A Brief History Of Hockey

This game has been played in a variety of ancient cultures including those in Egypt, Scotland, Rome, and parts of South America.  The Irish referenced the game as “Hockie,” and this may very well be the root of the modern reference for the game.  The history of hockey proves fascinating and promptly reveals this game’s curious evolution.

History Of Hockey: How It Began

By the seventh and the eighteenth century, the game of stick and ball became violent, fierce, and one associated with chaos.  Small hamlets or villages would have competitions against their neighboring villages and the teams at the time would have as many as one hundred team members each.  Since the game was an indication of manhood as well as village pride the game became violent, chaotic, and very dangerous.  Gaming would last for a period of about two weeks or more and severe injuries were not uncommon.

When the Eton College in England created rules regulating the game, the number of team members was reduced to thirty players.  The rules that were created certainly helped to make the game less chaotic, but hockey has always been a sport associated with various dangers.  In 1875, the Hockey Association was created and they came up with more regulations for the game; these rules helped to make the game of hockey more positive in terms of its nature and it improved upon the authority of the game’s umpire too.

Field hockey, of course came first and ice hockey followed.  Ice hockey had its rules devised by J. G. Creighton, a Canadian, who first put the rules into action in the year 1875 in the very first ice hockey game every played in Canada in Montreal.  The first ice rink used for the first hockey game was one used for the curling game popular in the eighteenth century in Scotland.  Ice hockey had thirty players on a team and the first goals on the rink were actually stones that were frozen into position on the rink of ice.  In 1879, official rules for ice hockey were created by McGill University.  The game later became one played in the United States in the early 1890s.  By the turn of the century, ice hockey was being played in the United Kingdom and other parts of Europe too.  For more information visit http://www.sportsknowhow.com/hockey/history/hockey-history.shtml.

History Of Hockey: Its Evolution

The first hockey sticks were offered in the 1800s; they were crafted out of wood material and sported a bladed end that was wide.  By the 1920s, players would use tape on the sticks to improve the strength of the hockey stick blade and the hold the stick would have on the gaming puck.  At the time, the blades were fairly straight and curved hockey blades were not created until the late 1950s.  A player by the name of Bobby Hull had discovered that after accidently breaking a hockey stick and using it in play that the stick was far more accurate went it was bent than when it was not bent.  By the 1980s hockey sticks were being crafted out of metal.  Today there are three kinds of hockey sticks that are used: those made of aluminum, those made of reinforced composite wooed, and those made of regular wood material.

Hockey was allowed as a game in the Olympics by 1908.  At that time only men were allowed to get in on the game.  It would take just over seventy years before women could play the game in Olympic games.  In 1920, ice hockey was played in the Belgium Olympics hosted in Antwerp during the summer games.  The latter game was the very first International Championship for ice hockey.

Some historians argue that Pierre Lapin is the creator of the game of ice hockey; it is believed that he discovered the game after he would use a bent stick to help him balance on the ice’s surface.  This same stick can now be viewed at the Hockey Hall of Fame located in Toronto, Canada.  After swinging the bent stick at a bladder derived from a beaver that had been frozen, Lapin devised the notion of playing hockey on the ice.  Stanley Park, the Prime Minister at the time, created a league of ice hockey players and established a team; they were offered a tea pot for a prize when playing a game; this teapot later became the shape for the coveted Stanley Cup that hockey players vie for today.  For more information visit http://www.historyofhockey.net/.

History Of Hockey: The Game Today

The first documented hockey games every played in Britain were in the 1850s, but Canada is recognized as the nation that has been the creator of modern ice hockey gaming.  Up until the 1870s a ball was used in this game, but after the new rules were created by McGill University a puck was used instead.  Team players were reduced down to a total of nine as well.  The first pucks ever used in the game were actually square, not round.

In 1880, an amateur league for hockey was created in Ontario.  By the early 1890s, there were over one hundred clubs dedicated to hockey in existence in Montreal.  The first US games were played at universities: at John Hopkins and Yale universities respectively.  The Stanley Cup is offered as a yearly prize; the prize has been offered since the early 1890s.  The only year that the Stanley cup was not offered was in the year 1919 when the hockey tournament was canceled due to an outbreak of influenza. 

Today, in the United States, hockey is considered one of the chief sports, but the game is more popular in Canada.  Presently there is a Western Women’s Hockey League, a Canadian Women’s Hockey League, and a National Hockey League.  For more information visit http://www.icnsportsweb.com/history-ice-hockey-origins.html.