Game
The version of lacrosse played in the NLL is indoor lacrosse otherwise known as box lacrosse. The NLL plays four quarters of fifteen minutes each, with two-minute breaks between the first and second quarters and between the third and fourth quarters, and a twelve-minute break between the second and third (called half-time). The clock does not run when play is stopped. (Canadian Lacrosse Association box lacrosse is played on a hard floor, usually in the summer, and has 4 periods instead of 3.)
The team that has scored the most goals at the end of regulation time is declared the winner. If the game is tied after four quarters have been played, the teams begin sudden death overtime; the team that scores first wins the game. Overtime periods are fifteen minutes long, with two-minute breaks between overtime periods. Prior to the 2005 NLL season, overtime periods were 5 minutes each.
Each team dresses twenty players, of whom two are goaltenders; the remaining eighteen are called runners, and may be either forwards or defensemen. There are also players, frequently defensemen, who specialize in the transition from defense to offense.
The team in possession of the ball has eight seconds to move the ball over the center line, and thirty seconds to take a shot on net. If either of these time periods expires, the whistle is blown, and the opposing team is given possession. In the NLL, the shot clock runs while a team that is killing a penalty has possession of the ball; this is not the case in all box lacrosse leagues (e.g. Major Series Lacrosse, Western Lacrosse Association).
Read more about this topic: National Lacrosse League
Famous quotes containing the word game:
“Lyke as a huntsman after weary chace,
Seeing the game from him escapt away,
Sits downe to rest him in some shady place,”
—Edmund Spenser (1552?–1599)
“Neighboring farmers and visitors at White Sulphur drove out occasionally to watch ‘those funny Scotchmen’ with amused superiority; when one member imported clubs from Scotland, they were held for three weeks by customs officials who could not believe that any game could be played with ‘such elongated blackjacks or implements of murder.’”
—For the State of West Virginia, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“Intelligence and war are games, perhaps the only meaningful games left. If any player becomes too proficient, the game is threatened with termination.”
—William Burroughs (b. 1914)