cheap shots

[jefno1]

What are everybodies thoughts of cheap shots and retaliations? Personally it seems to me that when teams lack in skill they try to make up for it in gooning people. Retaliations usually start getting ugly fairly quicklly. It usually starts because one team is far superior to the other. Difficult situation for the better team. You don't want to embarrass the other team but, you want to work hard and make things happen. So what are the answers?

[bullhighutewoozgriffclam]

cheap shots and retaliation isn't lacrosse. well i guess truthfully it happens in every sport but i've been taught to play the game and keep the extra stuff out of it. it's funner for me to just play. in a scrum once i picked up a kids stick and threw it and i felt way bad (and that's not even that bad). so that's where i stand, but i know many think if you can get away with it go for it. blatant head hunting is for football players though.

just play.

retaliate with class. it's like a double barrell backfire.

[laxfan25]

As an official, there is nothing that will get my ire up quicker than cheap shots - they have absolutely no place in any sporting event. (That's why they're called "sporting" - right?)
I respect a good hard bodycheck on a shooter if it is timed right. Take a couple steps after the shot and you'll be sitting. Make it even later, or deliver it to the head or with a cross check and you'll be serving multiples.
I've seen guys do the butt-end slide into another player's crotch, etc. I can understand the frustration of being on the short end of a blowout game, but that is still not an excuse for poor sportsmanship. Get better!
It's hard to see everything on the field, especially when you're at one end and the A and D at the other end start messing with each other. And as is often the case, we sometimes only see the retaliation strike, not the instigation. I know that it is hard to control your response when you've been wronged, and if I think there was something that precipitated the retaliation (although I might not have "seen" it) I will grab both players and put them in the meditation area, and I don't get an objection.
Keep it clean fellas and Honor the Game. That to me is what separates lacrosse from all other sports - you play and hit hard, but you keep it fair and you shake hands sincerely when it is all over.

[ktrost58]

I think that there are some unwritten rules in lacrosse of things you just don't do. First off, i don't think you should ever retaliate to something by doing something illegal, or something that should put you in the box. At the same time, there are times when i believe you have to send a message to a team or a player. You can do it in a clean way, but i'll tell you that in my years of playing lacrosse, its happened more than once that i've had a players number in my head (99% of the time after he had done something to another teammate that i considered "cheap") and i found him in a pile and put him on his back. Retaliation is part of lacrosse, it doesn't need to be cheap, but it is a part of the game.

[jefno1]

I pretty much share part of the views of the 3 posts above. I just get tired of goons giving the sport as a whole a black eye. The majority of teams and players stay inside the rules even with retaliation. Just keep your eyes open and if the opportunity araises take advantage of it. No better feeling than a good clean hit.(I guess a laser from top right of box might be an argument.) I coach an 8th grade team and am trying to instill PRIDE AND HONOR in the game to them. I found that I needed to teach the difference between good physical lacrosse and gooning someone. I always tell the boys that teams with no skills will be the ones gooning and that we will not beat teams playing that way. Usually the more skillful, team will win. But that is were the pride and honor factor in also. You win with pride and honor of the game and you lose with pride and honor of the game. If after a game that's how you played everything else has ways of working itself out.

[drylogic]

i agree with every post within this thread but something that i have not seen talked about is the coaches position in all this. We recently played a game where one of players had an amazing day, all his shots were on, he was beating players left and right, and he had quite a few points before the 2nd half started. Needless to say, the other team picked up on this player and instead of locking him off or playing good defense on him, they decided to go head hunting, and i mean head hunting. Everytime he got the ball 2 or 3 of the other teams players would just run straight at him sticks a blazing, cross checking, and hitting high. The last straw for me was when he got knocked down after being cross checked in the neck and another player came from 5 yards away to jump on top of him and almost pile drive his stick into our player.
I was furious, this other team had a coach and the personnel to stop anyone of their players from playing like this and yet they let it happen all throughout the second half. How does a coach allow their players to play like that? I know lacrosse is a contact sport but theres a difference between playing the game and trying to hurt someone because they are better than you. Where do coaches become liable for situations like this? I never once saw their coach say anything to his players let alone take them off the field

[shourtmoose]

i disagree. there is really only one way to retalliate on a lacrosse field and that is by scoring. if another team chooses to "head hunt" or go for the cheap shot all you can do is keep scoring. To me it seems as though a player chooses to pull cheap shots when they are completly out played through out a game. even if you are out played the only thing you should do is keep trying because that is the only way a team will progress otherwise they will always be on the losing side

[Beta]

At some point the refs have to take control of the game to keep it from getting out of hand..that's why they're paid the big bucks

[ktrost58]

I agree, that is why the refs have flags and whistles, but i think we need to remember that there is a very big difference between retaliation and cheap shots. If there is a player who is eating a team alive, running around the crease and scoring a bunch of points in the first half of a game, I would expect to see him on his back in the second half. That isn't cheap, that is lacrosse. The situation described earlier is obviously not lacrosse, and the coach of that player should never let that happen. Retaliation will always be a part of any contact sport, but cheap shots should have no place in them, and it should be the coachs first priority to teach his team to play with class.

[laxfan25]

At some point the refs have to take control of the game to keep it from getting out of hand..that's why they're paid the big bucks

Yes, but unfortunately we're often like the cops, we can't make you do the time until you commit the crime. So we're often flagging nasty stuff that has already occurred. We do have the option of calling flagrant misconduct and ejecting someone, but the behaviour has to be very heinous to qualify for that.
If someone is just a big hack I prefer to assess multiple penalties, such as a slash AND unnecessary roughness. This serves to get the perpetrator up to the five max a little quicker. I don't do it very often though.
There are some teams I have reffed, more in HS, that just disgust me with the actions of the team overall, and I know that the fish rots from the head, so the coach doesn't earn a lot of respect in my book.

[jefno1]

I agree. Ultimately it is the coach who should be controlling his team. I personally think that you keep working hard no matter what the score. Winning or losing. You don't flagrantly go after guys because they are better than you. You put your best defenseman on their stud and deny him the ball. A ref can flag all day long but, if a team is losing by 10-15 goals, what does it matter to them if they get another penalty. That's the problem. The refs control the game on the field but if the coach doesn't control individual players the refs can lose control of the game pretty easily. It doesn't happen that often considering the number of games played. The buck stops at the coach.