Onondaga Nation – Biginning this Thursday, April 14 through April 16, 2023, Tsha’ Hoñnoñyeñdakwha (The Onondaga Nation Arena: located at 4000 Route 11- just off of exit 16 on I81) is proud to host the Stickmakers Tournament. The proceeds of the tournament will benefit Alfie Jacques and his expenses as he battles cancer.
Alfie Jacques is a world renoun traditional wooden lacrosse stick maker. Alfie began making his sticks with his father Louie in their backyard on the Onondaga Nation in the 1970s. The stick making tradition began when Alfie asked his father to buy a stick, his father response was to learn how to make our own.
Since that time, Alfie has made thousands and thosands of wooden lacrosse sticks. Alfie and his father were busy making sticks for mens box lacrosse, mens field lacrosse, and womens field lacrosse sticks throughout the early 1970s. With the invention of the plastick stick however, the overall demand for wooden sticks eased. Many stickmakers went out of business at Onondaga and other Haudenosaunee nations with college and high school field lacrosse game turning to the plastic stick.
But Alfie continued making wooden sticks.
The traditional Medicine game for the Onondaga is played only witrh wooden sticks as well as many box players still prefer playing with a wooden lacrosse sticks. The wooden stick is so important to Onondaga and Haudenosaunee life, that former players are buried with their sticks so they can continue to play in the Creator’s Land.
Alfie sticks have traveled the world not only with the Onondaga Redhawks players, but also with the Haudenosaunee Nationals. When the Nationals were accepted into the World lacrosse stage, Alfie was there. Alfie showed the world what a 6 foot wooden defensive lacrosse stick looked like. Many had never seen one since the early 1970s.
Please take the time to travel to the Onondaga Nation this weekend to the Stickmakers Tournament to help one of the legends of lacrosse, Alfie Jacques.
More about Alfie: