The origins of ice hockey remain debated by Canadians. Particularly convincing is the claim that an early form of the sport was first played in Nova Scotia while it was still a British colony.

A game called Hurley was being played with a stick and ball on ice in Windsor NS as early as 1844. Author Thomas Chandler Haliburton was the inventor of the character Sam Slick, a Yankee pedlar from the USA. In his book, The Attaché; or, Sam Slick in England (1843), Haliburton wrote about Hurley being played on ice in Windsor. Originally, Hurley is a field game played year-round in Ireland with a ball and sticks. Obviously, it had been adapted to Nova Scotian winters, when the ice on ponds would have been much smoother than a field full of snow.

It seems that the name of the game changed from Ice Hurley to Hockey because an English military officer stationed at Fort Edward, in Windsor, made his soldiers play the game for exercise in the winter months. His name was Colonel Hockey. However, another version of the origin of the term is that it derives from the French word, hocquet, which means shepherd's crook. The shape of a shepherd's crook resembles the shape of a hockey stick

It appears that 1863 was the year when skates - boots with metal runners attached to the soles - became the footwear of choice. Skates were popular in western Europe long before the invention of Hockey, but in 1863, Starr Manufacturing Co., in Dartmouth NS, introduced Acme Club Spring Skates, made of steel. They revolutionized skating and Hockey.

In 1873, a boy who had grown up in Nova Scotia went to Montréal to attend McGill University. This was James George Aylwin Creighton. Creighton is credited with introducing a regularized form of the game to the city of Montréal, although British soldiers stationed there had also been playing winter stick-and-ball games on ice as early as the 1830s.

Creighton's rules for playing the game gave us the sport that is still played today. The first public match was played by these rules in Montréal on 3 March 1875. Gradually, the game was formalized to its modern standards. There are five players and one goalkeeper on each team. The goal area is made by two posts, covered with netting. The ice surface is surrounded by boards to keep the puck in play as much as possible. The puck is a disk made of vulcanized rubber.

The first sticks used in Creighton's version of the game were made by the Mi'kmaq Native peoples of Nova Scotia. The first choice for wood was the Hornbeam tree, also commonly known as Ironwood. The Mi'kmaq carved strong and durable one-piece sticks, the blade coming from the tree's root and the handle from the tree's trunk. Eventually, the supply of Ironwood was depleted and yellow birch became the alternative.

In the early forms of Ice Hockey, a player was not allowed to pass the puck forward. This made the game like English Rugby Football. However, in order to speed up the play, this rule was gradually withdrawn. Now, Hockey resembles International Football (Soccer) in this respect.

By the end of the nineteenth century, Ice Hockey had spread across Canada. In some places, wooden sheds or barns were constructed over the ice surface so that spectators could be protected from winter winds. Eventually, artificial ice was developed, and the Hockey season was extended and played on more consistently smooth ice surfaces.

As the sport grew in popularity, it spread to the USA even though all players were Canadian. Professional leagues developed and a regular schedule of games was established. The National Hockey League came into being in 1909 and took on its current name in 1917. It is known today simply as the NHL.

In the 2000-2001 season, each of thirty NHL teams will play 84 games in the regular season. Play begins in early October and the regular season ends in the first week of April. Then, four rounds of playoffs occur in order to determine the league winner. This team is awarded the Stanley Cup. The trophy was donated by an early Governor General of Canada, Lord Arthur Stanley. It was awarded to a championship team for the first time in 1893.

Hockey was introduced in Europe when it was played in Austria and Belgium in the 1880s. Canada enjoyed a dominance in hockey until the 1950s when teams from the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics began winning both the annual world championship and also the Winter Olympics gold medal.

For a long time, Canadians thought that if the best professional players from Canada played the Soviet teams, Canada would easily win at hockey. However, in 1972, a tournament of eight games was organized between the two countries. Four games were played in Canada and four in the USSR. Canada won by only the narrowest of margins: 4 victories, 3 defeats, and 1 tie game. Since then, Canada has faced fierce opposition from teams representing Russia, Finland, Sweden, the Czech Republic, and the Slovak Republic. As well, the USA rises to the top level of international competition from time to time.

In the past two decades, hockey has come to be played by more and more girls and women. Although it involves less physical contact, the sport offers great excitement for both participants and viewers because of the high level of skills required. University women's hockey and international competitions are gaining wide fan appeal. The Canadian women's team has won the world championship for the past six years. However, it always faces strong opposition from the USA.

The men's version of the game is all but leaving Canada at the professional level. The reason is the power of the USAmerican economy, which draws the best players and even whole teams to USAmerican cities. There the game is not well understood and has no history, but the fans have the money to spend on multiple forms of entertainment, so they can support high salaries for the players. Not just Canadian but also European and Russian players are attracted to the National Hockey League for this reason.

It is still the case that six of the NHL's thirty teams are based in Canadian cities - Montréal Canadiens, Ottawa Senators, Toronto Maple Leafs, Calgary Flames, Edmonton Oilers, and Vancouver Canucks. However, these teams' budgets cannot afford the very best players.

As was the case with the move of Wayne Gretzky, the sport's best-ever player, from Edmonton to Los Angeles in 1989, so it is now the trend for a player at the height of his career to go to the USAmerican team that will pay him the highest salary - usually more than $3 million per year.

This developing pattern will perhaps open the way for an increased interest in Canadian women's hockey. As with any sport, the fan wants to see the best players of the game. If the best players of women's hockey can be seen playing in Canadian cities, it is possible that a great shift in the tradition of this Canadian pastime will occur, and women's hockey will become Canada's sport of choice.

The Hockey Hall of Fame was founded in 1943. Buildings in Toronto ON were opened in 1961. In 1993, the Hockey Hall of Fame moved to new facilities in Toronto. The Hockey Hall of Fame emphasizes Hockey in North America. About 300 former players, builders, and officials have been inducted as honorary members of this institution. As its website illustrates, the Hockey Hall of Fame does not represent well the international game of hockey or its history.