The Sport Of Ice Hockey

Ice hockey is one of the most action-paced of sports, demanding skillful skating, expert stick-handling, and masterly puck control.

The game developed in the frozen expanses of North America, and a hundred years ago became the national winter sport of Canada. It also became very popular in the northern states of the United States, and later spread to Europe, Japan, and even to Australia.

The game probably arose from boys playing on the ice. The kids probably fashioned pucks from frozen "horse apples" and adapted tree branches as hockey sticks, and played on cleared stretches of frozen lakes and rivers, and backyard rinks. Soon it was inevitable that teams began to play against each other and leagues were formed. The earliest mention of the