Lacrosse is a team sport of Native American origin, played using a small solid rubber ball and a long-handled stick called a crosse or lacrosse stick, mainly played on the East Coast of the United States and Canada. The head of the lacrosse stick is strung with loose mesh designed to catch and hold the lacrosse ball. Offensively, the objective of the game is to score by shooting the ball into an opponent's goal, using the lacrosse stick to catch, carry, and pass the ball to do so. Defensively, the objective is to keep the opposing team from scoring and to dispossess them of the ball through the use of stick checking and body contact or positioning. The sport has four major types: men's field lacrosse, women's lacrosse, box lacrosse and intercrosse.
There are three main types of lacrosse: Field lacrosse, Box lacrosse, Women's lacrosse
Field lacrosse
Lacrosse is a very physically demanding sport that requires not only fitness but also good stick handling and hand eye coordination in combination. Men's field lacrosse is played with ten players on each team: a goalkeeper; three defenders in the defensive end; three midfielders (often called "middies") free to roam the whole field; and three attackers attempting to score goals in the offensive end. It is the most common version of men's lacrosse played internationally.
Box lacrosse
Box lacrosse is an indoor version of the game played by teams of six on a hockey rink where the ice has been removed or covered by artificial turf. The enclosed playing area is called a box, in contrast to the open playing field of the traditional game.
Box lacrosse is also a much more physical game. Since cross checking is legal in box lacrosse players wear rib pads in addition to the shoulder and elbow pads that field lacrosse players wear. Box lacrosse players wear a different type of helmet as well. The helmet they wear is a hockey helmet with a box lacrosse cage.
Women's lacrosse
The rules of women's lacrosse differ significantly from men's lacrosse, most notably by equipment and the degree of allowable physical contact.  Women's lacrosse does not promote physical contact primarily because the only protective equipment worn for this sport is a mouth guard and face guard and sometimes thin gloves. Stick checking, and not body checking as in men's lacrosse, is permitted in women's lacrosse. Although sometimes checking can lead to body checking. While this is still not permitted in a women's game some referees will allow limited body checking.