Halifax Rules
Halifax rules are considered to be the first ever “standardised” rules of the ice hockey (we mean ice hockey in the form similar to the current ice hockey).
Halifax rules were used around mid-1800s and probably several decades before. There was no written form of these rules and we cannot expect that ice hockey were played according to the same rules everywhere (and still, it is not played according to the same rules nowadays, e.g., icing in the NHL and in the rest of the world).
As we have said, Halifax rules were never published but we know their outline – in an interview with James Power, a sports reporter, Colonel Byron Weston (see the photo on the left side) revealed the outline of the so-called Halifax rules and we cite these rules from CBC.ca.
Outline of Halifax Rules
- The game is played with a block of wood for a puck.
- The puck is not allowed to leave the ice.
- The stones marking the place to score goals are placed on the ice (at right angles to those at present), parallel to the sides of the ice surface.
- There is to be no slashing.
- There is to be no lifting the stick above the shoulder.
- When a goal was scored, teams change ends.
- Players must keep ‘on side’ of the puck.
- The ‘forward pass’ is permitted.
- All players play the entire game.
- There is a no-replacement rule for penalized players.
- The game is made up of two thirty-minute periods with a ten-minute break.
- The goal-keeper must stand for the entire game.
- Goals are decided by the goal umpires, who stand at the goal mouth and ring a handbell.
The eighth point of these rules is interesting while in the later form of the ice hockey rules the forward pass was not permitted.
Halifax rules were taken to the Montreal by James George Aylwin Creighton and were altered to the Montreal rules (or McGill rules).