History of Hockey

[w4J]

www.wilmettehockey.com/history1.htm

As Einstein said, everthing's relative.

If you're a Canadian, hockey started in Canada, if you're English, it commenced in Great Britain. Indeed, some say the North American Indian was the first to give us hockey, others say it was developed as early as the middle ages in Northern Europe.

So far the only thing that's been evident is that no one in the United States lays claim to inventing hockey.

An Englishman has claimed that hockey was a forbidden sport in his country as early as 1527 because of its violent nature. He then points to records circa 1813 from the village of Bury Fen as revealing that its team had played unbeaten hockey for the previous 100 years. We give this little credence in no small part because of the English tendency to claim that everything ever invented was, or was born from something English. The game, known as bandy, was played with a ball of wood and curved sticks cut from the lower branches of a willow tree. Bandy, combined with the Indian game of Lacrosse has been asserted to be the true origin of hockey.

More appealing to us however, is a theory which argues that a rudimentary form of the game was played in the early 1800's by the Micmac Indians which was a combination of the Irish sport of hurling and Indian Lacrosse. The game included the use of the Irish "hurley" (stick) and a square wooden block rather than a ball. As time went on players adopted elements of field hockey, such as the "bully" (later know as the face off) and "shinning" or hitting one's opponent on the shins with the stick or playing with the stick on one "shin" or side. Later, the stick grew longer so a player could use both hands and the wooden block became a puck.

Hockey spread throughout Canada starting around the mid 1850's via Scottish and Irish immigrants and the ever present British Army. As to where the first formal game of hockey was played, the cities of Halifax, Kingston and Montreal all lay claim to the honor. This is mere speculation, but we'd say that if you're an Anglophile you'd more than likely attribute the first game to the British garrison stationed in Halifax. On the other hand, English speaking Canadians most likely attribute the first game to the Royal Canadian Rifles at Kingston, Ontario, while French Canadians would probably list the location of the first game as Montreal, McGill University to be exact. While the location of the first game is up in the air, no one seems to dispute the fact that the name hockey came from the French word "hoquet" meaning shepherd's crook.

In any event, the first hockey league was formed in Kingston by four clubs. These played with nine men to a side, although it has been noted that the number of players varied from community to community. As with anything that grows in popularity, a committee was soon established in Kingston to codify the rules of hockey. From its ruminations seven positions were established: one goalkeeper, three forwards, two defensemen and a rover who moved between offense and defense (a perpetual backchecker perhaps?)

The Stanley Cup, named after Baron Stanley of Preston, Governor General of Canada, was awarded, commencing in 1893, to the annual amateur hockey champion of Canada. (Did you know that the Stanley Cup is the oldest trophy in professional sports competition in North America? Yes, even older than the Super Bowl ring.) The cup, after 1917, was awarded to the champion of the NHL. And the first winner of the Stanley Cup?...The Toronto Arenas defeated the Vancouver Millionaires 3 games to 2 in the best of five series. The next year no winner was named, after an influenza epidemic in Seattle caused the championship between the Montreal Canadiens and the Seattle Metropolitans to be called off. 1919 saw the same Canadiens defeat the Metropolitans 3 games to 2.

We can't tell you why an American team played against a Canadian team for the 1919 Stanley Cup when we are told by one source that no American team was a member of the NHL until Boston joined in 1924, but that's what we have learned. Anyone know the answer? Anyway, during the next two years, teams from Chicago, Detroit and Pittsburgh joined, while two teams entered the league from New York. The Pittsburgh team and one New York team dropped out and by 1942 the original six teams were, as we all know, the Montreal Canadiens, Toronto Maple Leafs, Detroit Redwings, New York Rangers, Boston Bruins, and our very own Chicago Blackhawks.

We must stress that this brief review only outlines what is really the "trunk" of the hockey tree. It's branches extend to hockey in the U.S., Scandinavia, Russia, Germany, Czechoslovakia, Italy, France, and even England...yes, there is a history of British hockey. Great Britain actually won the Olympic gold in 1936, you know. Maybe, someday, we'll get into that, but for now, Hockey 101 is in recess.

***Thanks to HockeyStop for this article***