Vigorous outdoor family enjoyment is alive and well in some places, even on a cold and gray winter’s day, such as yesterday. Pond ice here was thick enough to skate on and even to play ice hockey yesterday, but today’s relatively warm weather and rain may change that.
This pleasing sight made me wonder: Where did this strange game originate and how did the sport (ice “hockey”) and its projectiles (“pucks”) get their unusual names? A little online research provided some possible answers.
The hazy origins of ice hockey apparently began with stick-and-ball games similar to field hockey played on unfrozen ground in the Middle Ages and perhaps even ancient Greece. Variations played in the winter on ice began to appear in Britain in the 17th and 18th Centuries and in Ireland, where a milder form of manipulating an object on ice – hurling – apparently originated.
In the middle of the 19th Century, British soldiers stationed in Canada played the game on ice there and fascinated locals; it was there that it apparently was influenced to become rougher by the Native American sport of lacrosse. It caught on big-time in Canada, where ice hockey and its equipment apparently were developed into what became the game we have today.
The name “hockey” is thought by many to be derived from the French word for a shepherd’s stick, “hoquet.” Shepherds’ sticks often had curved ends to hook sheep or defend against predators. The word “puck” is thought to derive from the Scottish Gaelic “puc” or the Irish “poc,” meaning (among other possibilities) to “poke.” (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on January 9, 2024.)