27 february 2005

This weekend the Amsterdam Lions lacrosse team hosted an invitational tournament.

You forgot about the lacrosse thing, right? You read that a few months ago and thought, “What the fuck is Jenn thinking? This is going to be gone and forgotten in… let’s say, generously, six days.”

Not so! Every Wednesday nite since it all began, I have been biking to the soccer fields for lacrosse practice. The women’s team now has about fifteen members. We practice in the rain, the snow, the – well, these are pretty much the only options for February evenings in Amsterdam.

The men’s team has more than twenty members, and they are well established. They have happily helped us on our way. Lacrosse is largely unknown in most of Europe, so lacrosse players are eager to find and support each other. Running into another European lacrosse player is kind of like meeting another person who plays the accordion, or i.d.s ferns, or speaks Klingon. Instant camaraderie of the obscure.

The men’s and women’s teams now share the field, and the clubhouse, and the website, of the Amsterdam Lions. That’s right, there’s a website! www.alax.nl – which is actually quite a clever name, but I won’t get into why.

Anyway a while back a team from London contacted the Lions, probably because they wanted an excuse to come to Amsterdam to smoke pot and go to the red light district. They picked a weekend for the tournament, and then invited men’s teams from Utrecht and Masstricht, two other cities in the Netherlands. When the women’s team started shaping up, we were scheduled in against the Utrecht women.

Saturday was all men’s games. Men’s lacrosse is a lot more violent than women’s lacrosse, and a lot of fun to watch. It’s got some of the powerful anger of ice hockey. When the men aren’t slamming into each other, they also do lots of impressive stick work.

In the evening we ate spaghetti in the club house and went for drinks, eventually ending up at a little unmarked club on the Leidseplein. It was a cool venue but some of the British guys were being really obnoxious, and I was feeling cranky at everyone bumping into me. Then I met Dan, a civil engineer from London. “You’re a civil engineer?” I asked excitedly. “Yes,” he answered, “it means I design bridges, sewage systems…”

“I know!” I practically burst out. “Infrastructure!” I proceeded to tell him about how cool I thought infrastructure was. He listened with what can only be described as mounting skepticism. It was as if he had introduced himself as a personal injury lawyer, and I had warmly and gleefully declared, “Personal injury law! That is so critical and yet so undervalued by society! Tell me ALL ABOUT IT.” Which is pretty much how I reacted to civil engineering, only I meant it. I can’t believe it either, but apparently civil engineers don’t get this sort of thing very often. It saved my nite.

Approximately four hours after said nite ended, I woke up for our Sunday game. Amsterdam was covered in an inch of snow. The men had the first game of the day, so as they played we ran laps around the white field and worked through some drills. At noon we were on.

Let me call attention to two things:

(1) Lacrosse is played on a soccer field. A normal team has eleven players on the field at any time, but since the Utrecht women were short on players, we went nine-on-nine.

(2) Good lacrosse involves a lot of passing, because the field is large. Passing is faster, and doesn’t tire out the players. But passing and, more specifically, catching, require skills. Skills that we, as a new team, are still developing.

Consequently, our game involved quite a lot of running. A large amount of this running is done by the midfielders. I am a midfielder.

I bring this up specifically for the benefit of my friend Joshua who, upon hearing of our upcoming tournament, wrote to me… well, let me just paste in the instant messaging dialogue right here.

joshua : having a hard time picturing you playing lacrosse
jenn: why's that?
joshua : i guess my only athletic experience with you involved drinking & spinning aroung [sic] til we fall on the ground while trying to reach a ? (frisbee?)
joshua : not even sure i have seen you run..

So. Now I run.

In fact, by the end of the first half I had done so much running I thought I might DIE. But I didn’t, and then we won! I even scored a goal. I’m not sure I’ve ever scored a goal at anything.