Send to KindleStanley Cup 2013 – Famous Fact for Today
Stanley Cup 2013 will be awarded soon, in the meantime you can find some interesting facts from the history of Stanley Cup (even before NHL era) in our new page dedicated to the Stanley Cup Winners. Go ahead and find which team is the most successfulin the history of NHL.
Ice Hockey History Overview
Ice hockey is one of the most popular sport games in the world. The best national teams in the history come from Russia, Canada, the Czech Republic, Sweden, Finland, Slovakia and USA; clearly, ice hockey is very popular in these countries.
CCCP – Soviet Union vs. Canada in the 1954 World Ice Hockey Championships in Stockholm, Sweden.
Hockey ancestors can be found as back as in Ancient Egypt (i.e. over 4000 years ago). Hockey-like games were part of many civilisations, e.g., beikou (China and Mongolia); hurling (Ireland); shinty (Scotland).
The birthplace of the ice hockey is a mystery. What we know for sure is that modern ice hockey is connected with Canada. It was played in Canada in 18th century. There are some other theories that ice hockey was first played in England or France. It is also possible that all theories are correct while in the 17th and 18th century the Little Ice Age occurred and people in many parts of the world had to adopt themselves on icy condition, including popular stick-and-ball games.
First published rules of the ice hockey are connected with James George Aylwin Creighton. He published so-called Montreal Rules in The (Montreal) Gazette on February 27, 1877. These rules developed from so-called Halifax Rules.
Ice hockey is part of the Olympic Games. The first ice hockey tournament was played as part of the Winter sports week on Summer Olympic Games in Antwerp, Belgium (1920). The first gold medal was won by Canada. This tournament is also considered as the first Ice Hockey World Championship. To the year 1968 (including), the World Championship was not played as a stand-alone tournament in the years when Winter Olympic Games were held.
Canada vs. Sweden, II Olympic Winter Games (1928, St. Moritz, Switzerland). Attribution: Bundesarchiv, Bild 102-05472 / CC-BY-SA
National Hockey League (NHL), the most famous hockey league in the world, was formed on November 17, 1917. Many great hockey players appeared in the NHL through the years, e.g., Wayne Gretzky, Mike Bossy, Bobby Orr, Mario Lemieux, Terry Sawchuk, Martin Brodeur, Dominik Hašek, Jaromír Jágr, Maurice Richard, etc.
As any other sport, ice hockey is connected with gambling. Possibly the biggest scandal is connected with Don Gallinger. He was banned from NHL in 1948 because of gambling.
Don Gallinger – player banned from NHL in 1948 because of gambling scandal (Photo source: Bruins Legends).
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