Ice hockey is believed to have evolved from simple stick and ball games played in the 18th and 19th centuries in Britain, Ireland, and elsewhere, primarily bandy, hurling, and shinty. The North American sport of lacrosse was also influential. These games were brought to North America and several similar winter games using informal rules developed, such as shinny and ice polo, but were later absorbed into a new organized game with codified rules which today is ice hockey.
The origin of ice hockey was bandy, a game that has its roots in the Middle Ages. Just as for practically all other sports, the game of bandy achieved its modern form during the 19th century in England, more exactly in the Fen district on the East coast. From the Fen district the game was spread to London and from London to the Continent during the second half of the 19th century. British soldiers stationed in eastern Canada brought the game to the North American continent in the 1850s and '60s. You could find similar games there, played by immigrants (chiefly Dutch) and by Indians. Thus there were a number of different games played on skates with a stick and ball and with varying rules in America before ice hockey was invented.[1]
—Kenth Hansen, International Society of Olympic Historians, "The Birth of Swedish Ice Hockey – Antwerp 1920", Journal of Olympic History (JOH, formerly Citius, Altius, Fortius)
Name
In England, field hockey has historically been called simply hockey and was what was referenced by first appearances in print. The first known mention spelled as hockey occurred in the 1772 book Juvenile Sports and Pastimes, to Which Are Prefixed, Memoirs of the Author: Including a New Mode of Infant Education, by Richard Johnson (Pseud. Master Michel Angelo), whose chapter XI was titled "New Improvements on the Game of Hockey".[2] The 1527 Statute of Galway banned a sport called "'hokie'—the hurling of a little ball with sticks or staves". A form of this word was thus being used in the 16th century, though much removed from its current usage.
The belief that hockey was mentioned in a 1363 proclamation by King Edward III of England[3] is based on modern translations of the proclamation, which was originally in Latin and explicitly forbade the games Pilam Manualem, Pedivam, & Bacularem: & ad Canibucam & Gallorum Pugnam.[4][5]
According to the Austin Hockey Association, the word puck derives from the Scottish Gaelicpuc or the Irishpoc ('to poke, punch or deliver a blow'). "...The blow given by a hurler to the ball with his camán or hurley is always called a puck."[6]
Stick-and-ball games themselves are very ancient. Games such as polo are known to have taken place in the pre-Christian era in Persia.[7] In Europe, these games included the Irish game of hurling, the closely related Scottish game of shinty and versions of field hockey (including bandy ball, played in England). IJscolf, a game resembling colf on an ice-covered surface, was popular in the Low Countries between the Middle Ages and the Dutch Golden Age. It was played with a wooden curved bat (called a colf or kolf), a wooden or leather ball and two poles (or nearby landmarks), with the objective to hit the chosen point using the fewest strokes. A similar game (knattleikr) had been played for a thousand years or more by the Scandinavian peoples, as documented in the Icelandic sagas. Polo has been referred to as "hockey on horseback".[8] In England, field hockey developed in the late 17th century, and there is evidence that some games of field hockey took place on the ice.[8] These games of "hockey on ice" were sometimes played with a bung (a plug of cork or oak used as a stopper on a barrel). William Pierre Le Cocq stated, in a 1799 letter written in Chesham, England:[9]
I must now describe to you the game of Hockey; we have each a stick turning up at the end. We get a bung. There are two sides one of them knocks one way and the other side the other way. If any one of the sides makes the bung reach that end of the churchyard it is victorious.
A 1797 engraving unearthed by Swedish sport historians Carl Gidén and Patrick Houda shows a person on skates with a stick and bung on the River Thames, probably in December 1796.[10]
British soldiers and immigrants to Canada and the United States brought their stick-and-ball games with them and played them on the ice and snow of winter.
To while away their boredom and to stay in shape they [European colonial soldiers in North America] would play on the frozen rivers and lakes. The British [English] played bandy, the Scots played shinty and golf, the Irish, hurling, while the Dutch soldiers probably pursued ken jaegen. Curiosity led some to try lacrosse. Each group learned the game from the others. The most daring ventured to play on skates. All these contributions nourished a game that was evolving. Hockey was invented by all these people, all these cultures, all these individuals. Hockey is the conclusion of all these beginnings.[11]
In 1825, John Franklin wrote "The game of hockey played on the ice was the morning sport" on Great Bear Lake near the town of Délı̨nę during one of his Arctic expeditions.[citation needed] A mid-1830s watercolour portrays New Brunswick lieutenant-governor Archibald Campbell and his family with British soldiers on skates playing a stick-on-ice sport. Captain R.G.A. Levinge, a British Army officer in New Brunswick during Campbell's time, wrote about "hockey on ice" on Chippewa Creek (a tributary of the Niagara River) in 1839.[citation needed] In 1843 another British Army officer in Kingston, Ontario, wrote, "Began to skate this year, improved quickly and had great fun at hockey on the ice." An 1859 Boston Evening Gazette article referred to an early game of hockey on ice in Halifax that year.[12] An 1835 painting by John O'Toole depicts skaters with sticks and bung on a frozen stream in the American state of West Virginia, at that time still part of Virginia.[10]
In that same era, the Mi'kmaq, a First Nations people of the Canadian Maritimes, also had a stick-and-ball game. Canadian oral histories describe a traditional stick-and-ball game played by the Mi'kmaq, and Silas Tertius Rand (in his 1894 Legends of the Micmacs) describes a Mi'kmaq ball game known as tooadijik. Rand also describes a game played (probably after European contact) with hurleys, known as wolchamaadijik.[13][14]Oochamkunutk was the name used by the Mi'kmaq to describe their own stick and ball game which they played on the ice while alchamadyk was what the Mi'kmaq called the new the game of "hurley on ice" which was played by others around the province during the same period. Of particular note among influential Mi'kmaqs is Joe Cope ("Old Joe"), a Mi'kmaq elder known for his talent for carving what became one of the earliest types of ice hockey sticks used. Cope once stated, "Long before the pale faces strayed to this country, the Mi'kmaqs were playing two ball games, a field game and an ice game."[15] Sticks made by the Mi'kmaq were used by the British for their games.
Early 19th-century paintings depict shinny, an early form of hockey with no standard rules which was played in Nova Scotia.[16] Many of these early games absorbed the physical aggression of what the Onondaga called dehuntshigwa'es (lacrosse).[17] Shinny was played on the St. Lawrence River at Montreal and Quebec City, and in Kingston and Ottawa. The number of players was often large. To this day, shinny (derived from the Scottish game of shinty) is a popular Canadian[18] term for an informal type of hockey, either ice or street hockey.
Thomas Chandler Haliburton, in The Attache: Second Series (published in 1844) imagined a dialogue, between two of the novel's characters, which mentions playing "hurly on the long pond on the ice". This has been interpreted by some historians from Windsor, Nova Scotia as reminiscent of the days when the author was a student at King's College School in that town in 1810 and earlier.[12][13] Based on Haliburton's quote, claims were made that modern hockey was invented in Windsor, Nova Scotia, by King's College students and perhaps named after an individual ("Colonel Hockey's game").[19] Others claim that the origins of hockey come from games played in the area of Dartmouth and Halifax in Nova Scotia. However, several references have been found to hurling and shinty being played on the ice long before the earliest references from both Windsor and Dartmouth/Halifax,[20] and the word "hockey" was used to designate a stick-and-ball game at least as far back as 1773, as it was mentioned in the book Juvenile Sports and Pastimes, to Which Are Prefixed, Memoirs of the Author: Including a New Mode of Infant Education by Richard Johnson (Pseud. Master Michel Angelo), whose chapter XI was titled "New Improvements on the Game of Hockey".[21]
The city of Montreal, Quebec, Canada, became the center of the development of contemporary ice hockey, and is recognized as the birthplace of organized ice hockey.[22] On March 3, 1875, the first organized indoor game was played at Montreal's Victoria Skating Rink between two nine-player teams, including James Creighton and several McGill University students. Instead of a ball or bung, the game featured a "flat circular piece of wood"[23] (to keep it in the rink and to protect spectators). The goal posts were 8 feet (2.4m) apart[23] (today's goals are 6ft[1.8m] wide). Some observers of the game at McGill made quick note of its surprisingly aggressive and violent nature.
Shins and heads were battered, benches smashed and the lady spectators fled in confusion.
In 1876, games played in Montreal were "conducted under the 'Hockey Association' rules";[25] the Hockey Association was England's field hockey organization. In 1877, The Gazette (Montreal) published a list of seven rules, six of which were largely based on six of the Hockey Association's twelve rules, with only minor differences (even the word "ball" was kept); the one added rule explained how disputes should be settled.[26] The McGill University Hockey Club, the first ice hockey club, was founded in 1877[27] (followed by the Quebec Hockey Club in 1878 and the Montreal Victorias in 1881).[28] In 1880, the number of players per side was reduced from nine to seven.[2]
The number of teams grew, enough to hold the first "world championship" of ice hockey at Montreal's annual Winter Carnival in 1883. The McGill team won the tournament and was awarded the Carnival Cup.[29] The game was divided into thirty-minute halves. The positions were now named: left and right wing, centre, rover, point and cover-point, and goaltender. In 1886, the teams competing at the Winter Carnival organized the Amateur Hockey Association of Canada (AHAC), and played a season comprising "challenges" to the existing champion.[30]
In 1888, the Governor General of Canada, The Lord Stanley of Preston, first attended the Montreal Winter Carnival tournament and was impressed with the game. His sons and his daughter, Isobel Stanley, were hockey enthusiasts. In 1892, realizing that there was no recognition for the best team in Canada (although a number of leagues had championship trophies), he purchased a silver bowl for use as a trophy. The Dominion Hockey Challenge Cup (which later became known as the Stanley Cup) was first awarded in 1893 to the Montreal Hockey Club, champions of the AHAC; it continues to be awarded annually to the National Hockey League's championship team.[34] Stanley's son Arthur helped organize the Ontario Hockey Association, and Stanley's daughter Isobel was one of the first women to play ice hockey.
By 1893, there were almost a hundred teams in Montreal alone; in addition, there were leagues throughout Canada. Winnipeg hockey players used cricket pads to better protect the goaltender's legs; they also introduced the "scoop" shot, or what is now known as the wrist shot. William Fairbrother, from Ontario, Canada, is credited with inventing the ice hockey net in the 1890s.[35] Goal nets became a standard feature of the Canadian Amateur Hockey League in 1900. Left and right defence began to replace the point and cover-point positions in the OHA in 1906.[36]
American financier Malcolm Greene Chace is credited with being the father of hockey in the United States.[37] In 1892, Chace put together a team of men from Yale, Brown, and Harvard, and toured across Canada as captain of this team.[37] The first collegiate hockey match in the United States was played between Yale and Johns Hopkins in Baltimore in 1893.[38] In 1896, the first ice hockey league in the US was formed. The US Amateur Hockey League was founded in New York City, shortly after the opening of the artificial-ice St. Nicholas Rink.
Matthews Arena in Boston remains the oldest indoor ice hockey arena still in operation.
By 1898 the following leagues had already formed: the Amateur Hockey League of New York, the Amateur Hockey Association of Canada, and the Ontario Hockey Association. The 1898 Spalding Athletic Library book includes rules and results for each league.[39]
Stanley's five sons were instrumental in bringing ice hockey to Europe, defeating a court team (which included the future Edward VII and George V) at Buckingham Palace in 1895.[40] By 1903, a five-team league had been founded. The Ligue Internationale de Hockey sur Glace was founded in 1908 to govern international competition, and the first European championship was won by Great Britain in 1910. The sport grew further in Europe in the 1920s, after ice hockey became an Olympic sport. Many bandy players switched to hockey to be able to compete in the Olympics.[41][42] In the mid-20th century, the Ligue became the International Ice Hockey Federation.[43]
As the popularity of ice hockey as a spectator sport grew, earlier rinks were replaced by larger rinks. Most of the early indoor ice rinks have been demolished; Montreal's Victoria Rink, built in 1862, was demolished in 1925.[44] Many older rinks succumbed to fire, such as Denman Arena, Dey's Arena, Quebec Skating Rink and Montreal Arena, a hazard of the buildings' wood construction. The Stannus Street Rink in Windsor, Nova Scotia (built in 1897) may be the oldest still in existence; however, it is no longer used for hockey. The Aberdeen Pavilion (built in 1898) in Ottawa was used for hockey in 1904 and is the oldest existing facility that has hosted Stanley Cup games.
The oldest indoor ice hockey arena still in use today for hockey is Boston's Matthews Arena, which was built in 1910. It has been modified extensively several times in its history and is used today by Northeastern University for hockey and other sports. It was the original home rink of the Boston Bruins professional team,[45] itself the oldest United States-based team in the NHL, starting play in the league in what was then called Boston Arena on December 1, 1924. Madison Square Garden in New York City, built in 1968, is the oldest continuously-operating arena in the NHL.[46]
While scattered incidents of players taking pay to play hockey occurred as early as the 1890s,[47][48] those found to have done so were banned from playing in the amateur leagues which dominated the sport. By 1902, the Western Pennsylvania Hockey League (WPHL) was the first to employ professionals. The league joined with teams in Michigan and Ontario to form the first fully professional league—the International Professional Hockey League (IPHL)—in 1904. The WPHL and IPHL hired players from Canada; in response, Canadian leagues began to pay players (who played with amateurs). The IPHL, cut off from its largest source of players, disbanded in 1907. By then, several professional hockey leagues were operating in Canada (with leagues in Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec).
In 1910, the National Hockey Association (NHA) was formed in Montreal. The NHA further refined the rules: dropping the rover position, dividing the game into three 20-minute periods and introducing minor and major penalties. After re-organizing as the National Hockey League in 1917, the league expanded into the United States, starting with the Boston Bruins in 1924.
Professional hockey leagues developed later in Europe, but amateur leagues leading to national championships were in place. One of the first was the Swiss National League A, founded in 1916. Today, professional leagues have been introduced in most countries of Europe. Top European leagues include the Kontinental Hockey League, the Czech Extraliga, the Finnish SM-liiga and the Swedish Hockey League.
Related Research Articles
Bandy is a winter sport and ball sport played by two teams wearing ice skates on a large ice surface while using sticks to direct a ball into the opposing team's goal.
Hockey is a term used to denote a family of various types of both summer and winter team sports which originated on either an outdoor field, sheet of ice, or dry floor such as in a gymnasium. While these sports vary in specific rules, numbers of players, apparel, and playing surface, they share broad characteristics of two opposing teams using a stick to propel a ball or disk into a goal.
Ice hockey is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an ice skating rink with lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice hockey sticks to control, advance, and shoot a closed, vulcanized, rubber disc called a "puck" into the other team's goal. Each goal is worth one point. The team which scores the most goals is declared the winner. In a formal game, each team has six skaters on the ice at a time, barring any penalties, one of whom is the goaltender. Ice hockey is a full contact sport, and is considered to be one of the more physically demanding team sports. It is distinct from field hockey, in which players move a ball around a non-frozen pitch using field hockey sticks.
Roller hockey is a form of hockey played on a dry surface using wheeled skates. It can be played with traditional roller skates or with inline skates and use either a ball or puck. Combined, roller hockey is played in nearly 60 countries worldwide.
A hockey puck is either an open or closed disk used in a variety of sports and games. There are designs made for use on an ice surface, such as in ice hockey, and others for the different variants of floor hockey which includes the wheeled skate variant of inline hockey. They are all designed to serve the same function a ball does in ball games.
Shinty is a team sport played with sticks and a ball. Shinty is now played mainly in the Scottish Highlands and among Highland migrants to the major cities of Scotland, but it was formerly more widespread in Scotland, and was even played in Northern England into the second half of the 20th century and other areas in the world where Scottish Highlanders migrated.
A face-off is the method used to begin and restart play after goals in some sports using sticks, primarily ice hockey, bandy, floorball, broomball, rinkball, and lacrosse.
Shinny is an informal type of hockey played on ice. It is also used as another term for street hockey. There are no formal rules or specific positions, and often, there are no goaltenders. The goal areas at each end may be marked by nets, or simply by objects, such as stones or blocks of snow. Body checking and lifting or "roofing/reefing/raising the puck" are often forbidden because the players are not wearing protective equipment. Shinny is a game that all levels of hockey enthusiasts can play because it requires no rink, requires no skills except ability to hold a stick and at the very least to try to touch the puck or ball when it goes by. Shinny may be completely non-competitive and recreational.
The Victoria Hockey Club of Montreal, Quebec, Canada was an early men's amateur ice hockey club. Its date of origin is ascribed to either 1874, 1877 or 1881, making it either the first or second organized ice hockey club after McGill University. The club played at its own rink, the Victoria Skating Rink in Montreal. The club was winners of the Stanley Cup in 1895 and held it until 1899, except for a period in 1896. The club remained amateur, splitting from the ranks of teams turned professional in 1908. The club was the first winner of the Allan Cup and continued to play until 1939, when it folded after its 65th season. The club often also fielded junior and intermediate teams.
Street hockey is a collection of team sport variants played outdoors either on foot or with wheeled skates, using either a ball or puck designed for play on flat, dry surfaces. The object of every game is to score more goals than the opposing team by shooting the ball or puck into the opposing team's net. All games are derivatives of either the sport of ice hockey, floor hockey, bandy, and/or field hockey.
Floor hockey is a broad term for several indoor floor game codes which involve two teams using a stick and type of ball or disk. Disks are either open or closed but both designs are usually referred to as "pucks". These games are played either on foot or with wheeled skates. Variants typically reflect the style of ice hockey, field hockey, bandy or some other combination of sport. Games are commonly known by various names including cosom hockey, ball hockey, floorball, or simply floor hockey.
James George Aylwin Creighton was a Canadian lawyer, engineer, journalist and athlete. He is credited with organizing the first recorded indoor ice hockey match at Montreal, Quebec, Canada in 1875. He helped popularize the sport in Montreal and later in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada after he moved to Ottawa in 1882 where he served for 48 years as the law clerk to the Senate of Canada.
Roller hockey, rink hockey or quad hockey is a team sport played on roller skates. It is a quad-skate team sport where two teams face-off against one another, trying to drive a hard ball with their sticks into the opposing teams' goalnet. Each team has five players on the rink at a time, four of whom are skaters and one who is the goalkeeper. The ball can only be put in motion by a stick, not the skate, otherwise a foul will be stated. The game has two 25-minute halves, with 15-minute halftime intermission, plus up to two 5-minute golden goal periods to settle ties with the clock stopping when the ball becomes dead. If the tie persists, a penalty shootout will determine the winner. Players – including the goalie – use quad skates, whereas inline skates are used in inline hockey. The sticks are similar to those in bandy and shinty. Excessive contact between players is forbidden in rink hockey, unlike inline hockey.
The Victoria Skating Rink was an indoor ice skating rink located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Opened in 1862, it was described at the start of the twentieth century to be "one of the finest covered rinks in the world". The building was used during winter seasons for pleasure skating, ice hockey and skating sports on a natural ice rink. In summer months, the building was used for various events, including musical performances and horticultural shows. It was the first building in Canada to be electrified.
Pond hockey is a form of ice hockey similar in its object and appearance to traditional ice hockey, but simplified and designed to be played on part of a natural frozen body of water. The rink is 50 to 80 percent the size of a standard NHL-specification rink, and has no boards or glass surrounding it; usually only a barrier of snow keeps the puck in play. In addition, because there are no protective barriers behind the goal to contain high errant shots, the top of the goal is lower, in fact only slightly taller than the width of a puck, and the game does not have a formal goalie. Because of these differences, pond hockey places more emphasis on skating and puckhandling ability and less on shooting and checking. Non-competitive pond hockey is played with improvised goals, rinks of a variety of sizes, and no boards or snow barriers. There can only be 4 players playing per team at a time but have many subs to sub in.
Ice hockey has been played in the United Kingdom since the beginning of the twentieth century, and it was a game between English Army veterans played in Canada that is the first recorded use of a sawed-off ball, which led to the use of the puck in hockey. The Great Britain men's national ice hockey team enjoyed worldwide success through the 1920s and 1930s, achieving bronze at the 1924 Olympics, and gold twelve years later. They also won medals at the World Championships in 1935, 1937 and 1938, though never won the tournament. The national team has struggled since the Second World War, and has not finished better than twelfth in the World Championships since 1962. Ice hockey is played professionally in the United Kingdom in the Elite Ice Hockey League, a ten team league which was founded in 2003.
On March 3, 1875, the first recorded indoor ice hockey game took place at the Victoria Skating Rink in Montreal, Quebec. Organized by James Creighton, who captained one of the teams, the game was between two nine-member teams, using a rubber "puck". Members used skates and sticks used for outdoor hockey and shinny games in Nova Scotia, where Creighton was born and raised. It is recognized as the first organized ice hockey game.
Rinkball is a winter team sport played on ice with ice skates and is most popular in Finland, where it is known as kaukalopallo. This ball sport originated in Sweden in the 1960s and from there landed in Finland in the 1970s.
Ice hockey is the most popular indoor sport in Scotland, with a fairly established presence in each of the population centres and a spectator attendance lower only than football and rugby union. The term "hockey" is usually reserved for field hockey in Scotland, and "ice hockey" is normally referred to by its full form.
Ice hockey, simply referred to as "hockey" in both English and French in Canada, dates back to the 19th century. The sport is very popular and played year-round and at every level in the country. Born of various influences from stick-and-ball games brought from the United Kingdom and indigenous games, the contemporary sport of ice hockey originated in Montreal. It is the official national winter sport of Canada. Hockey is widely considered Canada's national pastime, with high levels of participation by children, men, and women at various levels of competition.
↑ Vaughan, Garth (1996). The Puck Starts Here: The Origin of Canada's Great Winter Game, Ice Hockey. Fredericton, NB, Canada: Goose Lane Editions. p.23. ISBN0864922124.
↑ Gidén, Carl; Houda, Patrick (2016). "The Birthplace or Origin of Hockey". Society for International Hockey Research. Archived from the original on January 26, 2016. Retrieved February 5, 2016.
↑ Gidén, Carl; Houda, Patrick; Martel, Jean-Patrice (2014). On the Origin of Hockey. Hockey Origin Publishing. ISBN9780993799808.
↑ The trophy for this tournament is on display at the McCord Stewart Museum in Montreal. A picture of this trophy can be seen at McCord. "Carnival Cup". McCord Museum. Archived from the original on August 19, 2016. Retrieved October 28, 2021.
↑ "Playing Hockey Here Is A Serious Offense...Bert Morrison Hauled Over the Coals in Montreal for Participating in Western Pennsylvania League Games-Hearing Is In Progress". The Pittsburgh Press. November 10, 1902. p.12. The London club alleged that [Bert] Morrison was an amateur under suspension by the O.H.A. when he played [against the London club in a game on November 8, 1902]: also that he received money directly or indirectly for playing hockey [in 1901] in Pittsburg (sic) and competed with and against [Harry] Peel and [goaltender] Hern, who have been professionalized by the O.H.A.
↑ "Professional Hockey". The Ottawa Journal. February 8, 1898. p.6. The athletes in the city who are under the ban of professionalism think that they could organize a hockey team that would beat anything in the city in a practice game.
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