Sporting Chance

Everyone knows that Denver loves its professional sports teams, so let's give a warm, woolly welcome to the latest addition: the Colorado Mammoth men's lacrosse team. Named for the fourteen-foot-tall, six-ton beasts that roamed the Front Range almost 17,000 years ago, the Mammoth is ready to roar.

Sam Turner

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More About

• Colorado Mammoth
• Anita Santiago
• Denver Broncos
• Toronto Rock
• Lacrosse

For those who don't know much about lacrosse, which was first played by Native Americans, it is played with a stick -- the crosse -- that players use to throw, catch and scoop the ball. "It's a very fast-paced game," says Anita Santiago, director of communications and lacrosse operations for the Colorado Mammoth. "It's very similar to hockey, has the play-making of basketball and the hits of football."

If you want to see the action for yourself, the Mammoth's first home game this Friday night at 7 p.m. is bound to be an ice-age epic: Our new boys take on the Toronto Rock, the defending National Lacrosse League World Champions. Wearing snappy black and crimson uniforms, the Mammoths -- who relocated from Washington, D.C. last summer -- lost to the Rock in last year's semi-finals during double overtime. "We've got a great lineup, with Gary Gait -- who is basically the Michael Jordan of lacrosse -- as team captain," Santiago says. "It's going to be a big season." Lacrosse is one of the fastest-growing team sports in the United States, so who knows, maybe next year the Mammoth will be more popular than the Broncos -- or at least the Nuggets.

The Mammoth will play eight home games at the Pepsi Center through the end of March. For tickets, which range from $5 to $30, and more information, call 303-405-1101 or log on to www.coloradolax.com.