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