The Haudenosaunee Nationals: from exclusion to the world stage.

A century outside

By 1880 Indigenous players were barred from championship play in Canada (see Montreal and the first rules). The historian Allan Downey (2012) says the Haudenosaunee were then absent from official field championships for more than a century, 1904 excepted. The Onondaga Nation says Haudenosaunee players turned to box lacrosse after the U.S. lacrosse body banned all Native teams from field lacrosse as "professionals". The Haudenosaunee Nationals say they were banned from international competition more than a century ago.

1983: the team is formed

The Haudenosaunee Nationals say the Iroquois Nationals Men's Lacrosse Team was formed and sanctioned by the Grand Council of the Haudenosaunee in 1983. Today, they say, the Grand Council of Chiefs has sanctioned women's, men's and youth teams in indoor, field and sixes lacrosse to represent the Six Nations Haudenosaunee Confederacy internationally.

The first game

The first game is described two ways, and they may be two different games:

• The Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development, in its Honoring Nations profile of 2002, says the NCAA invited the Haudenosaunee to play an exhibition at the national championships in Baltimore in 1983, where they lost heavily to the Canadian national team, and that this loss led to the team being organised under the Grand Council's sanction.
• PBS NewsHour (26 November 2025), reporting the author S. L. Price, says the first game was against Syracuse in Baltimore, lost by about 23 to 7, after the Syracuse coach Roy Simmons Jr. proposed it.

The founders

Sources name the founders differently. American Indian magazine (Spring 2021) names Oren Lyons, who is Onondaga, and Rick Hill, who is Tuscarora. PBS NewsHour names Lyons with the Tuscarora stick maker Wes Patterson. The Onondaga Nation (21 June 2023) names a group including Lyons, Richard Hill and Wes Patterson, which takes in both other versions. The Onondaga Nation describes Lyons, a Syracuse All-American goalkeeper and a Faithkeeper, as leading the push for Haudenosaunee players' return to field lacrosse and the talks with the international federation, which it says went on for many years.

Refused in 1986, admitted in 1987

The Onondaga Nation says the international federation had four members in the mid-1980s: the United States, Canada, Australia and England.

The Harvard profile says the International Lacrosse Federation (ILF) made heavy demands of the team's petition for membership and barred it from the 1986 world championship in Toronto. Downey says the organisers petitioned the ILF again and again to play in 1986 and were refused. He reports Canada as the most vocal opponent, reportedly over logistics and costs, with doubts about the Haudenosaunee's sovereign status also reported as a reason.

Three independent sources give 1987 as the year the team was admitted. The Harvard profile says the ILF recognised the Iroquois' status as a nation in 1987 and welcomed the team as a full member. Downey says the men's team was accepted in 1987 after almost four years of petitioning. American Indian magazine says the federation denied the petition in 1986 and accepted the Nationals in 1987. This site uses 1987.

Other years appear elsewhere. Wikipedia's articles on the men's team and on the First Nations Lacrosse Association give 1988. An older team brochure, seen only in a search summary, gives 1992 for full nation status. A Syracuse.com article of 2025, republished by the Onondaga Nation, says the Haudenosaunee joined in 1985, which conflicts with the 1986 refusal Downey describes. No World Lacrosse page found states the year.

Playing on Haudenosaunee passports

The Onondaga Nation says the Iroquois Nationals made their world championship debut in 1990 in Perth, Australia, travelling on Haudenosaunee passports, and have competed as a separate nation since. Downey says they did not win a game in Perth. Wikipedia, seen only as a search summary, gives a fifth-place finish; that is unconfirmed.

The Harvard profile says the team travels on passports issued by the Grand Council of Chiefs and has to arrange clearance with each host country before every tournament. Two cases the sources describe:

• Manchester, 2010. Windspeaker (Sam Laskaris) reports that for the world championship in Manchester, England, from 10 to 24 July 2010, the British Consulate would not issue visas on Haudenosaunee passports. The team waited six days in New York, forfeited its first game and later withdrew, and Germany took its place in the top division. A 2010 report seen only in a search summary says the team, after forfeiting two games, said it had not withdrawn, and the Onondaga Nation says the Nationals declined to play. American Indian magazine says a one-time U.S. waiver was granted for the journey home, but the United Kingdom still refused entry. The accounts agree the team did not play, and those that give a reason say the United Kingdom would not accept its passports.
• Israel, 2018. The Federation of International Lacrosse said on 10 July 2018 that procedural issues over Haudenosaunee passports had delayed the Iroquois Nationals leaving Canada for the men's world championship in Israel, and that it and the host committee were working to resolve them before the team's opening game at Netanya on 12 July.

Results that mark the way

The same 2025 article says the men took bronze at each of the last three world field championships. The box results, from Nations '80 to the world indoor finals of 2003 and 2007, are on the box lacrosse page, and full results are on Haudenosaunee Nationals results.

The women's teams

Downey writes that a Haudenosaunee women's team was founded in 1984 and disbanded in 1987 after Clan Mothers at Onondaga and Tonawanda objected to women playing. That is the historian's account of those two communities at that time. American Indian magazine says the Federation of International Lacrosse officially recognised the Haudenosaunee women's team in 2008; no World Lacrosse record of this was found. The same magazine, the only source for the next two points, says the women travelled on their own passports to the 2017 Women's World Cup in Guildford, England, and that the women's under-19 team withdrew from the 2015 world championship in Edinburgh.

2022: the World Games and a new name

On 14 August 2020 World Lacrosse, the International World Games Association and the Birmingham 2022 organisers said that, at World Lacrosse's request, Haudenosaunee men's and women's teams would be eligible for The World Games 2022 if they qualified under World Lacrosse's criteria. World Lacrosse described the Haudenosaunee as holding a position of honour as the originators of the game. The World Games says Ireland, which had already qualified, gave up its place so that the Haudenosaunee Nationals could compete, and calls the 2022 Games the first multi-sport global event at which the team competed for gold. Press reports seen only in search summaries date Ireland's decision to early September 2020; those reports are unconfirmed.

World Lacrosse's release of 10 July 2022 placed the men third in their group on goal difference after a 20 to 16 loss to Japan, sending them to the fifth-place game against Australia. Final places differ: the 2025 Syracuse.com article gives fifth for the men and eighth for the women, while Wikipedia, seen as a search summary, gives fifth and seventh.

The team says it officially changed its name to the Haudenosaunee Nationals in 2022, after 39 years as the Iroquois Nationals. Its history page says Haudenosaunee means People of the Longhouse and calls Iroquois a French form of a Huron term it describes as derogatory.

Los Angeles 2028

The Haudenosaunee Nationals say they are preparing toward possible competition at the 2028 Olympics. The obstacle is the entry rule. Canadian Heritage's Question Period note of 22 August 2024 says every Olympic team must be entered through a National Olympic Committee recognised by the IOC, which the Haudenosaunee do not have; that the IOC may be reluctant to admit a team below country level; and that the IOC Refugee Team is the only precedent for a team that is not a country. The note says the Haudenosaunee Nationals are recognised by World Lacrosse and that Canada supports finding a pathway.

On 17 January 2025 the United States and Canada asked the IOC for a narrowly scoped exception so the Haudenosaunee Confederacy could compete in lacrosse at LA28 as its own team under its own flag. The Syracuse.com article of 5 June 2025 reports the IOC's position that only teams backed by a National Olympic Committee may enter, so Haudenosaunee players could play only for the United States or Canada according to their passports. It reports executive director Lisa Sacco saying it is hard to have Olympic lacrosse without its originators, and players saying they would not switch. It also says Kirsty Coventry, elected IOC president on 20 March 2025 and in office from 23 June 2025, had said she would meet the Haudenosaunee.

By 23 October 2026 the research had found no IOC decision admitting a Haudenosaunee team, and no 2026 IOC decision of any kind on the question. The position is unresolved on that date.