-Why is the city of Lacrosse -!Wisconsin, named after a sport? 
-The backstory links medieval -!France, one of North America's -!oldest games and early travelers -to the region. 
-!Traditional lacrosse is a game -!that's been played by Indigenous -people across North America -for centuries. 
-This game -has many different names -among various native groups. 
-The Ho-Chunk call it caabna, -for example. 
-The first Europeans -who saw the game -thought it looked similar -to a French game -known as la soule a la crosse -that dates back to the 1100s. 
-Soule was the ball -and crosse was the curved -or hooked -stick used to move the ball. 
-They called the native game -jeu de la crosse, -the game of the curved stick. 
-Eventually this was shortened -to just lacrosse. 
-In the early 1800s, -the American explorer -Zebulon Pike wrote -!about a prairie called ""Le Cross -from a game of ball -played frequently on it -by the Sioux Indians." -The name of La Crosse, -which was based on a medieval -French game used by Europeans -!to describe a traditional Native -game, stuck around.