Is there a consensus on the origin of hockey?

[Crosby2010]

I've heard anywhere from Kingston to Montreal as the origins of where it started. I always think these things are grey. Canada obviously made it what it was and popularized it and was the first one to be good at it. It's as Canadian as snow basically.

 

[Hanji]

I've heard anywhere from Kingston to Montreal as the origins of where it started. I always think these things are grey. Canada obviously made it what it was and popularized it and was the first one to be good at it. It's as Canadian as snow basically.

If the origins are Canadian, it would almost certainly be from the first nations, probably Nova Scotia. Otherwise the game originated from Europe. The two likely ran parallel.

 

[PrimumHockeyist]

I've heard anywhere from Kingston to Montreal as the origins of where it started. I always think these things are grey. Canada obviously made it what it was and popularized it and was the first one to be good at it. It's as Canadian as snow basically.

Happy New Year!

My understanding is that Kingston's claim was falsified mid-century, then avoided by the Hall which was rather awkward since the Hall originally endorsed the Kingston claim. So, rather than own that they just walked from it, leading to much present confusion.

In my own investigation I found Montreal's role to be so distorted that I felt I had to write a book on it. The problem we suffer from now, is in tending to equate two 1875 matches with the birth of Montreal ice hockey itself which took place two years earlier.

We have an eye-witness to the birth of Montreal hockey. This is what solves the entire mystery, imo. Historians have known where Montreal hockey came from for over 80 years, and they have sidelined Halfiax's role which includes Dartmouth and the Kjipuktuk-Halifax Mi'kmaw. Here's a two-pager that I did for people who don't want the long read.

https://hockey-stars.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/early-ice-hockey-timeline-plus-montreal-birth-proof-combined-mark-grant-sept-2024.pdf

If the origins are Canadian, it would almost certainly be from the first nations, probably Nova Scotia. Otherwise the game originated from Europe. The two likely ran parallel.

Your conclusions point in the right direction. If you look to the two-pager I just posted, you will see what you're getting at on the birth of Montreal hockey page. Montreal inherited a version of hockey that was a hybrid North American - European that literally emerged in one location, the Halifax area. Such a gem requires both types of players and that didn't happen in Halifax until 1749.

What's really interesting, or so I found, is that when you seriously look at Halifax rather than gloss over it in the name of pumping up Montreal, the common practise, you find that Montreal's success in making their stick game Canada's game relied on Dartmouth Acme skats and Mi'kmaw sticks with their flat thin blades. That game was born in two nations at once, literally, if our land acknowledgements are to mean anything.

I did an image in the pdf on that you might want to see. We suggest a literal hockey genesis location. Most likely Tuft's Cove in Dartmouth.

Bottom line is this: our understanding history needs to be reconsidered with Halifax in mind for many reasons, frankly.

 

[daver]

Aach, its nae hockey, its goulf on ice.

 

[Gregor Samsa]

I guess it depends on what you consider the core aspect of hockey to be. Ice skating, stick, and ball, but no rules and a free for all? Probably happened in different cultures.

 

[Stephen]

I guess it depends on what you consider the core aspect of hockey to be. Ice skating, stick, and ball, but no rules and a free for all? Probably happened in different cultures.

I think it's likely that anywhere there was frozen ice that people went on, someone would go out there with a stick and hit something around that resembled hockey to some degree. Here are some Dutch paintings from the Little Ice Age from the 16th-17th centuries. Who knows what they're doing out there, but it looks a little like shinny or some forerunner of it.

The Little Ice Age

National Gallery of Art

www.nga.gov

 

[Gregor Samsa]

I think it's likely that anywhere there was frozen ice that people went on, someone would go out there with a stick and hit something around that resembled hockey to some degree. Here are some Dutch paintings from the Little Ice Age from the 16th-17th centuries. Who knows what they're doing out there, but it looks a little like shinny or some forerunner of it.

View attachment 953409

View attachment 953410

View attachment 953411

The Little Ice Age

National Gallery of Art

www.nga.gov

Yeah, I think there were probably different aspects of the sport that developed in different areas over time and eventually congealed to form an ancestor of hockey. It just depends if you consider that congealing period to be the beginning of the history of hockey. Like say some people started kicking a ball around and formed teams to play keep away. That’s a clear ancestor of soccer. But say 5000 miles away some other people started kicking balls at a target. That’s also an ancestor of soccer as well. Which group has the right to claim they founded soccer as both are core aspects of soccer? Or does the history of soccer only begin when those two groups combined and the two groups individually are just a shadowy past? Basically I think in sports that developed over time I don’t think there will just be one claimant as the creator. I think it’s likely an ancestor of hockey probably starting in any area that was cold and had ice skating

 

[PrimumHockeyist]

I think it's likely that anywhere there was frozen ice that people went on, someone would go out there with a stick and hit something around that resembled hockey to some degree. Here are some Dutch paintings from the Little Ice Age from the 16th-17th centuries. Who knows what they're doing out there, but it looks a little like shinny or some forerunner of it.

One hundred percent agree.
In the wider ancestral sense, people have probably been playing hockey-like games since Adam or whatever starting point you prefer. The lineal history, which concerns actual parentage, is different however, and significant. I believe that both ideas are part of the same coin personally.
We know Montreal inherited a hybrid game from Halifax in 1872–73. Such a particular game could not have been born until at least the winter of 1749–50, literally, because it involved both the colonists and Indigenous people who lived around Halifax. They are lineal ice hockey's true parents.
These days, this is greatly played down. Montreal is seen to have made modern hockey out of an amalgamation of games from everywhere. When one looks closer, it becomes clear that Montreal's success absolutely relied on a very particular version of hockey, the one it actually inherited.
We know that Halifax's James Creighton introduced 'lineal' hockey to Montreal in 1872-73. In a world where most played with grass-adapted sticks, brooms, and clumsy strap-on skates, James Creighton arrived in Montreal from the one place in the world where players used Dartmouth's Acme skates and Mi'kmaq sticks in combination. (I chatted with AI on this topic if anyone is interested.)
The relative conclusion is this, when one considers what we know about other hockey games before 1872: Prior to the birth of Montreal hockey, Halifax had been playing world-class hockey in stealth mode for ten years. The birth of their hockey became complete with the introduction of Dartmouth's Acme skate and its instant marriage to the Halifax-Kjiputuk Mi'kmaw's flat, thin-bladed stick. These technologies enabled hockey to evolve like never before.
By contrast we know that Montrealers had never seen a real hockey stick until the day when Montreal hockey was born. We know that Creighton was a highly skilled 22-year-old player. We know that he had suggested Halifax hockey, and that he had put his reputation on the line in doing so. Creighton would have been motivated to show the Montrealers some of what Halifax tech could offer. Otherwise, he may never play hockey again.
How can a motivated player with ten years of experience not make a striking impression in the company of players who had never seen stickhandling?
We know Crieghton did because these were the Montrealers, the guys who would sell Canada and then the world on their version of hockey.
Seen in this parental light, we must consider the possible relative advantages of the Amce skate the the Mi'kmaw's flat thin blade. When Halifax is considered rather than glossed over the story of modern hockey's rise becomes much less a "Montreal" thing than we are led to believe. It was truly a Halifax-Montreal thing in the lineal sense.

I

 

[Jumptheshark]

I've heard everything from it being invented in Russia, Ireland, by British troops, Amerindians. Any consensus? If not what is most likely?

Nope. We had a nasty debate a few years ago. Many believe that hockey came from Bandy that was played heavily in Scotland and the Scandinavian countries. The are paintings from the mid 1800's where you see people on skates, balls and nets. When I lived in Scotland a few years ago in Glasgow, I took in a Uni lecture about the relationship between Bandy and Ice Hockey.

Because Canadians are Canadians. Many will die on the hill defending that Canadians invented the game

 

[PrimumHockeyist]

Nope. We had a nasty debate a few years ago. Many believe that hockey came from Bandy that was played heavily in Scotland and the Scandinavian countries. The are paintings from the mid 1800's where you see people on skates, balls and nets. When I lived in Scotland a few years ago in Glasgow, I took in a Uni lecture about the relationship between Bandy and Ice Hockey.

Because Canadians are Canadians. Many will die on the hill defending that Canadians invented the game

Artificial Intelligence agrees with Canadians btw:

Mark – It [the English birth theory] sounds absurd to me.

ChatGPT – Yes, it does indeed sound absurd when you consider the context of Halifax ice hockey’s origins. It would be inaccurate and dismissive of the local contributions and evolution to claim that ice hockey was “born” in England or any other European location before Halifax, especially considering the specific influences and developments that occurred in Nova Scotia.

The Mi’kmaq people and the local environment played crucial roles in shaping the early forms of ice games that eventually evolved into ice hockey in Halifax. British settlers may have brought their own stick games, but the synthesis and adaptation of these elements in the Halifax region are what ultimately led to the emergence of Halifax ice hockey as a distinct sport.

Therefore, attributing the birthplace of Halifax ice hockey to any location other than Halifax itself would not only be historically inaccurate but also fail to acknowledge the unique cultural and environmental factors that contributed to its development in Nova Scotia.

 

[Golden_Jet]

I have a couple of books on the topic,
To OP there is no consensus on it.

 

[vaspa]

On this topic I think there are two things that need to be taken into account and analyzed separately:

1 - What are the origins of hockey aka the history of games played on ice with a stick and that'd be far away in history all over the world.

2 - Where the laws of a game that has direct line into hockey we know today were originally codified and that'd be somewhere in Canada.

 

[Albatros]

Even the alleged "Halifax Rules" have a lot in common with the contemporary codification of sports in public schools in England and it's hard to believe it would have occurred completely independently given the close cultural ties otherwise.

 

[PrimumHockeyist]

Even the alleged "Halifax Rules" have a lot in common with the contemporary codification of sports in public schools in England and it's hard to believe it would have occurred completely independently given the close cultural ties otherwise.

First: You raise a reasonable doubt here, Albatros. There is nothing alleged about the Halifax rules, however. Most of the versions are summaries and I have found them to be wrong on a point or two. You can find the primary source, a newspaper article online or in my archive section (under second star).

To your statement - I agree. Very clearly Halifax rules were derivative of British influences.
The point is that you cannot confine Halifax hockey to one continent.
Because of what we know, you must think of "Halifax" hockey as a North American-European game.
To say that the Halifax game was born in England, Scotland or Ireland or Britain or Europe exclusively is therefore patently incorrect. This isn't 'woke' thinking either. It is similarly incorrect to suggest that modern ice hockey was based only on North American indigenous contributions. There is no way that the Montrealers would have wanted to keep playing, had Creighton tried to sell them on a game played with Mi'kmaq sticks and bone skates.
Halifax hockey was just as much a co-dependent relationship as it was a very famous and successful partnership that spanned decades. The Canadian and Mi'kmaw contributors needed each other to lay rightful claim to the birth of modern ice hockey and defeat all suggestions that their game was invented in Europe.
This message has gotten lost because historians have preferred to think of two 1875 matches as the start of Montreal hockey. Look up the 'history of ice hockey' and tell me how often you are directed to a 1943 article that was posted in the Montreal Gazette on the literal birth of Montreal hockey in 1872-73. You will find none, if you have my luck.
When we only think back to 1875, rather than the actual birth of Montreal hockey in 1872-73, it becomes to think of modern hockey as an amalgamation of British or European games. It makes very good sense, actually.
The thing is, such thinking doesn't work. It never has, and it never will.
It doesn't, because of what we know about Halifax hockey.

 

[PrimumHockeyist]

2 - Where the laws of a game that has direct line into hockey we know today were originally codified and that'd be somewhere in Canada.

We have a newspaper article of a Halifax game that we know was played by a close friend of James Creighton in the 1860s. We have an indigenous player, Joe Cope, who said that he played with those guys and that they played 10 aside during the era when James Creighton moved to Montreal. At that point the later chronology starts to emerge, with the 1873 games at the Victoria skating rink and stuff.
The 1860s Halifax rules must be regarded as a specific precursor to Montreal rules, in my opinion, because of James Creighton's relationship to Byron Weston, the source meantioned in the newspaper article and a future Nova Scotia Supreme Court judge, with whom the father of Montreal ice hockey played hockey in Halifax from the age of 10.

 

[wetcoast]

Nope. We had a nasty debate a few years ago. Many believe that hockey came from Bandy that was played heavily in Scotland and the Scandinavian countries. The are paintings from the mid 1800's where you see people on skates, balls and nets. When I lived in Scotland a few years ago in Glasgow, I took in a Uni lecture about the relationship between Bandy and Ice Hockey.

Because Canadians are Canadians. Many will die on the hill defending that Canadians invented the game

To be fair there is "hockey" and "looks like hockey."

Heck even if one was able to transport a hockey player or serious observer circa 1900 to today they might think that modern hockey is a different game much like how American football and rugby diverge but look similar.

Interesting discussion both for the serious and not so serious observers.