A (brief) History of Men’s Hockey
Hockey has been around for over 4000 years in one shape or form, commonly known as ‘the ball and stick game’ by ancient empires as far reaching as Egypt and Rome. It wasn’t till the late 1800s that skates were strapped to the feet and proper pucks were engineered.
In the 17th and 18th Century in the UK, hockey was played on grass by neighbouring villages with teams of up to 100 players on the field at a time! It was the Irish who first coined the term, “Hockie”. A form of hockey was also played by the native Mi’kmaq people called it tooadijik or wolchamaadijik.
Legend has it that Quebecer Pierre Lapin first introduced the game to the ice. He was said to have used a crooked stick to help him walk comfortably over the surface of the ice, where he swung at a piece of a frozen beaver bladder which fell short of a small bay, or makeshift goal post.
The first recorded hockey games were played by British soldiers stationed in Kingston and Halifax during the mid-1850s. By 1875, the rules of the game were officially laid down by JG Creighton of Montreal. Since there were no proper rinks yet, curling rinks or frozen ponds, were used at first. The rules established the number of players per side to 9 and replaced the ball with a wood puck. In 1892, the current Governor General, Lord Stanley Park, decided to form a league of talented player and offer a prize to the winning team. A decorative cup, fashioned by Boodles and Dunthorne Jewelers of London, was offered as the prize which began to set a trend for future games played.
In 1910, the National Hockey Association (NHA) was formed in Montreal. The NHA would further refine the rules, dropping the rover position, splitting the game into three 20-minute periods and introducing the system of minor and major penalties. After re-organizing as the National Hockey League (NHL) in 1917, the league expanded into the United States in 1924 and took official control of the Stanley cup.
Hockey was first played in the Olympics in 1908 and only men were permitted to play the game. It wasn’t until 1980 that women’s hockey teams were allowed to compete in the Olympics. Oddly, ice hockey was played in early April of 1920 as a part of the Olympic Summer Games in Antwerp, Belgium. The tournament was also famous for being the first World Hockey Championship.
