Ice Hockey History

The game of ice hockey is a very rough and aggressive sport which involves two teams battling against each other on a frozen sheet of ice. With this in mind, it may look easy to hit a black puck with a wooden stick into a goal, or a net, but not everyone can do it (“Ice” para 1). The origins, the early organization, and the changes in the game of ice hockey all help determine how the game developed overtime from the past to the present which in turn created a game that has been around for centuries all over the world.

The origins of ice hockey has many moving parts to it; nevertheless, there are many theories to which the game originated from. The term hockey comes from the French word “hoquet” meaning shepherd’s crook (“Ice” para 4). No

As people started to migrate to the West the game of ice hockey followed (Smith para 5). During the early stages of ice hockey, the game was played in my conditions. It was mainly played outside on lakes and ponds that naturally froze to solid ice. Posts and different boards were normally used as goals (Marsh para 6). When playing the game of ice hockey, the game often was very rough and dangerous. Players were getting severely hurt such as getting smoked in the shins and being hit in the head. Injuries were spreading everywhere (“Ice” para 3). During this early organization, lacrosse and ice hockey were going up against each other to see which sport was more popular than the other in Canada (“Ice” para 4). Between lacrosse and ice hockey going at each other, around 1879 the McGill University Hockey Club was the first ice hockey team that kicked started the game. Basically certain rules and the game of ice hockey quickly spread across Canada (Marsh para 5). The Montreal Ice Carnival hosted the first International Championship and the McGill University Hockey Club ended up winning the first International Championship (Marsh para 5). Eventually this sprouted the game of ice hockey making it the most popular game in Canada and around the mid-1880s ice hockey leagues first began to appear (Smith para 4). The first hockey group agency, however, was the AHA which stands for the Amateur Hockey Association was created around the 1885 in Montreal (“Ice” para 4). The year of 1892 another association was created called the Manitoba Hockey Association; furthermore, this the first association to play for the Stanley Cup (Smith para 5). Around 1893 a Governor General of Canada named Sir Frederick Arthur Stanley gave a trophy for the national championship game. The first national championship game was played for the Stanley Cup happened around March