027, version 1.0, in force for World Lacrosse competitions and their qualifiers from 1 January 2025. A version 1.1 dated January 2026 exists but was not read, so any change it makes is not reflected here. World Lacrosse lets each national governing body set its own start date and vary the rules for national play. The sixes figures come from the 2026-2028 Sixes Lacrosse Official Playing Rules, version 2.0, dated May 2026.

The book also makes each player responsible for making sure their equipment is not a danger to themselves or others through its quality, materials or design, and World Lacrosse disclaims liability for equipment defects.

World Lacrosse men's field: the stick, rule by rule

Appendix D of the book illustrates the pocket check: if daylight shows between the top of the ball and the bottom edge of the sidewall, the pocket is an illegal deep pocket.

The rule text and the diagram disagree

Within the same 2025-2027 book, Rule 15.1 gives the short stick as 101.60 to 106.68 cm, while the Appendix D diagram labels the length as 100 cm to 110 cm. The diagram also gives the string hanging limit as 5 cm, where Rule 16.5 says 5.08 cm. The research behind this page treats the rule text as the figure to quote, which is what the table above does.

Stick checks and penalties (men's field)

• Rule 45: a head coach may ask for a check of any opposing stick on the field when the ball is dead, and the game clock stops. The first check that finds a legal stick costs the requesting coach nothing; each later legal finding requested by the same coach is a minor penalty.
• Rule 45.5: if a goal scorer's stick is declared illegal before the next live ball, the goal does not count. Interfering with a check, by swapping or hiding the stick, reshaping the head or changing the stringing or pocket depth, also cancels the goal.
• Rules 45.6 to 45.8: a head coach may ask for a count of the other team's long sticks at any time, and a goal does not count if the scoring team had more than four long sticks on at the time.
• Rule 63: an illegal stick (other than trick construction or stringing) is a minor penalty with an order to fix or swap it. A second violation by the same player sends the stick to the official scorer for the rest of the game. A head coming off as a player shoots, passes or plays is itself the minor foul of an illegal stick.

World Lacrosse men's sixes

Sixes has one rule book with separate W and M rules. The men's sixes stick under the 2026-2028 book, version 2.0:

• Rule 2.2.1M: 100 cm to 110 cm overall, with a head at least 25.4 cm long and at least 15 cm inside at its widest point. The shaft is wood, metal alloy or other composite and nominally straight; the butt end is covered with plastic, rubber or tape, and metal caps are prohibited.
• Rule 2.2.1M, the pocket test: a ball dropped into the stick held horizontally, front and back, must not show below the bottom edge of the sidewall, must not lodge anywhere in the pocket, and must fall out when the stick is turned upside down. This is the men's test; the women's sixes test is different.
• Rule 2.2.2: the men's sixes goalkeeper stick may be 15.24 cm up to 38.10 cm inside at its widest point and 100 cm up to 140 cm overall.
• Rule 2.3: a head coach may ask for a stick check only during a timeout or a normal stoppage in regulation, never in overtime. If the stick is legal, the requesting team is given a major foul, served by its In-Home.
• Rule 2.3.3: officials may inspect any player's stick at random between quarters and during timeouts. Refusing, or altering the stick, is unsportsmanlike conduct, with a further foul if the stick is illegal.

NFHS boys' high school sticks (United States)

The NFHS boys' rule book is sold rather than posted, and it was not read for this site. The points below come only from the NFHS's own published rules-change summaries and stories, each dated. Because the book itself was not read, this page gives no current NFHS field stick length, head width or sidewall figure.

• 2023 season (NFHS story, 16 August 2022): Rule 1-7-1 gained a clause that the pocket or net may have no holes or gaps larger than 1.68 in across, which the NFHS likened to a golf ball, to stop a stringing method that trapped the ball in loosened mesh. Rule 1-8 now says a crosse may not have protrusions or sharp edges, because some designs could hook or catch on a helmet or other equipment.
• 2024 season (NFHS story, 21 August 2023): new Rule 1-6-1 Article 2 set a separate goalkeeper crosse standard: 40 to 72 in long, a head 10 to 12 in wide and no more than 16.5 in long, with stringing and pocket-depth limits removed apart from a 2 in maximum hanging length for strings.
• 2026 season (NFHS summary of changes): an editorial change to Rule 1-9-2a(1) reorganised the crosse construction rules to say clearly what is illegal and what must be fixed without penalty. Under Rules 4-18-4 and 5-6-2, a player other than a properly equipped goalkeeper who enters the crease intending to block a shot commits a personal foul for illegal equipment.
• 2027 season (NFHS story, 13 August 2026, and summary of changes): under Rule 4-9-2g a goal is disallowed if the scorer loses any part of a broken crosse, or the head comes off, on the shot. Under Rules 4-7, 6-12-2 and 6-12-3, a ball stuck in a player's crosse, uniform or equipment (other than a goalkeeper's in the crease) is a technical foul for withholding the ball from play.

The two NFHS summary PDFs are hosted on the content service the nfhs.org site uses and carry no NFHS name in their extracted text, so their attribution rests on the NFHS story pages that describe the same changes.

Two goalkeeper rules, two codes

The NFHS 2024 goalkeeper crosse rule gives a head width of 10 to 12 in. World Lacrosse men's field Rule 15.3 allows a goalkeeper head from 6 in up to 15 in. These are different rule codes, not an error: each applies only in its own games.

NCAA men's and USA Lacrosse boys' youth

The NCAA's men's lacrosse rules page links a current rule book, a 2025 interpretations document and a 2027-28 major rules changes document. None was read for this site, so no NCAA men's stick length, head width or pocket figure appears here, and NCAA figures should not be assumed to match the NFHS or World Lacrosse figures above.

USA Lacrosse publishes a 2026 boys' youth rule book and a youth comparison chart covering 14U and below. Both PDFs returned an error on the research date and were not read. Youth stick lengths seen only in search-result summaries of that chart are unconfirmed and are not given here. Youth contact rules are covered on youth contact and checking rules.

Related pages

What heads and shafts may be made of is on stick materials, the indoor stick on box sticks, and the men's field rules as a whole on men's field lacrosse.