Lacrosse is a full contact team sport played using a solid rubber ball and long handled racket called a crosse or lacrosse stick. The head of the crosse has a loose net strung into it that allows the player to hold the lacrosse ball.

Offensively the object of the game is to use the lacrosse stick to catch, carry, and pass the ball in an effort to score by ultimately hurling the ball into an opponent's goal.

Defensively the object is to keep the opposing team from scoring and to dispossess them of the ball through the use of stick checking and body contact. There are four distinct versions of the sport: men's lacrosse, women's lacrosse, box lacrosse and intercrosse or sofcrosse.