Pacific Northwest Native Lacrosse, 1602 Martin Luther King Jr Way, Tacoma, WA (2026)

09/18/2026

What do we mean when we say Creator’s Community Game?

We mean intergenerational. We mean no experience necessary. We mean coming together to move our bodies, connect to the land, meet one another, and grow our relationship with Creator’s Game.

A Community Game isn’t practice. There’s no team to make, no obligation to be there, and nothing you have to prove.

We just play to play.

Traditional wood sticks and modern sticks share the field. We begin by smudging. Sometimes we share language or teachings connected to the Game. And we lead with generosity through our gift blanket: everyone who can brings a small gift to place on the blanket, a simple reminder that when we come into community, we come ready to give, share, and care for one another.

The purpose is simple: create enough space for joy, connection, community, and relationship to the Game to blossom.

Our second Creator’s Community Game is this Sunday at Jefferson Park in Tacoma from 4–6 PM.

It’s open to everyone, because lacrosse is for everyone.

No experience necessary.
No equipment necessary.
All ages welcome.

Bring a small gift for the blanket if you can.

Sign up at the link in our bio, or just show up. We meet in the center of the park.

Come play. 🥍

09/17/2026

This summer, the Land kept calling.

From Mackinac Island to Fond du Lac. Toronto and Six Nations to Anchorage. Rivers, mountains, old rocks, wood being shaped into lacrosse sticks, and a spruce root hat woven by the hands of our relatives.

I don’t know if this summer was a teaching or a reminder. Maybe both.

I have always been a city person. But the older I get, the more deeply I come to understand who I am as an Alaska Native man, the more I find myself drawn toward the Land. Toward the water. Toward the stories held in a place. Toward understanding what our relatives knew because they lived in relationship with it.

And I keep coming back to this:

To love lacrosse is to love the Land.

The games we now call lacrosse did not exist separate from the places where they were played. The Land offered the field. The trees offered the wood for the sticks. The natural world offered what was needed for the ball, the netting and the game itself.

The Land has always been part of the game.

And almost everywhere we traveled this summer, when we took even a little time to look beneath the surface, there were Indigenous stories already there. In the names of places. In the water and the rocks. In language, songs, belongings, food and dance. Different peoples, different homelands, different relationships, but always place.

I am incredibly grateful for everywhere this work has taken us. Even more grateful that Creator keeps pulling us beyond the airports, hotels, fields and gyms and reminding us to go outside. To listen. To learn whose Land we are standing on and what stories have been carried there long before us.

As we settle into fall and another season of PNW NATIVE LACROSSE , that feels worth carrying with us.

The Creator’s Game is not only played on the Land.

It comes from it.

And our responsibility is to remember the relationship.

09/16/2026

There are some places where playing this game feels different.

Our recent time at Bapashkominitgong (Fond du Lac) was one of them.

We had the opportunity to play Baaga’adowewin on a traditional ball field that has been reclaimed and brought back to life.

We also spent time with our friends Thomas Howes and Nashay Howes at their home, learning more about the revival of baaga’adowaanaatig, traditional wooden sticks for the game.

One of the moments that will stay with us was sitting around the fire, watching shavings from traditional stick making burn. The wood, the hands shaping it, the game it becomes part of, and the remnants returning to the fire. It was a reminder of how connected all of this is.

We also spent time on the lands and near the waters Ojibwe people here have lived in relationship with for generations, witnessing the continued revival of manoomin and experiencing the Sturgeon Moon eclipse.

Playing a game that comes from the land. Holding sticks made from the land. Seeing manoomin growing from the water. Learning from friends who are carrying these relationships forward.

Baaga’adowewin lives within a much larger relationship to place, water, plants, fire, family and community.

Huge thanks to PLL Assists for making this experience possible by hosting a Women’s Lacrosse League clinic in Duluth and bringing us along, and a huge miigwech to the Howes family for opening your home and homelands to us.

We came to play the game. We left having learned much more about where the game lives.

🎶 : Joe Rainey

09/15/2026

Recently we had the opportunity to be part of the Urban Native Education Alliance (UNEA) Billy Mills event, and our own Coach lux ☀️ held it down for PNW NATIVE LACROSSE, sharing the Creator’s Game with Native youth and families, teaching about its origins, and creating space for people to pick up a stick, learn, and connect.

And she got to meet an absolute legend while she was there.

Billy Mills, Oglala Lakota, won gold in the 10,000 meters at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics in one of the greatest upsets in Olympic history. He remains the only American man to ever win Olympic gold in that event. But his legacy is bigger than one race. For generations of Native people, Billy has represented what is possible when we carry who we are with us into spaces that were never necessarily built for us and refuse to let anyone else define our limits.

There’s something pretty special about seeing generations connect like this: a Native legend who opened doors, a young Native coach carrying culture forward, and Native youth getting introduced to another game that has belonged to Indigenous people since long before any of us were here.

Grateful to Urban Native Education Alliance (UNEA) for creating the space and for inviting us to be part of the day.

IndigenousExcellence

09/14/2026

A couple weeks back, we had the honor of tabling at Native American Heritage Night with the Seattle Storm at Climate Pledge Arena.

Being in community with relatives representing Tribes and Native organizations from across our region was incredibly meaningful.

One of our favorite parts of this work will always be sharing the origins of lacrosse, helping the broader lacrosse community understand why those origins matter, and creating opportunities for players and families to build a deeper relationship with the Creator’s Game.

There’s something special about watching someone pick up a traditional stick for the first time. The curiosity is immediate. The questions start. And suddenly they’re experiencing this game through a much deeper story than just sport.

That connection matters.

Huge thank you to the Seattle Storm and WNBA for creating space for Native people, organizations, and stories to be seen and celebrated.

Everyone Watches Women’s Sports. 🥍 🏀

09/09/2026

CREATOR’S COMMUNITY GAME : ROUND TWO. 🥍

We’re gathering again for our second Creator’s Community Game on Sunday, September 20 from 4–6 PM at Jefferson Park in Tacoma. We moved the hours earlier so we can make the most of the daylight.

Our first gathering reminded us what this is really about: Native and non-Native relatives, kids and adults, experienced players and people picking up a stick for the first time, all coming together through Creator’s Game.

This time, we’re adding another piece: a Community Gift Game.

Bring a small gift to place on the community blanket. Throughout the game, we’ll recognize good medicine on the field — goals, great passes, hustle, generosity, encouragement, good moments and taking care of one another. When we see it, that person may be invited to choose a gift from the blanket.

The point isn’t who scores the most or who wins. It’s practicing generosity, gratitude and playing for one another.

🥍 Free + all ages
🥍 Native + non-Native community welcome
🥍 No equipment or experience necessary
🎁 Bring a gift for the Community Gift Game
📍 We’ll meet in the middle of Jefferson Park

Come play. Come learn. Come gather.

Sign up at the link in our bio or just show up.

09/07/2026

THERE IS NO LACROSSE WITHOUT THE HAUDENOSAUNEE.

We have said it before and we’ll keep saying it.

That isn’t just a statement. It is the history of this game.

Across Turtle Island, many Native Nations have their own stick-and-ball games, each carrying their own histories, teachings and relationships to Creator. We honor those games and the Nations who continue to carry them.

And when we talk specifically about the development of the modern sport of lacrosse, the Haudenosaunee are foundational to that story.

George Beers, often called the “father of modern lacrosse,” did not invent lacrosse. He codified and altered an Indigenous game that already existed, establishing rules around players, equipment and gameplay that helped shape the modern sport we recognize today.

That distinction matters.

Because every time we pick up a stick, step onto a field or celebrate how far this sport has grown, we are participating in something that existed long before the modern game.

This past weekend in Minneapolis, we carried that message throughout the Premier Lacrosse League Quarterfinals.

We gave away these shirts, made new friends and had conversations with players, families and fans about the history of the game and why Haudenosaunee inclusion at LA28 Olympic & Paralympic Games matters.

Lacrosse is returning to the Olympic stage in 2028. More than a century after its last appearance as a medal sport, the world will once again gather to play this game.

We don’t speak for the Haudenosaunee. We stand beside them as Indigenous relatives, lacrosse people and people who believe the origins and history of this game matter to its past and future.

The game will be there. The Haudenosaunee should be too.

There is no lacrosse without the Haudenosaunee.

09/06/2026

A Day at Six Nations. 🥍

For anyone who loves lacrosse, there are places that help you understand the game differently. Six Nations of the Grand River is one of those places.

Last week, our friend Kevin Sandy spent the day showing us around this Haudenosaunee community and helping us experience Six Nations through a lacrosse lens.

We drove through Ohsweken, or Oswé:ge’, visited Irocrafts, spent time along the Grand River, toured the Iroquois Lacrosse Arena and Chiefs locker room, and stopped at Ga***rd Powless Arena.

One of the most meaningful stops was the workshop of Bo Henhawk and his family, traditional Haudenosaunee stick makers. We teach with wood sticks and I play with one, but standing where they are actually made, surrounded by hickory in every stage of becoming a lacrosse stick, brought everything home differently.

What stayed with me most was simply being there. Seeing how naturally the Creator’s Game exists within a community that has carried it for generations.

At PNW NATIVE LACROSSE, we talk often about our responsibility to Respect the Roots. Days like this remind us those roots aren’t history.

They are people. They are places. They are knowledge. They are alive.

Nyá:wen Kevin and Bo for sharing your time and knowledge with us and making this a day we won’t forget.

There is no lacrosse without the Haudenosaunee.

09/06/2026

A Day at Six Nations. 🥍

For anyone who loves lacrosse, there are places that help you understand the game differently. Six Nations of the Grand River is one of those places.

Last week, our friend Kevin Sandy spent the day showing us around this Haudenosaunee community and helping us experience Six Nations through a lacrosse lens.

We drove through Oswé:ge’, visited Irocrafts, spent time along the Grand River, toured the Iroquois Lacrosse Arena and Six Nations Chiefs locker room, and stopped at Ga***rd Powless Arena.

One of the most meaningful stops was the workshop of Bo Henhawk and his family, traditional Haudenosaunee stick makers. We teach with wood sticks and I play with one, but standing where they are actually made, surrounded by hickory in every stage of becoming a lacrosse stick, brought everything home differently.

What stayed with me most was simply being there. Seeing how naturally the Creator’s Game exists within a community that has carried it for generations.

At PNW NATIVE LACROSSE, we talk often about our responsibility to Respect the Roots. Days like this remind us those roots aren’t history.

They are people. They are places. They are knowledge. They are alive.

Nyá:wen Kevin and Bo for sharing your time and knowledge with us and making this a day we won’t forget.

There is no lacrosse without the Haudenosaunee.

09/02/2026

Lacrosse Makes Friends. 🥍

When we first started our relationship with the Premier Lacrosse League through our friends at PLL Assists , we had no idea just how much that relationship would grow into community.

What started as a partnership has become friendships. People we genuinely care about, people we’re excited to see, people we learn from and people we get to share our mutual love of this game with.

This past weekend we were back in Minneapolis for the Premier Lacrosse League Quarterfinals, and in so many ways it felt like a family reunion. We caught up with old friends, made new ones, watched youth connect with people throughout the game and were reminded again of one of the greatest gifts lacrosse gives us is friendships.

There is something special about the culture that has been built around the PLL. We’re incredibly grateful to have a small place within that community and to continue bringing Native youth and families into these spaces.

Thank you to every friend who stopped to say hello, shared a story, played some lacrosse, took a photo, gave a hug or simply spent a few minutes with us.

And especially, thank you to PLL Assists for continuing to open doors, build relationships and make moments like these possible.

The game brings us together. The relationships are what we carry home. 🧡

Pacific Northwest Native Lacrosse

09/18/2026

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