The 11th Annual Haudenosaunee Wooden Stick Festival Weekend: A Dinner, a Run, and the Creator's Game at Onondaga Lake

Before lacrosse was a varsity sport, before it was an Olympic event, before it was anything you could buy tickets to, it was a gift. The Haudenosaunee call it Deyhontsigwa'ehs — "They Bump Hips" — and they have played it for over a thousand years as the Creator's Game, a medicine game played for healing and thanksgiving. The game is older than the Haudenosaunee Confederacy itself, and the Confederacy was founded on the shores of Onondaga Lake, where the Peacemaker brought five warring nations together under the Great Law of Peace.

Which is why what happens at Onondaga Lake every September matters. On September 11–13, 2026, the American Indian Law Alliance hosts the 11th Annual Haudenosaunee Wooden Stick Festival weekend: three days that braid together sport, ceremony, remembrance, and restoration. The festival is free, family-friendly, and open to all. Here is what the weekend holds.

An Evening for Alfie: The Ambassador Award Dinner #

Friday, September 11 · 5:00 PM · Bellevue Country Club, Syracuse · alfieaward.com

For more than fifty years, Alfie Jacques of the Onondaga Nation made wooden lacrosse sticks by hand — tens of thousands of them, each one bent, carved, and strung the traditional way, and each one an occasion to teach someone about where the game comes from. When Alfie passed, the lacrosse world lost its greatest stickmaker and one of its most beloved teachers.

The Alfie Jacques Ambassador Award keeps that teaching alive. It honors leaders who grow the game with the same selfless dedication and the same reverence for its Indigenous heritage that defined Alfie's life. The 2026 honorees are Dom Starsia, the championship college coach; Michael Kennedy, a leader in international lacrosse; and Mike Kanatakeron Mitchell, a Haudenosaunee ambassador for the game. The award itself is carved by Ryan Sandy of Six Nations, and proceeds from the evening fund a college scholarship for Native American youth.

The Restore Our Sacred Lake 5K #

Onondaga Lake · Register at aila.li/run

Onondaga Lake holds a double identity. It is the birthplace of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy — among the most sacred places in Haudenosaunee territory — and it spent the twentieth century becoming one of the most polluted lakes in America. The Restore Our Sacred Lake 5K exists in the space between those two facts.

The run brings the community onto the lake's shoreline in support of its ongoing restoration. It is welcoming by design: runners chasing a personal best, families walking with strollers, first-timers, and shoreline cheering sections all belong. Registration is open now at aila.li/run.

The Wooden Stick Festival and Randy Hall Memorial Tournament #

Saturday & Sunday, September 12 & 13 · Onondaga Lake · Free admission

The heart of the weekend is the festival itself: two days of wooden stick lacrosse played the way it has been played for centuries. The Randy Hall Memorial Tournament runs throughout the weekend, honoring Randy Hall of Akwesasne, the coach and player who in 2013 set the game back on the shores of Onondaga Lake and started the tradition the festival continues today.

Around the tournament, the park fills with the rest of the celebration: Smoke Dancing, traditional stick-making demonstrations, Haudenosaunee singers and dancers, Indigenous food, and craft artisans. It is equal parts sporting event, cultural teaching, and family reunion — and everyone is invited to all three parts.

Plan Your Weekend #

The festival weekend runs September 11–13, 2026. The Alfie Jacques Ambassador Award Dinner opens the weekend Friday evening at Bellevue Country Club (alfieaward.com); the festival, tournament, Smoke Dancing, and 5K fill Saturday and Sunday at Onondaga Lake. Festival admission is free.

Register for the run: aila.li/run Learn more about the weekend: aila.li/wsf

Come to the lake. The game began here — and every September, it comes home.