Tracking down the commencement of hockey isn’t easy, as the game evolved over hundreds of years from various countries. Different variations of the game were titled as shinny, shinty, hurley, and yes, hockey, which makes it quite equivocal to nail down when and where the game exactly originated from.
Some say the sport can be traced back to the 1790's, with evidence supporting this claim that it came from Britain. British naturalist Charles Darwin is said to have enjoyed the sport.
Although we can’t be sure of where the actual birthplace of the game was, we do have the first ever footage of the sport. Another notable figure from the past, Thomas A. Edison, a great American inventor, created this short film titled Hockey Match on Ice.
If you look closely, you can actually see Chris Chelios and Jaromir Jagr engaged in a puck battle, with a bunch of onlookers trying to make it look like a children’s soccer game by the way they’re all bunched up.
Just last week, video surfaced of a game from the 1930's between the Montreal Canadiens and the Chicago Blackhawks. Chelios played for both of those clubs. Coincidence?
Notice the horizontal face-offs?
Pretty cool to see the evolution of the game from then compared to now.
