Whether it’s the sushi-serving confines of the Air Canada Centre in Toronto or the frozen metal bleachers at your local arena, hockey is played and loved by people from all walks of life. And all it really takes is a patch of ice, some players and a puck. That’s what makes this game so special, and it’s also what explains why hockey is so popular worldwide.
The term hockey refers to a family of both summer and winter team sports that involve two opposing teams maneuvering either a type of ball or disk into the opponent’s goal using a stick. The different varieties of the sport differ in rules, number of players, playing surface and equipment, but all share the basic characteristics of a two-team contest using a stick to propel an object into the opponent’s goal.
The exact origin of the game is unclear, but modern ice hockey probably developed from ground-based stick-and-ball games such as hurling (Ireland), shinty (Scotland) and bandy (England). Research has also discovered evidence of a similar game called chamiare that may be a relic of an earlier Indian version of field hockey.
While most modern hockey games are played on ice, the game’s earliest roots in the United States were in field hockey and lacrosse. It was likely that the game was brought to North America by British soldiers and sailors who accompanied Sir John Franklin on his 1825 attempt to find the Northwest Passage.
In the 19th century, Canadians introduced a variation of the game that was more closely aligned to modern ice hockey. This version of the game was played on a rink, and it used a flat puck made of vulcanized rubber instead of cork.
By the 1920s, the Canadians had formed a professional league called the National Hockey League, and the rest is history. Since then, the league has expanded to include teams from all over the world, but its roots remain firmly anchored in the nation that invented the game.
To ensure the safety and security of all players, USA Hockey requires all participants to complete a criminal background screening prior to participating in sanctioned events. All screenings are conducted through NCSI. To learn more, click here.