Iroquois Nationals admitted to men’s lacrosse tournament at World Games

The Iroquois Nationals will be able to compete in the 2022 World Games in Birmingham, Ala.

Organizers of the multisport event announced on Sunday that the Iroquois had accepted an invitation to compete in the eight-team men’s lacrosse tournament.

The inclusion of the Iroquois Nationals was partly made possible by Ireland voluntarily withdrawing its team from the tournament.

A boycott threatened by some of the best lacrosse players in the world in support of the Iroquois team will no longer be necessary.

The dispute came to a head in late July when the Iroquois Nationals made it public that they had not been invited to the World Games.

The Haudenosaunee — a group that includes the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca and Tuscarora First Nations — are also known as the Iroquois or the Six Nations and are primarily located in New York, Ontario and Quebec.

The Haudenosaunee invented lacrosse centuries before Europeans arrived in North America and in recognition of that contribution they participate in international lacrosse as an independent team, the Iroquois Nationals.

World Lacrosse is pushing to be included in the Olympics and, to help build its case, has started participating in the World Games, a smaller multisport event.

The Iroquois Nationals men’s field team is ranked third in the world and their indoor team is second and had assumed it would be participating in the event based on its standing in international lacrosse competitions.

Rex Lyons, a member of the Iroquois Nationals’ organizing committee, said he learned about his organization’s exclusion from the World Games when a convenor from another national lacrosse organization forwarded him an email from World Lacrosse inviting the rival country to the Games.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 7, 2020.

The Canadian Press