A while back I watched Hockey: A People's History [1] and over the course of many chapters (and weeks) I fell in love with our nation's winter sport all over again. Its origins are rooted in some places you may not expect, and others are pretty obvious. Here are some unique tidbits that you can share with your friends:
As far back at 1800, a game called "Hurley-on-Ice" was played by students in Windsor, Nova Scotia at King's College. Hurley was an Irish field game of Gaelic origin that involved using a wooden axe-shaped stick, called a "Hurley" to hit a ball and score on the goalkeeper. The game took off in various forms but as a winter sport played on ice, its popularity grew and within only a few years, more ice rinks were being built in Eastern Canada. Equipment started to take shape as spring skates modified for ice hockey were invented and patented in 1866 and sticks carved by the Mi'kmaq first nation were the most popular for decades to follow.
When the young sport is introduced to Montreal at McGill university a few years later, it was played by rugby teams and actually resembled rugby; with no forward passing and lot of bodychecking. In 1892, a Canadian Governor called Lord Stanley of Preston purchased a silver cup and decided to present it every year to the best hockey team in Canada. Actually as the story goes, it was his hockey-loving children that convinced him to do honor the sport in this way.
If you live in Vancouver, there's a statue of Lord Stanley at the entrance to Stanley Park, which is also named after him.
And to think, if not for his children and their love of the sport - we wouldn't have the Stanley Cup.
Photo of McGill hockey match in Montreal, Quebec from Wikimedia Commons.