Revolution of organizational History of Hockey

Video: Let us know about the past to present of hockey. Watch the video below.

In 1872, a young man from Halifax, Nova Scotia named James Creighton moved to Montreal, bringing the sport of ice hockey (hereafter referred to just as “hockey”) with him – more particularly, bringing with him hockey sticks and skates. The skates, which were patented by a Nova Scotia company in 1866, featured rounded blades held onto boots by metal clamps (the first time that had ever been done and not too different from modern skates). After introducing the game to his friends, Creighton, in 1875, organized a group of players to practice the sport indoors at the Victoria Skating Rink. The sport had never taken hold indoors, forced outdoors by the societal belief that ice hockey only belonged on ponds, due in large part to the danger of a ball flying around inside. Creighton solved the problem by creating a “flat, circular piece of wood,” the first hockey puck. After practicing for about a month, Creighton staged a public exhibition of the sport on March 3, 1875. While some praised the new sport, others decried the violence in the game.

The earliest games in the sport were not carbon copies of the current version; the Halifax Rules , which Creighton played under in the March 3rd game, said the puck couldn’t leave the ice, no forward passing was permitted and the goalie couldn’t fall down or kneel to make saves. As the sport’s popularity skyrocketed in Montreal in the late 1800s, the official rules of the sport were created, the Montreal Rules, in 1877. Injured players could now be replaced, team sizes were set at seven a side (down from eight) and the rink’s measurements were now made standard.

Lord Stanley:
Hockey took the country by storm, as hockey teams sprouted up across eastern Canada, both at universities and at amateur athletic clubs. McGill University (at which James Creighton studied law) established the first university hockey team in 1877, and the 1880s saw an explosion of teams. The first hockey leagues formed in the mid-1880s, while the Amateur Hockey Association of Canada (AHAC), which began in 1885, was the first national hockey organization. At the Montreal Winter Carnival in 1889, at a match between the Montreal Victorias and the Amateur Athletic Association, Sir Frederick Arthur Stanley, Governor General of Canada, with his wife and two children stopped to watch the game. Stanley was taken with the game, and helped to form a team, the Rideau Rebels and a league, the Ontario Hockey Association (which formed in 1890). Two years after the formation of the OHA, Stanley created the concept of a regional competition and gave a cup to be awarded to the victor, the Dominion Challenge Trophy. In 1893, it was decided the cup would never become the property of any team and was renamed the Stanley Hockey Championship Cup. While the cup, about the size of an association football, has undergone several cosmetic changes over the years, the Stanley Cup is still awarded to the champion of the National Hockey League today.

Growth:
As the country spread west, so did the sport. The Manitoba Hockey Association was formed in 1892, and first competed for the Stanley Cup four years later. In their first attempt at capturing the Cup, the Winnipeg team defeated their counterparts from Montreal, (the first team the Cup winners didn’t come from Montreal), and the reports of the victory came down in hockey’s first play-by-play, done by telegraph. The Cup continued to be awarded, year after year, to teams mainly from Montreal, the hockey capital of the world. In 1900, a team from Halifax competed for the Stanley Cup, losing to the Montreal Shamrocks 11-0. However, the Halifax team had come west with the practice of putting up fishing nets on the back of the metal posts that served as goals. The tradition stayed, and the first goal nets were born.

Throughout the late 1800s and early 1900s, the game spread not only geographically but also across the classes. While the amateur athletic clubs who played organized hockey were made up of upper class men, hockey leagues and teams formed among both the middle and lower classes, often by banks or mining companies for example. Women also played early organized hockey, forming their own leagues by the turn of the century. The first black hockey league began in Nova Scotia, the Colored League of the Maritimes, in 1900. Its creation was spurred because the white leagues wouldn’t allow black players. The game had also spread all the way to the Pacific in Canada and south to the United States by 1900, in places like Vancouver, the Yukon Territory, New England and Michigan. Early hockey, however, was also plagued by excessive violence. In two cases, one in 1905 and another in 1907, hockey players were put on trial after blows that killed other hockey players. Both times the players were found innocent, but the press and many in the country (including the juries) called on legislation to be enacted that would curb the violence.

Professional Hockey:
Hockey’s popularity led to serious moneymaking for the owners; the Stanley Cup in particular was a huge financial success, drawing large crowds who paid good money to watch the games. Hockey’s success also led to gambling on the sport. However, despite all the money coming from the sport, almost none was going to the players. The leagues in Canada and the U.S. were strictly amateur, and though money often changed hands under the table, the vast majority of players were never paid. That all changed in 1904. Jack Gibson, born in Ontario in 1880 and a hockey star there, moved to Michigan to study dentistry in Detroit shortly after the turn of the century. After setting up a practice in Houghton, Michigan, Gibson formed the Portage Lake hockey team in 1902. Gibson’s team was given a new arena by local businessman James Dee, who invested a great deal of money in the team. The Portage Lake squad was exceptionally good, beating most opponents over the next two years. This was helped by the fact that Gibson had been recruiting Canadian stars to come play for the team, offering to pay them. In 1904, Gibson’s Portage Lakers beat the Stanley Cup champion Montreal Wanderers. The success of the two game series – called the World Championship – led Dee and Gibson to form the International Hockey League, the first professional hockey league. The league’s first teams came from Houghton, Calumet, Michigan, Pittsburgh, Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan and Sault Ste. Marie, Canada. Hod Stuart, star of the Portage Lake team, took advantage of free agency in the new league and signed with Calumet as player-coach for $1,800 per season (worth $44,700 today). As the league experienced early success, players from Canada swarmed over the border, drawn by the prospect of being paid to play hockey. Canadian hockey finally responded with the creation of the Ontario Professional Hockey League in 1907, which helped persuade some Canadian stars to cross back over the border. In the other Canadian hockey leagues, players were now being paid quietly, drawing even more back to the country, and between the Canadian hockey leagues now paying their talent and a recession, the International Hockey League folded in 1907.

Continue