How ice hockey started remains a mystery, but it's popularity is impossible to miss. Photo courtesy of photosforclass.com.
Though historians have tried, it's difficult to pinpoint the true origins of hockey. It's speculated that the game may date back to the Middle Ages, ancient Greece or ancient Egypt.
Phil Pritchard, curator at the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto, found evidence that hockey has been around awhile. "There's a painting in the 1500s of people playing something on ice that looks like hockey," he said according to an article from history.com. "They even had sticks."
However, it's also possible that hockey evolved from the ancient Irish game of hurling. Or perhaps the game is a descendant of “chamiare,” a stick-and-ball game popular in the early 1600s in Scotland.
It could have developed from “bandy,” a popular game in the eastern plains of England that began in the mid-1700s. In this game, players laced up their iron skates and jumped on the ice that formed on the flooded meadows.
Bandy quickly spread to London, and by the 1850s British soldiers were playing the game in eastern Canada.
In summary, how hockey truly began remains a mystery, but it seems that it drew inspiration from a number of other games.
According to The Canadian Encyclopedia, the term "hockey" emerged in 1773 when it was published in an English book called “Juvenile Sports and Pastimes.” It's hard to distinguish if this was field or ice hockey though.
In the 1840s, the mystery was solved as we can see an English newspaper that referenced ice hockey. In 1842, a Scottish newspaper wrote about a hockey fatality: "[T]he ice suddenly broke in, and several were immersed, but rescued, except [an] unfortunate lad."
More popularity was brought to the game in 1864 when, according to a London newspaper, the Prince of Wales – Albert Edward – was reportedly seen playing a game of hockey .
"The game was kept up with great animation until 2 o'clock when the prince and the players repaired to the Fishing Temple, where they partook of a sumptuous luncheon," the paper read.
According to the International Ice Hockey Federation, the first organized ice hockey game occurred on March 3, 1875. The game featured two teams of nine men from Montreal's Victoria Skating Club.
However, according to Pritchard, there's evidence suggesting organized games took place earlier in the century in Canada and the United States.
In the 1875 game, it's reported by the Montreal Star that the teams used a flat, wooden block as their puck, "so that it should slide along the ice without rising, and thus going among spectators to their discomfort."
By 1899, ice hockey had grown in popularity in the northeastern United States. According to the Montreal Gazette, "it had advanced steadily (in the New York City area), numbering its enthusiasts by thousands last winter, where two seasons ago they could hardly have been counted by hundreds."
While it may come as a shock that hockey did not begin in Canada, Canada still deserves lots of credit for modernizing and popularizing the sport.
In the late 1800s, organized leagues formed in Canada. Rules also evolved, including the size of the net, the use of a rubber puck and the number of players on the ice. Soon, these rules were adopted worldwide.
In 1917, four Canadian teams came together to form the National Hockey League. Shortly after this – in 1920 – the Winnipeg Falcons won the first hockey world championships, expanding Canada's ice hockey legacy.
In 1924, the Boston Bruins joined the NHL, becoming the first American team in the league. After this, several American teams also joined. Now, the NHL consists of 32 teams, seven of which are from Canada.
Nowadays, ice hockey continues to grow in popularity. According to thesporting.blog, ice hockey ranks as the fifth most popular sport in the United States. The sport really became a hit after the United States won gold for ice hockey at the 1960 Winter Olympics in Rome, Italy.
Whether hockey began in the 1500s or in 1773, there's no denying the fact that the sport has evolved dramatically in the last few centuries.
What began as an English sport has found its way to every corner of the world, becoming a popular worldwide sport.
While ice hockey doesn't quite have the fame that football and basketball does, don't be surprised if it's equally popular in a few decades.
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