As early as the 16th century, games involving a ball and sticks on ice existed in the Netherlands. These games then appeared in England and Scandinavia, where they subsequently evolved into ball hockey. However, Canada is considered the birthplace of modern ice hockey. There are many versions of how hockey originated in this country.
One of them is that when Great Britain conquered Canada from France in 1763, English soldiers brought ball hockey to Halifax, and Canadians became enthusiastic about the new game. However, since Canadian winters are very harsh and long, the sport underwent a transformation in this region.
Attaching cheese cutters to their boots, English- and French-speaking Canadians played on frozen rivers, lakes, and other bodies of water. At first, they used a heavy ball instead of a puck, and the teams had up to 50 or more players on each side. The first official match took place in March 1875 in Montreal at the Victoria Rink. Information about that game was recorded in the Montreal Gazette. Each team consisted of nine players.
They played with a wooden puck, and their protective equipment was borrowed from baseball. At the same time, hockey goals were installed on the ice for the first time, which were wooden frames without nets.
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The book How Hockey Began states that in the early stages of the game’s development, it began with a “confrontation between two players”: the referee placed the puck between two opposing players and shouted to signal the start of the game. Rival hockey players were required to hit the ice three times with their sticks before entering the fight for the puck.
2. Initially, the goals were “bare,” which often led to disputes and even fights between players over whether or not a goal had been scored. Such conflicts became less frequent in 1900, when nets appeared on the goals. It is said that the puck seriously injured one of the spectators.
Then a Canadian fisherman who witnessed the terrible scene suggested hanging a fishing net on the goal.
Later, a metal net was placed on the goal. It was stronger, but after being hit, the puck would fly back and sometimes injure the goalkeeper or a field player near the goal. This drawback was corrected with a second rope net stretched inside the goal to soften the blow.
3. There is a story circulating in the hockey world about the origin of the puck. Sometime in the early 20th century, at a skating rink in Montreal, hockey players, who were using a rubber ball at the time, broke a lot of windows in neighboring shops and houses. After another ball flew out, the owner of the rink (or shop) took a sharp knife in a fit of rage and turned the ball into a disc. The hockey players were taken aback, but continued the game—and the new puck caught on.
There are, however, a number of other versions. They say that initially they used a wooden ball, then a rubber one. But somehow Canadian hockey fans came up with the idea of cutting off the top and bottom of the rubber ball, turning it into a disc. The puck stopped bouncing on the ice, and soon the idea spread widely.
Incidentally, there is a monument to the first puck in Canada. And on the monument, the puck is square with rounded corners. Does this mean that the first pucks were not round, but square? Most historians agree that this is not the case. Many also question the fact that hockey was once played with stones or tin cans. However, there are those who claim that this is exactly how it was!
4. In the early 1890s, Governor General of Canada Frederick Arthur Stanley bought a decorative punch bowl in London for only ten guineas.
Subsequently, this prize began to be awarded first to the best amateur team in Canada, and then to the professional team. In 1963, an exact replica of the trophy purchased by Lord Preston was made.
Since then, it has been awarded to the winners of the National Hockey League playoffs. Since the mid-1990s, there has been a tradition that all trophy winners can spend at least one day with it. And some people approach this in a more than original way. The cup has been used to eat popcorn, crayfish, and hot dogs, taken to the sauna, the cinema, and fishing, used to put children to sleep, and, for example, in 1996, defender Sylvain Lefebvre baptized his daughter in the cup.
This is a submitted article
