Two dads from Setauket create new outdoor game called Tricrosse
The object of Tricrosse is to use lacrosse-style sticks to throw balls into three nets resembling a person's head and arms. Credit: Tricrosse
An outdoor game called Tricrosse that was invented by two Setauket dads when they were kids is now for sale at Modell’s Sporting Goods stores on Long Island and at tricrosse.com. It will also be the main event at the second annual Fight Breast Cancer Tournament on Aug. 11 at Mount Sinai’s Cedar Beach.
“We came up with it when we were 12 or 13 years old,” says Andy Matthews, 49, the math, science and technology director for the Mount Sinai school district. The object of the game is to use lacrosse-style sticks to throw balls into three nets that resemble a person’s head and two arms — or, as many people tell the inventors, a Quidditch goal.
Matthews and his friend Bill Kidd, 49, an administrator in the Middle Country school district, would play Wham-O’s Trac Ball growing up in Strongs Neck, and when they got bored of the throw-and-catch play they decided to enhance it. “We went to our parents’ shed and got fishing nets,” Matthews says. They used those and crab nets to construct what has become the tricrosse goal, he says.
The game, meant for ages 10 and older, sells for $90. Entry to the tournament is $10 per player and players must be at least 10 years old, says Terry Quigley, recreation supervisor for the Town of Brookhaven. Proceeds will go to the Stony Brook Cancer Center. The tournament is from 4 to 8 p.m.; to register, email tricrosse@gmail.com or call 631-997-9600. The rain date is Aug. 18. Cedar Beach is on Harbor Beach Road, Mount Sinai.
