Fighting is not condoned in hockey.
Players who fight are given penalties and can be ejected from the game.
Fighting can also lead to suspension.
Although European and collegiate leagues are stricter than North American leagues when it comes to fighting, it still occurs, often to protect teammates.
Research suggests that ice hockey is derived from a game played in Nova Scotia by the Mi'kmaq people.
It included the use of a "hurley" (stick) and a square wooden block.
It was probably fundamentally this game that spread throughout Canada via Scottish and Irish immigrants and the British army and evolved into an informal ice game later known as shinny or shinty.
Ice hockey is an Olympic sport.
The sport made its Olympic debut in 1920 in Antwerp, Belgium .
Participating teams consisted mostly, if not completely, of amateur players.
However, in 1995 an agreement between governing bodies and player associations allowed professional athletes to compete at the Olympics, and National Hockey League players participated in the Olympics from 1998 through 2014.
Ice hockey is immensely popular in Canada , where it is the national winter sport and arguably the country's most popular game.
Hockey is also popular in the United States and in European countries such as Russia , Sweden , and Finland .
More than a million registered athletes play regularly in leagues worldwide.
Ice hockey is a game between two teams who wear skates and compete on an ice rink.
Each team usually has six players.
The object is to propel the puck past a goal line and into a net guarded by a goaltender.
Ice hockey is popular for its speed and frequent physical contact.
ice hockey , game between two teams, each usually having six players, who wear skates and compete on an ice rink.
The object is to propel a vulcanized rubber disk, the puck , past a goal line and into a net guarded by a goaltender, or goalie.
With its speed and its frequent physical contact, ice hockey has become one of the most popular of international sports .
The game is an Olympic sport, and worldwide there are more than a million registered players performing regularly in leagues.
It is perhaps Canada 's most popular game.
History
Origins Until the mid-1980s it was generally accepted that ice hockey derived from English field hockey and Indian lacrosse and was spread throughout Canada by British soldiers in the mid-1800s.
Research then turned up mention of a hockeylike game, played in the early 1800s in Nova Scotia by the Mi'kmaq (Micmac) Indians, which appeared to have been heavily influenced by the Irish game of hurling; it included the use of a "hurley" (stick) and a square wooden block instead of a ball.
It was probably fundamentally this game that spread throughout Canada via Scottish and Irish immigrants and the British army.
The players adopted elements of field hockey, such as the "bully" (later the face-off) and "shinning" (hitting one's opponent on the shins with the stick or playing with the stick on one "shin" or side); this evolved into an informal ice game later known as shinny or shinty.
The name hockey-as the organized game came to be known-has been attributed to the French word hoquet (shepherd's stick).
The term rink, referring to the designated area of play, was originally used in the game of curling in 18th-century Scotland.
Early hockey games allowed as many as 30 players a side on the ice, and the goals were two stones, each frozen into one end of the ice.
The first use of a puck instead of a ball was recorded at Kingston Harbour, Ontario, Canada, in 1860.
Early organization The first recorded public indoor ice hockey game, with rules largely borrowed from field hockey, took place in Montreal's Victoria Skating Rink in 1875 between two teams of McGill University students.
Unfortunately, the reputation for violence that the game would later develop was presaged in this early encounter, where, as The Daily British Whig of Kingston, Ontario, reported, "Shins and heads were battered, benches smashed and the lady spectators fled in confusion.
" The first organized team, the McGill University Hockey Club, formed in 1877, codified their game's rules and limited the number of players on a side to nine.
By the late 1800s ice hockey competed with lacrosse as Canada's most popular sport.
The first national hockey organization, the Amateur Hockey Association (AHA) of Canada (which limited players to seven a side), was formed in Montreal in 1885, and the first league was formed in Kingston during the same year, with four teams: the Kingston Hockey Club, Queen's University, the Kingston Athletics, and the Royal Military College.
Queen's University scored a 3–1 victory over the Athletics in the first championship game.
Britannica Quiz Sports Moments Nicknames Quiz Stanley Cup By the opening of the 20th century, sticks were being manufactured, shin pads were worn, the goaltender began to wear a chest protector (borrowed from baseball), and arenas (still with natural ice and no heat for spectators) were being constructed throughout eastern Canada.
In 1893 national attention was focused on the game when the Canadian governor-general, Frederick Arthur, Lord Stanley of Preston, donated a cup to be given annually to the top Canadian team.
The three-foot-high silver cup became known as the Stanley Cup and was first awarded in 1892–93.
(The first winner was the Montreal Amateur Athletic Association team, which also captured the Stanley Cup the following season by winning the initial challenge series to determine the Cup holder, which was the Cup-awarding format that Lord Stanley originally intended.
) Since 1926 the cup has gone to the winner of the National Hockey League play-offs.
In 1899 the Canadian Amateur Hockey League was formed.
All hockey in Canada at the time was "amateur," it being "ungentlemanly" to admit to being paid for athletic services.
Thus, the first acknowledged professional hockey team in the world was formed in the United States, in 1903, in Houghton, Michigan.
The team, the Portage Lakers, was owned by a dentist named J.L.
Gibson, who imported Canadian players.
In 1904 Gibson formed the first acknowledged professional league, the International Pro Hockey League.
Canada accepted professional hockey in 1908 when the Ontario Professional Hockey League was formed.
By that time Canada had become the centre of world hockey.
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