What's The Call? Wednesday: Lacrosse Rules 101

There are safegaurds in place to help with overzealous coaches.

Rule 4-27-1b

Assuming no violations were found in a previous request, if a head coach makes a subsequent equipment check request in which no violations are found, that head coach's team will be penalized by the loss of a time-out or with a technical foul if no time-outs remain as stated in Rule 6-5-2o

So if you get two wrong in a game you start losing timeouts and then get knocked with a technical foul if you're out of those. I've found a coach initiated stick check is pretty rare overall. I average 1-2 a season depending on the level. I've actually found coaches at the youth level a lot more adamant about checking sticks. Youth coaches can be nuts.

The one sideline stick was actually a pretty clever move by the coach. He noticed that an opposing attackman kept switching his stick out near the end of quarters in past games. So he talked to us before the game and said he was going to request a stick check at some point during the game and made sure that it was ok that the stick was sitting by the bench and not on the field. We consulted the rule book and gave him the ok. He got the penalty he wanted and his team iced away the game on that man up situation.

Theoretically you could ask for a crosse to be checked that an assistant coach is holding onto. ANY crosse in the bench area is assumed to be part of the game and has the possibility of being used. I would warn that a pregame talk with the officials to make sure they will go forward with it (they may have a different interpretation, the language isn't precise) and not risk a silly penalty.

If I were a coach I would make sure every crosse that comes near my bench is legal. The one used by the assistant to warm up, the ones used by the ball boys, the spare laying under the bench. Better to be safe than sorry when a coach armed with a knowledge of the rules seeks to use them in his advantage.

/r/lacrosse Thread Parent