Montreal and the first written rules.

Exhibition games and the first clubs

The Canadian Encyclopedia (Tabitha de Bruin and Jim Calder, 2017) says that in 1834 Montreal businessmen organised exhibition games at the Ville Saint-Pierre racetrack between seven-player teams from Kahnawake and Akwesasne, and calls these the first contained, "urban" games. The Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame's timeline also dates a Kahnawake demonstration before a Montreal crowd, reported in a newspaper, to 1834.

Lacrosse Canada's history page says games between Mohawk players and townspeople became popular in the 1840s and that settlers began adding formal rules. The Hall of Fame's timeline gives more detail, which no other source in the research confirms: a lacrosse team formed by the Montreal Olympic Athletic Club in 1842, and games between Indigenous and non-Indigenous teams in 1843 and 1844 and again in 1848 and 1851.

The same timeline says the Montreal Lacrosse Club was founded in 1856. Wikipedia also gives 1856. The Dictionary of Canadian Biography and The Canadian Encyclopedia, in their articles on Beers, do not give the club's founding year, so the date rests on the Hall of Fame and Wikipedia. The Hall of Fame timeline alone says the club merged with the Hochelaga club in 1860 to form the Lacrosse Club of Montreal; that is unconfirmed.

William George Beers

Beers was a Montreal dentist. His birth year is given two ways: the Dictionary of Canadian Biography gives 5 May 1841, and The Canadian Encyclopedia (Peter L. Lindsay, 2015) gives 5 May 1843. Both say he died in Montreal on 26 December 1900.

The Dictionary of Canadian Biography says Beers had played since about the age of six and, as a youth, studied matches between players from Saint-Régis (Akwesasne) and Caughnawaga (Kahnawake). The Canadian Encyclopedia says he learned the game from the Kahnawake Mohawk, and that in August 1860 he kept goal for Montreal in a display of Indigenous games put on before the Prince of Wales.

Beers's attitude to the people he learned from is part of the record. His biographer in the Dictionary of Canadian Biography describes Beers's view that Indigenous players played "mainly by instinct", and his wish to "rationalise" a style he found wild and violent. On PBS NewsHour in November 2025 the author S. L. Price described Beers as having appropriated the game from Mohawk players.

The first written rules

The Canadian Encyclopedia says that in September 1860 Beers published a pamphlet setting out basic rules, the number of players and the size of the field. The Dictionary of Canadian Biography likewise describes an 1860 brochure fixing the basic rules, the field size, the distance between the goals and the players per side.

Which rules count as the first is not agreed:

• The Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame credits the Montreal Lacrosse Club with the first formal rules in 1856. Its timeline separately lists Beers's 1860 pamphlet as the first written rules, and then says Beers's rewrite of 1867, with 12 players a side, named positions and a hard rubber ball in place of one stuffed with hair, became the basis of the modern game.
• The Canadian Encyclopedia and the Dictionary of Canadian Biography date Beers's rules to 1860 and say they were adopted in 1867.

What the sources share is that written rules existed by 1860 and that a national code was adopted in 1867. In 1869 Beers published a book in Montreal, Lacrosse: The National Game of Canada. Whether lacrosse was ever officially declared the national game is a separate dispute, covered on lacrosse in Canada.

Kingston, 26 September 1867

Lacrosse Canada says that on 26 September 1867, 52 delegates from 27 clubs in Ontario and Quebec met at Kingston City Hall and formed the National Association of La Crosse, which it calls the first national sport governing body in North America. The Dictionary of Canadian Biography gives a different count: representatives of 29 clubs from Quebec and Ontario.

The Dictionary of Canadian Biography says the convention adopted Beers's rules and that the association was formed largely through his efforts. The Canadian Encyclopedia says he was elected its secretary and that his work helped raise the number of clubs from 6 to 80 that year. It also points out that the association was formed in September 1867, two months after Confederation, which is why many date the modern game to 1867.

The Hall of Fame timeline says Canada had about 80 clubs and roughly 2,000 players by November 1867, and that the first Dominion title that year was won by Caughnawaga over Montreal. The title result rests on the Hall of Fame timeline alone and is unconfirmed.

Indigenous players shut out

The national association went on to exclude Indigenous players. The sources agree on the fact but differ on when it began:

• American Indian magazine (National Museum of the American Indian, 2021) says the National Lacrosse Association of Canada barred Indigenous players from joining in 1867 and banned them from championship games in 1880.
• The Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame says that in 1880 the national association became an amateur organisation and professional Indigenous players were barred.
• The historian Allan Downey (Journal of the Canadian Historical Association, 2012) says that by 1880 Indigenous players were barred from championship competition with non-Indigenous teams, and that the Haudenosaunee were absent from official field championships for more than a century, with 1904 an exception.

So the championship exclusion dates from 1880 at the latest, and an exclusion from joining in 1867 is American Indian magazine's account. The Onondaga Nation says the U.S. lacrosse body later banned all Native teams from field lacrosse as "professionals", without giving a date, and the Haudenosaunee Nationals say they were banned from international competition more than a century ago, also without a year. How the Haudenosaunee returned is told on the Haudenosaunee Nationals page.

Tours to Britain: 1867, 1876 and 1883

• 1867. The Canadian Encyclopedia says Captain W. B. Johnson took amateur Montreal Lacrosse Club players and 16 paid Kahnawake players to England, a poorly planned tour that was not very successful.
• 1876. The Dictionary of Canadian Biography says Beers was the main organiser of tours of the British Isles in 1876 and 1883, meant to build interest overseas. The Canadian Encyclopedia says Montreal won three-quarters of the matches on the 1876 tour, and that the historian Donald Fisher suggests the matches may have been staged. The Hall of Fame timeline says Queen Victoria watched a game at Windsor in 1876; that rests on the timeline alone.
• 1883. The Canadian Encyclopedia says a Kahnawake team and a team of Montreal and Toronto players played 62 games in 41 cities across Scotland, Ireland, Wales and England in just over two months, and that immigration brochures were handed out.

What happened to the national association and to lacrosse's place in Canada after 1867 is on lacrosse in Canada.