Informative Essay: Why Hockey Is Not An American Sport
1497 Words6 Pages
When you think of the sport hockey what comes to mind? Hockey is popular sport, but every time I hear it I can’t help but think that it is not an American sport. We are all familiar with the misconception of hockey originating in Canada, or hockey is played only in Canada. When actually it is played all around the world. The “ball and stick” games have been played for centuries now. It first was played in Greece as early as 400 BCE. As civilizations grew so did the sport. During the 1600’s paintings in the Netherlands showed Dutch citizens playing a game just like golf but on ice also using skates. All types of games much like hockey were played centuries after that but it was not until the 1800’s that hockey was invented. In 1872 a man named James Creighton moved to Montreal, Canada and introduced ice hockey. It had been hockey sticks and skates that made ice hockey famous. The skates were made by a Nova Scotia company in 1866 which included round blades held onto the boot with metal clamps. In fact it was the first time this was ever done and is not different from the modern skates we use today. After introducing the sport, Creighton got a group of his close friends to practice ice hockey inside the Victoria Skating Rink. Ice hockey was not ideal to be an indoor sport beyond popular belief that it belonged outdoors because you…show more content… The Canadians may have invented the idea first but the United States soon adapted to the idea of ice hockey. Hockey is the most popular team sport played on ice. In 1992 Women’s hockey was accepted as an Olympic sport. The USA hockey teams won the games in 1960 in Squaw Valley, and in Lake Placid. The modern rules of hockey are that there is two opposing teams and unless there is a penalty each team has 6 players. The method to winning the game is to shoot the hockey puck into the other team’s net. The net is guarded by a goalie, and scoring is never