History of ice hockey

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Boys in Sarnia Bay, Ontario choosing teams in December 1908

The history of ice hockey is indeterminate.

[edit] Pre-recorded history

The sport is suspected to have existed in a very rudimentary form as far back as the sixteenth century in Europe. The earliest skate blades were carved from animal bones, while iron blades were used in the Gulf of Bothnia area in the 1500s. Some historians argue that the game originated in Mesopotamia in the third millennium B.C., because a form of "hockey" appears in the Gilgamesh epic.^[1] Early forms were compared to the Irish sport of hurley or hurling. Hockey is said to have been played in North America as early as the late eighteenth century, with Windsor, Nova Scotia, and Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, most often cited as the game's birthplace. Dartmouth is the home of Starr Manufacturing Company, Canada's earliest producer of ice skates.

Although contested, Kingston lays claim to being the birthplace of ice hockey. This claim arises from a game played in 1886 between Queen's University and the Royal Military College of Canada, and is recognized by the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association. The rivalry between Queen's and RMC is the world's oldest in hockey.