preview

Ice Hockey Research Paper

Good Essays

The modern game of ice hockey is played in many different countries all over the world. Similar to most sports ice hockey has evolved over centuries and was influenced by several groups and individuals from various countries. Ice hockey is one of the fastest growing sports in the world. The game has seen a great increase of interest in the United States. “In 1990-91, USA Hockey’s national membership stood at 195,125 players. In just 10 years, that number ballooned to 439,140 in 2000-01. Just last season, USA Hockey boasted 510,279 members, the second most all-time and just under 1,000 less than the record 511,178 set in 2011-12”(Peters, 2013). When most people, think about hockey they think of Canada being the origin of hockey. However, depending …show more content…

There are two main ideas of where hockey could have come. First, is that Canada is the birth place of ice hockey. T.C. Haliburton was an author from Windsor, Nova Scotia, Canada during the 1830’s. He became popular from his short fiction stories. In these short stories characters spoke with dialogue and acted as if they were playing ice hockey. However, there is no other evidence such as a journal entry, a letter, or autobiographical to make Haliburton’s reference concrete. Consequently, people do not know whether Haliburton was drawing on personal observation at King’s College. Where he went to school, or elsewhere, or was simply applying his creative imagination. The evidence provided by Haliburton is men skating and hurley on ice. These are favorite winter pastimes for the boys who attend King’s College. Also, the boys from King’s would take these games back home. Leading to no other records or documentation of hockey being played around this time …show more content…

Plus, Cocq uses the term “hockey” in his letter and describes a modern style of play, rather than ball and stick games. Which were very common in most civilization. Ball and stick games can be traced back to Persia, Egypt or China. Some of the earliest findings of ball and stick games were discovered by archaeological that show evidence as early as the 400’s BC in Greece. Furthermore, if hurley on the ice is to be the earliest form of hockey, then Haliburtion supporters would be able to show the activities depicted in European paintings. Paintings in the Netherlands in the 1700s showed the Dutch playing a version of golf on the ice. One of these paintings, was done by a Dutch painter, Hendrick Avercamp. In the 17th century, he painted “A Scene on the Ice” arguably depicts people on skates holding a curve stick striking a ball. Prior to 1800 in Europe, Dutch paintings show skaters with curved sticks. These paintings have more credibility as evidence of hockey being player there. Rather, than the short fiction stories by

Get Access