Mardi Gras may not be in full swing until next week, but this past weekend still saw plenty of action on both Bourbon Street and the fields at New Orleans' City Park as the 2001 Mardi Gras Lacrosse Tournament was kicked off on Friday morning. This year's Mardi Gras Tournament brought together a field of 24 mens teams and a much smaller 5 team womens brackett. Sunday's Championship game saw the tournament's unofficial favorites Team Crease Monkeys take home the hardware as they controlled Team Southern Empire from Hotlanta.

The Mardi Gras Lacrosse Tournament was started back in the 1970's by the New Orleans club lacrosse team. Back then the tournament consisted of only four teams from Atlanta, San Antonio, Houston, and New Orleans. Looking for a good way to bring together some solid teams to play some competitive lacrosse these four squads got together and setup their own four team tournament. New Orleans being the most centralized, logical location for the four teams to meet up along with the excitement of Mardi Gras on the streets of New Orleans made for a great blueprint for a lacrosse get-together. This setup was bound to lead to a popular tournament and over the years the number of teams has grown tremendously from the original four. This year's tournament field brought players and teams pouring into New Orleans from all over the states including Chicago, Colorado, Georgia, Seattle, and all over the NorthEast/West. The tournament intentionally takes place the weekend right before Mardi Gras so the city is not in complete and total chaos quite yet and can still handle the influx of a few hundred lacrosse players in their hotels and on their streets. Their are just enough parades stomping through the streets of downtown, bartering and throwing of beads, and partying on Bourbon Street to get a real good taste of New Orleans and the Mardi Gras experience.

This year's mens field included teams such as Team Reebok, Fairfax, New Orleans, Blitz, Team Texas, Lakeshore, Colorado, Blue Collar, Lincoln Park, Sparrazza to name a few along with college club teams from UVa, Texas, LSU, and Northeastern. As the opening rounds closed out after Friday and Saturday's games the Crease Monkeys, Southern Empire, Team Texas, and Lakeshore were all left standing for the semi-final round. The Crease Monkeys and Southern Empire won out and earned spots in Sunday's 1:00 Championship game. The Crease Monkeys were more-or-less the odds on favorite to win the tournament due to their familiar roster which was stacked with the likes of Jake Bergey, Tom Ryan, and Billy Hunter. For those of you who have never really heard of Southern Empire, they are probably the best club team in Hotlanta and the surrounding areas as they are able to continously restock their Upstate New York core group as top players move in and out of the city. Although Southern Empire played their way into the finals as an already molded club squad that plays very well together as a team, they were unable to muster up enough amo to attack the Monkeys with. The finals were extremely entertaining to watch due to the ton of talent running between the lines for the two teams, but the Monkeys were way too dominant on the score board and defensive end for the Atlanta squad to keep it close. The Crease Monkeys jumped out to an early lead and were able to keep a multiple goal lead throughout most of the game. Southern Empire put a multiple goal scoring spurt together in the third to spark some interest by the fans, but the Crease Monkeys squashed what little momentum they had got and cruised on in for the 2001 Mardi Gras Lacrosse Tournament Championship Trophy.

Here are some shots from this weekend's tournament action with more to quickly come.