Hockey History
Less and less goals in NHL – Famous Fact for Today
Season 1942-1943 is the start of the Original Six Era and this picture shows you how many goals (in average) were scored in each season until current 2014-2015 season. How do you like it? Do you think that we will see more goals?
78th IIHF World Ice Hockey Championship in Belarus
Belarus will host 78th World Ice Hockey Championship from May 9 to May 25, 2014. You can remind yourself the last championship in Sweden and Finland on our site.
Sochi Olympic Games – Hockey
Sochi (Сочи), Russia was announced as the host city of the XXII Olympic Winter Games 2014 on July 4, 2007. In the final round, Sochi won over Pyeongchang (South Korea) and Salzburg (Austria). Pyeongchang (South Korea) was elected four years later as a host city of XXIII Olympic Winter Games 2018.
12 teams in three groups competed for the gold medal from 7 to 23 February 2014. You can find details about Olympic Games in Sochi, results, and more at our site Sochi Olympic Winter Games.
Ice Hockey History Overview
Ice hockey is one of the most popular sport games in the world. The best national teams in the history of hockey come from Russia, Canada, the Czech Republic, Sweden, Finland, Slovakia and USA; clearly, ice hockey is very popular in these countries.
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.
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, Jaromír Jágr, Maurice Richard, etc. and many great goalies, e.g., Martin Brodeur, Dominik Hašek, Patrick Roy, George Hainsworth, etc.
Kontinental Hockey League (KHL) is the second most famous hockey league in the world. It was formed recentrly, in 2008 but the tradition goes back to the year 1946.
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.
