Page:Lacrosse- The National Game of Canada (New Edition).djvu/253

230 made the innocent victims of hard shots; but, when stopping grounders, it is a good plan to close the legs together and meet the ball with them, as well as with the crosse. The use of one leg 2s an auxiliary of the crosse is invaluable if you do not mind knocks.

About leg-guards. That swift balls hurt one’s shins will be generally acknowledged without experiment, and we do not see why a goal-keeper should not protect his lower extremities, as well as a batsman before the wickets. The Indians never throw hard at goal when playing among themselves, bat the pale-face substitutes swift shots for the Indian way of bunching and crowding. As a goal-keeper we never intend to complain of the swiftest and strongest balls, lest some might think we dreaded them; and we do not. But if men will throw balls at goal hard enough to smash any netting that was ever made, and, sometimes any bone that ever stood in the way, it is but fair that its keeper should, at least, have some leg- armor. But it is as much, if not more, for the sake of the greater confidence leg-guards give a man, and the better use he can make of his extremities in low balls. For the same reason shoes or boots are better for a goal-keeper than moccasins, because balls