My Strange Rescue, and Other Stories of Sport and Adventure in Canada

by J. Macdonald Oxley

Not that hockey is native to the soil in the same sense as lacrosse. In a simpler form, and under different names, it has long existed in England; but the difference between the game as played there on the green and played in Canada on the ice, is as great as that between an old-fashioned game of rounders and a professional game of base-ball.

The most ancient account of hockey is to be found in that dear, delightful old book, Strutt's "Sports and Pastimes of the People of England," where it figures under the name of "bandy ball,"—what is now called the hockey stick being then known as the "bandy;" and there is attached to the description a comical little woodcut representing two boys in short frocks, each wielding bandies almost as big as themselves, playing with a ball half the size of their heads.

As first played in Canada, hockey went by various names, some of which were apparently merely local—hurley, shinny, rickets, and so forth, It was played only upon the ice in winter-time, and there was not much pretence to rules, each player taking part as best he knew how. No effort toward systematizing the game appears to have been made until the year 1875, when the members of the Montreal Football Club, in search of some lively athletic amusement for the long winter months, recognized in hockey the very thing they wanted.

At first the rules adopted for the regulation of the game were modelled upon those of the English Hockey Association. But as the game developed, many changes were found necessary in adapting it to the requirements of a rink, and the rules now used by the Amateur Hockey Association of Canada are in the main original with it.

Starting from Montreal, the game has made its way to Halifax and St. John on the east, and to Ottawa and Toronto on the west, and from the enthusiasm with which it has been taken up at these cities, it actually threatens to displace tobogganing and snow-shoeing in the affections of the young men.

Let me now try to give my readers some idea of the game and the way in which it is played. Please picture to yourselves a skating-rink with an ice surface one hundred and fifty feet in length by seventy-five feet in width. At either end, close to the platform, are the goals, consisting of two slender poles placed six feet apart, and standing four feet high, with small red flags at their peaks. Such is the field of battle, and upon it the players take their places. They are dressed much as they would be for football, except that their feet are shod with skates of a peculiar make, the heel projecting more than in an ordinary skate, in order to guard against getting a nasty fall when heeling up suddenly. Each player is armed with a hockey stick, as to the size of which the only rule is that it shall not be more than three inches wide at any part. A good stick should be made of a single piece of ash, bent, not sawed, into the proper curve, of the length and weight the player finds to suit him best. The bone of contention between the contending sides is called the puck, and is a circular piece of vulcanized rubber one inch thick all through, and three inches in diameter. It is slightly elastic, and will rebound from the board sides of the rink if sent violently against them; a fact which enables an expert player to evade an opponent charging down to wrest it from him, as by striking the puck against the boards, and picking it up again on the rebound, he can keep on his way unchecked.

The teams are arranged in the following manner:—Goal-keeper takes his place between the posts, and a little forward of them; point stands about four yards out, and a little to one side, so as not to interfere with the goal-keeper's view down the centre; cover-point's position is from ten to fifteen yards out from goal, and on the opposite side to point; centre's post is indicated by his name; and the same may be said of the right and left forwards, and the half-back, who supports centre.

"THE GAME GOES ON IN LIVELY EARNEST."

For the control of the game there are a referee, who follows it about as does the referee at football, and two umpires, one at either goal, the sole business of the latter being to decide whether or not the puck has passed between the posts, and not above the flags.