Who Invented Hockey? – HISTORY

Who Invented Hockey? The origins of ice hockey can be traced back to stick and ball games played in the Middle Ages or even in ancient Greece and Egypt. Some believe the game evolved from the ancient Irish game of hurling. But the beginnings of ice hockey, like those of many other sports, remain troubled.

“In the 1500s, there’s an array of people playing something on the ice that looks like hockey,” says Phil Pritchard, curator at the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto. “They even had sticks.”

Perhaps the closest ancestor of the modern sport is ‘chamiare’, or shinty, a stick and ball game played on ice in the early 1600s in Scotland. In the mid-1700s, a game called bandy was played on ice on the eastern plains of England. In winter, the players competed with iron skates on the ice that formed on the flooded meadows and elsewhere. This game spread to London and then in the 1850s to eastern Canada, where it was played by British soldiers. At 19^and century, Native Americans in Canada played a similar game.

Where does the name “Hockey” come from?

The term “hockey,” according to the Canadian Encyclopedia, dates back to a 1773 book published in England titled Youth sports and hobbies. But the name may predate this first known reference. A version of the game played on the ground – field hockey – also evolved during the period.

In Britain, as early as the 1840s, newspapers made reference to ice hockey. A Scottish newspaper in 1842 reported a death during a hockey match involving about 20 participants skating on a canal: “[T]The ice suddenly burst in and several were submerged, but rescued except [an] unhappy boy.

In 1864, the Prince of Wales played lake hockey with a London skating club. “The game continued with great animation until 2 a.m.,” reported a London newspaper, “when the prince and the players proceeded to the peach temple, where they had a sumptuous lunch.”

In 1949, a magazine from the Soviet Union claimed that the sport was invented and perfected in Russia in the mid-19^and century. But these claims can be dubious.

The first organized hockey game

The first organized ice hockey game, according to the International Ice Hockey Federation, was played on March 3, 1875 between two teams of nine men each from the Victoria Skating Club of Montreal. But there is evidence that organized games were played earlier in the century in Canada and the United States, Pritchard says.

In the 1875 game, teams played using a flat block of wood, a cousin of the modern vulcanized rubber puck, “so that it glides along the ice without lifting and thus among the spectators to their discomfort”. Montreal Star reported. Previously, the game was often played with a wooden or rubber ball.

Added The star about the first game: “The game resembles lacrosse in one sense – the block having to go through flags placed about 8 feet apart in the same way as the rubber ball – but overall the game of old school shinty gives the best idea of ​​hockey.

By 1899, ice hockey had become popular in the northeastern United States. “[W]With no particular attempt to reach the sporting element, it has steadily progressed, counting its enthusiasts in the thousands last winter, whereas two seasons ago they could hardly have been counted in the hundreds,” said the Montreal Gazette reports interest in the New York area.

Canada becomes the epicenter of ice hockey

Although ice hockey was not born in Canada, it has become the country’s national sport. At the end of the 19^and century, organized leagues formed in Canada, where the rules of the sport evolved, including the size of the net and the number of players on the ice at one time (six per team with a goaltender). The Canadian rules, including the use of a rubber puck, were eventually adopted worldwide.

In 1920, a team from Canada won the first World Hockey Championship, held at the Olympic Winter Games in Antwerp, Belgium.

In 1917, the National Hockey League was formed with four Canadian teams. In 1924, the Boston Bruins became the first American team in the NHL, which has grown many times over the years.

For more than 100 years, the NHL has been the premier professional hockey league in the world. The NHL even awards its Eastern Conference champion the Prince of Wales Trophy, a nod to that 19^androyal ice hockey competitor of the last century.

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