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history of hockey is almost as messy as
some of the fights on the ice of pro hockey
rinks. Some historians trace the game back
to hurley, an Irish field game that was
played year round with a ball and a stick.
Other historians say the game derived from
Lacrosse and other field games played by
the Micmac Indians in Nova Scotia. Yet another
school of thought says hockey developed
in Northern Europe were field hockey was
played on frozen lakes in the winter. This
eventually developed into the English game
of bandy.
Did you get all of that?
Before we argue about who is correct and
send the others to the penalty box, let’s
just agree that hockey was probably influenced
by several earlier stick and ball games.
We’ll then pick up the history of
the sport in the mid 19th Century.
O Canada
Canada is without argument the homeland
of modern hockey. British soldiers stationed
at Hallifax and Kingston played the first
recorded hockey games in the mid 1850s.
In the early 1870s students at Montreal’s
McGill University drew up the first known
set of ice hockey rules. These rules established
the use of the puck rather than a ball and
set the number of players per side at nine.
The puck used by these early McGill players
was square rather than round.
The first amateur hockey
league was organized in Kingston, Ontario
in 1880. During the next decade ice hockey
quickly became popular in Toronto, Ottawa,
Montreal and other Canadian cities. By the
end of 1893, there were more than 100 hockey
clubs in Montreal alone. About that same
time, the first hockey games in the United
States were played at Yale and John Hopkins
Universities.
The Oldest Trophy in North
American Sports
Ice hockey had become such a phenomenon
in Canada that in 1893, the Governor General
of Canada donated a permanent trophy to
be presented to the best hockey team. The
Governor General’s name was Lord Stanley
of Preston and the silver bowl inlaid with
gold that he donated became known as the
Stanley Cup. The original cup cost $48.57
and is now mounted on a large base to allow
room to inscribe the names of winning teams.
Today, the trophy is insured for $75,000.
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