There are several types of hockey, but the most popular is ice hockey, which has become a sports game known almost all over the world. Ice hockey competitions attract as many spectators as football competitions. It is paradoxical that the history of the emergence of hockey still contains a lot of contradictions.
The birth of ice hockey
The official version says that ice hockey was born in Canada, or more precisely, in Montreal. When the English colonists moved to Canada, they, among other things, brought with them a popular game with clubs and a ball on the grass - hockey. However, the harsher climate of the country forced them to change the rules of one of their favorite competitions. In 1765, skates had not yet been invented, so the Canadians found an original way out: they attached cheese cutters to their shoes. Hockey at that time was very different from modern sports. In particular, the game was played not with a puck, but with a ball, and the number of players on the field sometimes reached 50 people at a time.
The word "hockey" is most likely derived from the old French word "hoquet", which meant a shepherd's staff with a characteristic hook at the end. It was with such staves that the players hit the ball while playing on the grass.
However, the first official hockey match took place much later: in 1875 in his homeland, Montreal. It was then that the goal appeared on the ice, and the players fought for the possession of the wooden puck. The first seven rules of ice hockey were created by students at a university in Montreal in 1877. From a modern point of view, these rules were quite strict, since, for example, teams were forbidden to make substitutions, and the players were forced to play the entire match with one squad. The only exception was the option when one of the hockey players was injured, but here there were also limitations: only one injured player could be replaced, only in the last period and only by agreement with the opposing team.
Equipment to protect hockey players from injury during the first official match in Montreal was taken from the arsenal of baseball players.
Development and recognition
Since then, ice hockey in Canada has developed intensively: the wooden puck was replaced with a rubber one, nets appeared on the goal, and even the referee's metal whistle, which stuck to his lips in the cold, was changed to a plastic one. In the name of the entertainment of the game, substitutions were allowed. About thirty years after the first official match, the new hockey attracted the interest of Europeans, and in 1908 the International Ice Hockey Federation was founded. And already in 1920, ice hockey was included in the program of the Olympic Games held in Antwerp. The victory then went to the Canadians, as well as gold at the next two Olympics.
Meanwhile, some researchers argue that in fact the prototype of today's ice hockey was known in Europe as early as the 16th century. The engravings from those times do indeed depict a group of people, presumably playing some kind of game on the ice. Nevertheless, the development of modern ice hockey began in Canada, and no one is going to argue with this.
