Hockey History

Bone Skates - Did Ice Hockey Start on Skates Made From Bone ?

Ice Hockey as we know it today is a fast sport played on skates made by various manufacturers, but they all have one thing in common, a thin blade of medal is what they skate on.

Centuries ago the 1st skates were made from animal bone, and from different types of animals and their bones, depending on where this culture of people who made them recided. At first these skates were for hunting and travelling across lakes and rivers, and then games were eventually played wearing these bone skates.

Let's take a look at at some of the history behind these skates.

Skates made from animal bones have been found throughout Scandinavia and Russia, including some that date back to around 3000 B.C.

The oldest pair of skates known date back to about 3000 B.C., found at the bottom of a lake in Switzerland. The skates were made from the leg bones of large animals, holes were bored at each end of the bone & leather straps were used to tie the skates on. An old Dutch word for skate is "schenkel" which means "leg bone."

According to a study done by Federico Formenti of Oxford University, and Alberto Minetti of University of Milan, the Finnish people were the first to develop ice skates about 5000 years ago, which were made from animal bones.

The researchers showed that people traveling across the region's frozen lakes reduced their physical energy cost by 10 percent.

Instead of walking all the way around the lake, he said, people found it much easier to travel between towns by skating or walking across the ice.

These early skaters would, the researchers believe, stand on two horse bones and propel themselves with a stick.

Southern Finland has more lakes within 40 square miles (about 100 square kilometers) than any other region in the world.

"I think ice-skating happened in [this] area because of the several long and thin lakes that people had to cross in order to get around, hunting for food or for any daily activity," Formenti said. Read Their Article Here

William Fitzstephen, writing in the 12th century, described the use of bone skates in London, England:

.... when the great fenne or moore (which watereth the walles of the citie on the North side) is frozen, many young men play upon the yce, some striding as wide as they may, doe slide swiftly... some tye bones to their feete, and under their heeles, and shoving themselves by a little picked staffe, doe slide as swiftly as birde flyeth in the aire, or an arrow out of a crossbow.

The oldest known image of ice skating is from the Carta Marina Wallmap by Olaus Magnus in 1539.

See the FULL MAP here

Hurstwic, LLC has a interesting article on Viking-Age Ice Skates, and they made replica bone skates where they tested the Olaus Magnus map drawing method. Read Their article here

Now what about Ice Hockey and other sports played on these bone skates.

James Laverance, who is a general sports historian from Canada, has been researching Ice Hockey, and has published on his blog some interesting facts about Hockey type games being played on the ice, by both American and Canadian First Nations peoples. Read His Blog Here

Myers Auction Gallery sold this beautiful Early Native American Indian Carved Bone Skate in early 2012 at auction.

Check Out The 12 Photos Of this Bone Skate Here

The Mi'kmaq (Mic Mac) First Nations people of Nova Scotia, Canada were known to have tied bones and shin blades to their moccassins to skate on the frozen lakes and ponds.

The Mi'kmaq people also had names for games and sticks that were used for these games. These words in their basic spelling are Oochamkunutk and Alchamadyk - other variations of spelling for these words are also used. The Mi'kmaq people were also famous for their hand carved sticks that were used for early Hockey games. So lets see - You have the Mi'kmaq people who tied bones to their moccassins for skating, had names for games & sticks on ice, and they were famous for their hand carved sticks. Although there is no documented proof, I think you can come to a very easy conclusion.

Different Northern American First Nations people have been described as skating with animal bones on their feet, and playing different types of games on ice. It has been recorded that some of of these games were called Shinny, which is a form of Ice Hockey. The word "Shinny" is actually a English word, and that is the term that was used by early explorers of the Americas when writing into their reports.

In Conclusion, we have Northern Europeans skating on bone skates centuries ago, then we have American First Nations who were described in the 1700s, that were playing games on ice wearing bone skates, then we have the Mi'kmaq people of Nova Scotia, Canada who were famous for the Hockey sticks they made, and were also described as wearing bone skates on ice. We have to conclude that the very 1st games of Hockey played on ice - They were wearing Bone Skates.

Adrienne Clarkson & Women's Professional Hockey - Clarkson Cup

Adrienne Louise Clarkson PC CC CMM COM CD FRSC(hon) FRAIC(hon) FRCPSC(hon) (Chinese: 伍冰枝; née Poy, February 10, 1939) is a Canadian journalist and stateswoman who served as Governor General of Canada, the 26th since Canadian Confederation.

Clarkson arrived in Canada with her family in 1941 as a refugee from Hong Kong and was raised in Ottawa, Ontario. After receiving a number of university degrees, Clarkson worked as a producer and broadcaster for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) and a journalist for various magazines. Her first diplomatic posting came in the early 1980s, when she promoted Ontario culture in France and other European countries. She was in 1999 appointed as governor general by Queen Elizabeth II, on the recommendation of Prime Minister of Canada Jean Chrétien, to replace Roméo LeBlanc as viceroy, and she occupied the post until succeeded by Michaëlle Jean in 2005.

Clarkson was the first visible minority to be appointed governor general, as well as the second female (after Jeanne Sauvé), the first Chinese Canadian, and the first without a military or political background. She was also the second person to have been appointed to the Order of Canada prior to nomination as governor general-designate, after Jules Léger.

When the 2004–05 NHL season was cancelled because of lockout, the Stanley Cup was not awarded for the first time since the 1918-19 Spanish Flu pandemic. In February 2005, Clarkson proposed that, since the Stanley Cup was to be awarded to the best professional Hockey team of the year (even though there were Canadian teams in the American Hockey League, which plays for the Calder Cup), it should be awarded to the best women's Hockey team because they were still playing. That idea was brought to Susan Fennell, the Commissioner of the National Women's Hockey League (and also Mayor of Brampton). In a media interview, Fennell commented that while the women had great respect for the Stanley Cup, it belonged to men's Hockey, and that the women actually did have a cup of their own, but simply one with no name. Fennell then came up with the idea that the Governor General should consider lending her name to the women's Hockey championship cup, as Lord Stanley had done years before for the men's Hockey championship. Clarkson was thrilled with the idea and later met with Fennell at Rideau Hall, where it was agreed that the women's Hockey championship trophy would be named the Clarkson Cup.

On September 14, 2005, outgoing Governor General Adrienne Clarkson had announced she's creating a new trophy in her own name for women's Hockey.

The Clarkson Cup is made of silver and was designed by Senior Instructor of the Fine Arts and Crafts Program of Nunavut Arctic College in Iqaluit. Canadian silversmith Beth M. Biggs was commissioned to make the Clarkson Cup. She designed and built the sterling trophy and collaborated with three Inuit artists: Okpik Pitseolak, Therese Ukaliannuk, and Pootoogook Qiatsuk.

Because of technical requirements, the Cup was produced in 3 locations in Canada. The stem and handles were hand made by Biggs at the Metals Studio of Brigitte Clavette RCA, at the New Brunswick College of Craft and Design in Fredericton. The main cup was spun by Mathieu Isabelle in Montreal at Desmarais & Robitaille Silversmiths, where the reproduction of the Stanley Cup was made. Once the construction of the Cup was completed the Cup was brought to Nunavut for the decoration of the surface of the Cup..

Biggs, who was recently elected to membership in the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts in recognition of her outstanding artistic achievements in the visual arts in Canada, knew she wanted to make a cup that was classically beautiful and feminine. The design of the cup is clearly classical with a large central cup and handles on each side. The stem of the cup is slender and gracefully supports the Cup. The handles, which are hollow formed by synclastic sinking, give the cup a posture of confidence and stature. There is definitely a sense of contentment and celebration about the object. The images on the cup are a blend of native and non-native designs.

The Clarkson Cup bears Adrienne Clarkson’s coat of arms on one side and on the other the image of the Inuit goddess Sedna who is the mother of all creatures of the sea and has dominion over all the creatures in the sea. Sedna is the most powerful spirit of the ocean with her home on the ocean floor. She has the head and torso of a woman and the tail of a fish. On the Cup Sedna is portrayed holding a Hockey stick in one hand and a puck in the other, lending her strength to the power of women’s Hockey.

Madame Clarkson wanted this image of the North on our women’s Hockey cup because without the North she stated that we would not have ice and snow and we would not have invented the game of Hockey. She felt that the source of our strength in this game lies in our strength as a Northern nation and our ability to make ice the heart of our beloved national game.

The pedestal is engraved with Hockey type masks and base engraved with flowers of each Province in Canada.

The Clarkson Cup was first awarded to the Canadian national women's Hockey team on July 10, 2006, with the expectation that Hockey Canada would take over the trophy and how it was to be awarded. However, complications arising due to the rights to the trophy (Clarkson wanting full rights to the trophy from the artists in order to turn the trophy over to Hockey Canada, while the artists wanting Hockey Canada to instead license the Cup in order to collect royalties from its use) and the splintered top level of women's club Hockey at the time resulted in the trophy not being awarded for three years.

At the time of the creation of the Clarkson Cup, there were two top professional women's Hockey leagues in Canada: the National Women's Hockey League in Eastern Canada and the Western Women's Hockey League in Western Canada (with one team from Minnesota) — the latter being formed from two former NWHL teams (the Calgary Oval X-Treme and Edmonton Chimos) due to travel costs, with no interleague championships to determine a true national champion. Though the two leagues were expected to merge in 2007 (with the five-team WWHL being absorbed into the 11-team NWHL as a new "western division"), logistics differences (due to playoff scheduling) made the merger impossible — the WWHL playoffs were finished before the Esso Women's Nationals, while the NWHL playoffs had yet to begin (and would not conclude until after the Nationals and the world championships). The NWHL folded at the conclusion of the 2006-07 season, with theCanadian Women's Hockey League taking its place. Though the CWHL and WWHL agreed on a format that would determine a national champion (to be decided with each league sending its two best teams to the Esso Women's Nationals, with the intent that it would be split off as a separate tournament from the senior women's tournament in the future), the Clarkson Cup remained unavailable — the Abby Hoffman Cup would be awarded in its place until the Clarkson Cup became available.

In March 2009, Clarkson and the artists behind the Clarkson Cup settled their licensing dispute, allowing the trophy to be presented. The inaugural Canadian National Women's Hockey Championship was held later that month, at the K-Rock Centre in Kingston, Ontario, featuring an identical format to that used for the Esso Women's Nationals the previous year for club teams. The Montreal Stars, champions from the East, prevailed over the Minnesota Whitecaps in the finals of the championship, which also saw the Brampton Canadettes-Thunder and theCalgary Oval X-Treme participate. Clarkson was on hand to present the trophy to the Stars upon their victory. Like the first Stanley Cup champion of 1893, the first Clarkson Cup champions come from Montreal, Canada.

Adrienne Clarkson donated the Clarkson Cup to The Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto, Ontario in March 2013 for a permanent home for the trophy and it's safe keeping.

"I just feel so wonderful when I think that long after I'm gone, this Cup will be in this case at the Hockey Hall of Fame," Clarkson said. "It's for the ages and it's for the future."

"It's not only a great day for women's Hockey, it's a great day for Hockey," said Phil Pritchard, vice-president and curator of the Hockey Hall of Fame. "Hockey is Canada's game and we want to preserve the sport as a whole. The Clarkson Cup has such a rich Hockey heritage and we are excited to bring it here."

The Biggest Trade In Sports History - Wayne Gretzky Traded

Two hours after the Oilers won the Stanley Cup in 1988, Gretzky learned from his father that the Oilers were planning to deal him to another team.^]Walter had known for months, but kept it from Gretzky so as not to upset him. According to Walter, Gretzky was being "shopped" to Los Angeles, Detroit, and Vancouver. According to Gretzky, Pocklington needed money as his other business ventures were not doing well, and had gone "sour" on Gretzky and wanted to move him. At first, Gretzky did not want to leave Edmonton whatsoever, but he later received a call from Los Angeles Kings owner Bruce McNall while on his honeymoon asking permission to meet and discuss the deal. During the meeting, a chance phone call from Pocklington to McNall occurred, without Pocklington's knowledge that Gretzky was in the room. Gretzky listened in as Pocklington summarily expressed his desire to be rid of Gretzky, a moment that swung momentum completely in McNall's favor. Angered and hurt by Pocklington's comments, Gretzky informed McNall that his prerequisites for a deal to take place were that Marty McSorley and Mike Krushelnyski join him as teammates in Los Angeles. After the details of the trade were finalized by McNall and Pocklington, one final condition had to be met: Gretzky had to call Pocklington and request a trade. When Pocklington told Oilers general manager and head coach Glen Sather about his plans to trade Gretzky to L.A., Sather tried to stop the deal, but when he found out that Gretzky had been involved in the negotiations, he changed his attitude and requested Luc Robitaille in exchange. The Kings refused, instead offering Jimmy Carson.

On August 9, 1988, in a move that heralded significant change in the NHL, the Oilers traded Gretzky, along with McSorley and Krushelnyski, to the Kings for Carson, Martin Gelinas, $15 million in cash, and the Kings' first-round draft picks in 1989 (later traded to the New Jersey Devils – New Jersey selected Jason Miller), 1991 (Martin Rucinsky), and 1993 (Nick Stajduhar)."The Trade", as it came to be known, upset Canadians to the extent that New Democratic Party House Leader Nelson Riis demanded that the government block it, and Pocklington was burned in effigy outside the Northlands Coliseum. Gretzky himself was considered a "traitor" by some Canadians for turning his back on his adopted hometown, and his home country; his motivation was widely rumoured to be the furtherance of his wife's acting career.

In Gretzky's first appearance in Edmonton after the trade—a game that was nationally televised in Canada—he received a four-minute standing ovation. The arena was sold out, and the attendance of 17,503 was the Oilers' biggest crowd ever to that date. Large cheers erupted for his first shift, his first touch of the puck, his two assists, and for Mark Messier's body check of Gretzky into the boards. After the game, Gretzky took the opportunity to confirm his patriotism: "I'm still proud to be a Canadian. I didn't desert my country. I moved because I was traded and that's where my job is. But I'm Canadian to the core. I hope Canadians understand that." After the 1988–89 season, a life-sized bronze statue of Gretzky was erected outside the Northlands Coliseum, holding the Stanley Cup over his head.

The Kings named Gretzky their alternate captain. He made an immediate impact on the ice, scoring on his first shot on goal in the first regular-season game. The Kings got off to their best start ever, winning four straight on their way to qualifying for the playoffs. Despite being underdogs against the defending Stanley Cup Champion Edmonton Oilers in the Smythe Division semifinals, Gretzky led the Kings to a shocking upset of his old squad, spearheading the Kings' return from a 3–1 series deficit to win the series 4–3. He was nervous that Edmonton would greet him with boos, but they were eagerly waiting for him. For only the second time in his NHL career, Gretzky finished second in scoring, but narrowly beat out Pittsburgh's Mario Lemieux (who scored 199 points) for the Hart Trophy as MVP. In 1990, the Associated Press named him Male Athlete of the Decade.

Gretzky's first season in Los Angeles saw a marked increase in attendance and fan interest in a city not previously known for following hockey. The Kings now boasted of numerous sellouts. Many credit Gretzky's arrival with putting non-traditional U.S. hockey markets on "the NHL map"; not only did California receive two more NHL franchises (the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim and San Jose Sharks) during Gretzky's tenure in L.A., but his popularity inSouthern California proved to be an impetus in the league establishing teams in other parts of the U.S. Sun Belt.

Gretzky was sidelined for much of the 1992–93 regular season with an upper back injury, the only year in which he did not lead his team in scoring. However, he performed very well in the playoffs, notably when he scored a hat trick in game seven of the Campbell Conference Finals against the Toronto Maple Leafs. This victory propelled the Kings into the Stanley Cup Finals for the first time in franchise history, where they faced the Montreal Canadiens. After winning the first game of the series by a score of 4–1, the team lost the next three games in overtime, and then fell 4–1 in the deciding fifth game where Gretzky failed to get a shot on net.

The next season, Gretzky broke Gordie Howe's career goal-scoring record and won the scoring title,^[32] but the team began a long slide, and despite numerous player and coaching moves, they failed to qualify for the playoffs again until 1998. Long before then, running out of time and looking for a team with which he could win again, Gretzky had been traded from the Kings at his request.

CBC Sports - The Wayne Gretzky Trade: Behind the Scenes

TSN Video - The Trade : I Promised Messe Trade: ''I

Pomised Mess''

Worlds Oldest Shinty Trophy - 1829 - Historic Scotland Treasure

The world’s oldest shinty trophy has remarkably turned up on a farm in the Highlands – just yards from where the match it had commemorated was played 184 years ago.

The decorated ram’s horn was displayed for the first time in decades when a game was re-enacted on the weekend of March 16-17, 2013 at the same location on Sutherland’s Loth Beach, in Craikaig.

Its whereabouts had been a mystery to the shinty world until its current owner came forward upon hearing about the plans to recreate the match.

Shinty historian Hugh Dan MacLennan has hailed it as “an amazing discovery”.

The trophy had been presented by players of the original match to notorious landowner, Major William Clunes of Craikaig – who was involved in the Highland Clearances – after he had hosted the game on Old New Year’s Day, 1829.

An inscription on the trophy reads: “From the young men of the parish of Clyne to Major Clunes.

“As a memento of their gratitude for the countenance and encouragement which he, as the only individual supporter from another parish, afforded twenty of their number while engaged in a Shinny Match against an equal number selected from the parishes of Golspie, Rogart, Dornoch and Creich, and which ended in a drawn game, 12th January, 1829.”

Shinny is thought to be the oldest form of the name for the game. The word is still used in Canada and north Minnesota for an informal game of ice hockey played on a frozen pond.

Mary Dudgeon, of Craikaig Farm, has now delighted shinty enthusiasts by coming forward with the trophy.

She said: “It was an amazing coincidence that the trophy returned to the area.

“My father-in-law, William Dudgeon, bought the Craikaig estate in 1922 after being a tenant here since 1908. His father before him had been a tenant since 1863.

“At the same time, in 1922, a cousin found this trophy in an antique shop in Inverness and realised the relevance to Craikaig, so bought it and presented it to my father-in-law. It has been here ever since.

“When I heard about this re-enactment of the original match being played I thought it appropriate to come forward with it.”

She added: “I don’t know why they presented Major Clunes, who was not well liked, with the trophy. I think he gave them a lot of whisky. I believe the game was played all day.”

Hugh Dan MacLennan said the trophy had basically been forgotten about until now.

He said: “I was absolutely gobsmacked when this turned up - it makes you wonder what else is hidden away in people`s lofts? It is an amazing piece of history of the game.

“An amazing and timely discovery.”

Organisers of the re-enacted game on Saturday said: “We will replicate this game in the same location, in the traditional way.

“We invite any and all able bodied player to join with new player, men women, children, novices and total newbies in a communal and community celebration of the ‘Old Ways’.

“It is being organised in the spirit of heritage and community, and it hopes to inspire more engagement with this most ancient of sports.”

STORY BY Alistair Munro of http://www.scotsman.com/

Jamie Dwyer - 300th Game Played for Australia Kookaburras

Jamie Dwyer could have been revered around the globe as another Cristiano Ronaldo or Lionel Messi had he chosen soccer over hockey.

But hockey chose him, writes Gené Stephan.

“Hockey is a family sport that people play because they love it and not because of the fame or fortune,” the Olympic and World Cup gold medalist said.

The 34-year-old Queenslander has five times been honoured as the best player in the world, ranking him not only as one of the best players of his generation, but also one of the greatest to have ever played the game.

As he prepared for his 300th game at the new FIH Hockey World League in Rotterdam on Wednesday June 19, 2013, his focus will be no different to what it was 12 years ago when he first forced his way into a star-studded Australian team as a 22-year-old.

He has always been relentless in his quest to become a better player, and in doing so, contribute to the Kookaburras’ international success.

Tutelage from Olympic gold medal-winning coaches Ric Charlesworth and Barry Dancer, coupled with extended playing stints in Europe and India, has enabled him to evolve from an impact striker to a midfield playmaker capable of dictating and controlling a game.

As lethal as Dwyer has been at scoring goals, it has been his individuality and elusiveness in general play, that has set him apart from the rest.

“Every generation has some very special players and the only other one I would rank alongside him is Teun de Nooijer of Holland and possibly Christopher Zeller from Germany,” Charlesworth said.

“Jamie has a mercurial capacity to do something special and unusual and he does it far too often for it to be a fluke.

“The mark of a really great player is to endure and continue to be competitive – and to have that competitive instinct in the game - you can tick every box for him.”

However, it was under Dancer, the man who ended Australia’s 48-year Olympic hoodoo with gold in men’s hockey (Charlesworth won two with the women) in Athens in 2004, that Dwyer won the first of five FIH World Player of the Year awards.

“You have to rate Jamie as world hockey has – he is an outstanding athlete, superb technically, has a competitive mentality and a strong team ethic – all the qualities you search for in a player,” Dancer said.

Dancer, who retired as national coach after backing up with Olympic bronze in Beijing in 2008, said Dwyer has continued to develop as a player after stints in the Netherlands and Spain and this year in the new Hockey India League where he played under him with the Punjab Warriors.

“Jamie has shown it is possible to become a full-time hockey player and has mentored other Australian players who have looked at doing the same,” Dancer added.

“It is extremely valuable to build a team when you have a strong leader like Jamie - I was blessed to have a number of those players in the team that won gold in Athens.”

Unlike De Nooijer, a close friend and Bloemendaal team-mate in the Dutch National League, Dwyer is not yet thinking of retirement.

“I just want to keep on winning medals and keep on getting better - there’s so much more that I, and the team, can achieve,” Dwyer said.

“Setting aside my Olympic and World Cup gold medals – my proudest achievements has been that I have made the most of my potential and tried to get the best out of my body.”

He said a lot of retired players admit they probably never trained hard enough or paid enough attention to developing their skills.

“The one thing I can do is look in the mirror and say I’ve really given it everything to become the best player possible,” Dwyer said.

“At the end of the day when I finish with the game, whenever that may be, I can feel proud of that.”

He said the day his body prevents him from playing at the level he’d like to will be when he calls it quits – and at the moment, his body is as good as it has ever been.

This week in the Netherlands is very important for Dwyer and the Kookaburras in their quest to qualify for next year’s World Cup where they will defend the title won under Charlesworth in New Delhi in 2010.

The top three teams in the eight-nation semifinal gain automatic World Cup qualification for The Hague.

Since scoring the golden goal which won Australia’s only men's Olympic gold in 2004, Dwyer has become the nation’s most successful striker with 186 goals – surpassing former greats Mark Hager (179), Jay Stacy (160) and Stephen Davies (140). Among the current crop of Australian players Glenn Turner (65), Des Abbott (61) and Chris Ciriello (59) are his nearest rivals.

Original Article by Lawrence West for Hockey Australia News http://www.hockey.org.au/

Constance Applebee - Field Hockey Pioneer in the United States

Constance Mary Katherine Applebee (1873–1981), promoter of women's field hockey, was born Katherine Mary at Chigwell Row, Chigwell, Essex, on 4 June 1873, the daughter of James Kay Applebee (1827–1903), a Unitarian minister and lecturer, and his second wife, Katherine Ann Applebee, née Louthman (1835/6–1929). In her early childhood her father left the family and moved to the United States where he continued his career as a minister and lecturer, and where he seems to have had a second family (obituary, Unitarian Register, vol. 82, American Unitarian Association, 1903). Her mother, a schoolmistress, ran girls' schools at Holly Grove House, Bushey, Hertfordshire, and then at Paignton, Devon.

A delicate child, Applebee was educated at home, and was taught Latin and Greek by a clergyman living nearby. She began to exercise to improve her health, and found that she enjoyed sports and excelled at them. Her new interest coincided with the growing popularity of games at girls' schools and colleges, and the introduction of gymnastics from Germany and Sweden. In 1898 she passed the examinations of the British College of Physical Education in London, founded in 1891 as one of several fledgling professional bodies that undertook to certify teachers of physical education for elementary schools. After further training, she became a member of the British College of Physical Education in 1899, and then chose to train in a private institution.

Applebee taught in girls' schools in Yorkshire, and offered private tuition including ‘Remedial Physical Exercises for Ladies and Children of Delicate Physique’ (early documents, box 5, folder 2, Constance Applebee Collection 3H/Applebee, Bryn Mawr Special Collections). Her life changed dramatically, however, when in 1901 she attended Dr Dudley A. Sargent's summer school at Harvard University's Hemenway gymnasium. According to a perhaps apocryphal story, Applebee mentioned field hockey as a good form of exercise for women, and was astonished when her classmates had never heard of it. The following day, using improvised equipment, she gave a demonstration, effectively introducing the sport to the United States.

Field hockey had actually been played by women students at Goucher College in Baltimore, Maryland, in the 1890s, where it was introduced by a British instructor (Anna Heubeck Knipp and Thaddeus P. Thomas, The History of Goucher College, 1938, 476). In Britain, however, the game was much better known, having been played at boys' schools since the 1870s, and at women's colleges and private clubs beginning in the late 1880s. The summer school episode was probably most significant, however, because Harriet Ballantine, the athletic director at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, was present. Ballantine invited Applebee to demonstrate field hockey at Vassar, and then at several other women's colleges, girls' schools, and clubs. Before returning to Britain Applebee became a founder member of the American Field Hockey Association, the first women's hockey club in the United States. She was particularly concerned with standardizing the sport, compiling the Spalding Sports Guide, Field Hockey for Men and Women (1901), which introduced British field hockey rules. Although some critics considered field hockey an unduly strenuous game for women, the game's association with élite British schools and colleges and the fact that it was not played by American men eased its acceptance.

Applebee returned to the United States the following year to coach hockey at prestigious American women's colleges including Mount Holyoke, Radcliffe, and Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania. In 1904 M. Carey Thomas, the leading feminist educator and president of Bryn Mawr, appointed Applebee as director of outdoor sports. Applebee claimed that she convinced Thomas that women's participation in sports contributed to their empowerment. ‘You want all these students to go out and do something in the world, to get the vote. What's the good of their having the vote if they're too ill to use it?’ (Constance Applebee, quoted in ‘In the Beginning’, interview with Helen Bell de Freitas and Louise Morley Cochrane, Bryn Mawr Alumnae Bulletin, summer, 1977, 2).

At that time athletics or team sports were separate from physical education, which chiefly consisted of gymnastics and corrective work, and were controlled entirely by the students. Applebee reported that the students did their own umpiring and ‘fought like cats’. She took control away from the students and endeavoured to teach them sportsmanship as well as standardized rules. By 1906 she was invited to take over the physical education department as well. In 1907 she convinced Thomas to start a health department, with regular doctor's examinations and monitoring. Known to generations of students as the Apple, she believed that everyone should have a chance to participate in sports. She promoted intramural athletics, organizing 90 per cent of the student body at Bryn Mawr into twenty-six hockey teams.

While coaching at a school in England, Applebee met an American woman, Mary Warren Taylor (1862–1936), who became her life partner. In 1906 Taylor joined her at Bryn Mawr, where she later served as secretary of the health department. She and Taylor lived together in a small apartment near the college, and became well established members of the Bryn Mawr community. Applebee was an active participant in campus life, helping to found a student publication, the College News, and making peace between two warring student Christian organizations. A devout Anglican all her life, she led the fundraising committee of the newly united Christian Association.

While at Bryn Mawr Applebee continued coaching at local colleges, schools, and clubs. Indeed the prominence of field hockey among schoolgirls and in collegiate sport in the greater Philadelphia area has been credited to her presence at Bryn Mawr (Philadelphia Inquirer, 7 Nov 1992, C8). Her reputation for integrity was such that on one occasion she coached both Bryn Mawr and the opposing team for an important match. She remained involved with the national field hockey movement, writing the Field Hockey Handbook (1913), and in 1922 was a founder of the United States Hockey Association. The following year she established a summer hockey camp at Mt Pocono, Pennsylvania, where British coaches came every summer to teach. In 1924 she founded The Sportswoman, the first women's magazine to focus exclusively on sport, and served as editor, president, and funder of the magazine, which was published until 1936. Although meant to be a vehicle for the United States Hockey Association, only about 25 per cent of the magazine's content was about field hockey. As editor, she engaged in the controversy over women's intercollegiate sports that emerged in the late 1920s. Many American women physical educators, concerned about the excesses of sporting competition in men's colleges, supported ‘play days’, where students demonstrated their skills in a non-competitive environment. Applebee, however, advocated ‘hockey festivals’, where school and college teams remained intact.

In 1929 at the age of fifty-six Applebee retired from Bryn Mawr owing to Mary Taylor's poor health. The two women moved to a cottage, The Withies, in Burley, near Ringwood, in the New Forest, Hampshire, where Taylor died in 1936. Applebee continued to teach at the hockey camp and served as a visiting coach at Bryn Mawr and elsewhere for another thirty years. She typically spent six months of every year—the autumn hockey season—living with friends in the United States. Marooned there during the Second World War, she spent time as a hockey coach at the College of William and Mary in Virginia, where she raised funds to send four ambulances, emblazoned ‘donated by the Women Hockey Players of the USA’, to the United Kingdom.

After the war Applebee was active in charitable activities in Burley. From 1967 failing sight prevented her from travelling to the United States, although she regularly entertained visitors from Bryn Mawr at her cottage. In 1976, aged ninety-four, she attended the conference and tournament of the International Federation of Women's Hockey Associations in Germany. In her later years, she received many honours including an honorary membership in the All-England Women's Hockey Association in 1976, and an award of merit from the Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women in 1980. Applebee lived alone at Burley until shortly before her death from pneumonia, at the Ashley Lodge Nursing Home, New Milton, on 26 January 1981, at the age of 107. She was buried at St John the Baptist Church, Burley.

Applebee was remembered by her many students as being ‘sharp-tongued but kind … crusty … not caustic’ with a ‘screaming sense of humor’ (R. Raham, ‘Hockey is a R-R-Running Game’, Bryn Mawr Now, 8, 1981). Her colourful language on the field was legendary—‘put both claws on your stick, you one-legged turnip’ was one of her favourite utterances. Her influence in developing women's field hockey in the United States extended over generations during her long life as her students in turn became influential teachers and coaches.

Article by Fernanda Helen Perrone at http://www.oxforddnb.com/

Photo's From Bernard Lee (Bern) Schwartz 1975 at http://www.npg.org.uk/ and Bryn Mawr College Library Special Collections 1901 at http://www.brynmawr.edu/

The Abbott Cup .. Lest We Forget - Captain E L Abbott

By GREGG DRINNAN

Edward Lyman Abbott (right photo) was, they all agreed, one of a kind.
He was a superb athlete and, just as important, he was a true sportsman. Everyone in southern Saskatchewan knew Abbott as Hick, which was shortened from Hickory, and he was loved by young and old alike.
In the early part of the 20th century, Hick Abbott was the best athlete in Regina and maybe all of Western Canada. To this day, it may be Abbott who is the best athlete Regina has seen.
According to the Regina Leader:
“Previous to going to the war Abbott was one of the greatest hockey players that this Dominion every saw. He also was a stellar lacrosse, rugby and soccer player. He piloted Regina to a western championship in rugby in 1915 and what he did to bring the Allan Cup to Regina any of the old-time fans know.”
As we pause at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, his story is but one of many worth remembering. This, then, is that story. Or, at least part of it.
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The gentlemen of Regina’s sporting scene would gather at Joe Potts’ Rose Athletic Parlours -- that's Potts in the photo, above left -- on the east side of the 1700 block Rose Street. They would go there for a shave, maybe a trim and, most definitely, to talk about how their sporting world turned.
The Rose Athletic Parlours – the name was in honour of a Potts penpal, Philadelphia Athletics manager Connie Mack – was a seven-chair operation, with each barber having his own washbasin and mirror. There were two other huge mirrors – floor to ceiling – and a circular leather seat that surrounded a pole on which was beautiful leather backing. A long glass counter was home to a gold-coloured cash register and boxes of chocolate bars. Mahogany-veered cabinets behind the counter were full of tobacco products.
And there were photographs – they didn’t call them pictures then – everywhere. Photographs of prominent athletes. Many of them autographed.
The billiard room was separate and featured Boston tables, although there was one billiard table. Each table had its own mahogany cabinet in which players hung their hats and coats.
This is where doctors, dentists, lawyers and businessmen came. This is where they talked about the exploits of their favorite son.
Hick Abbott was of fair complexion. He had gray eyes that, in a blink, would steal a young girl’s heart. And that hair. Oh, that light brown hair that always had that naturally tousled look.
Born in Orillia, Ont., in the Hovering parish, on May 1, 1891, Abbott, who was of the Methodist faith, moved to Regina for some reason long since lost. His father, James Henry Abbott, lived his last days in Toronto. In a file folder full of documents, notes, papers and photographs, there isn't a mention of a mother. Perhaps Hick Abbott’s mother died and he moved to Regina to live with his sister, Robena Myrtle, who was a provincial government employee. A brother, Samuel Percival Abbott, lived near White Bear, Sask.
Hick Abbott played football (rugby football, it was frequently called then), hockey, baseball, lacrosse, soccer, basketball. He excelled at them all. He played in high school. He played for club teams. He played on playgrounds or in a gymnasium. It didn’t matter. He just wanted to play. He had to play.
But hockey was his game. He was a right winger who played for as many teams as he could.
He played for the Regina Bees Capital Hockey Club, which won the Valkenburg Cup as the province’s 1911-12 amateur champions.
But how was he to know that the highlight of his athletic career would come in the spring of 1914 when he helped the Regina Victorias to the 1914 Allan Cup title? The team photo refers to the Vics as World’s Amateur Champions 1914. There’s Abbott – bottom row, third from the right, next to Joe Potts, the Vics’ manager. The newspaper refers to Abbott as “the speedy and consistent right wing who is the sharpshooter of the team.”
But there was trouble in Europe where, before long, the First World War would be raging. Soon, newspapers were full of casualty reports. Regina’s sons were dying over there.
Naturally, Abbott heard the call, as did many of his teammates from that 1913-14 team, including goaltender Fred McCulloch, defencemen Charlie Otton and Austin Creswell, who was the team captain, and rover Freddy Wilson.
Abbott took officer training in Winnipeg, qualifying for the rank of lieutenant. He returned to Regina and enlisted with the 68th Battalion.
On the day Abbott enlisted – Sept. 23, 1915 – he was a 24-year-old student at law who lived in Regina at 2254 Rose St.
Seven months later, on April 28, he was on the S.S. Olympic as it sailed from Halifax. Abbott headed overseas as a platoon commander and officer in charge of records.
Abbott was a true warrior. Whether it was on the field of play or on the field of war, there wasn’t any quit in this man.
Upon his arrival in England, he quickly transferred to the 52nd Canadian Infantry Battalion, a trench unit. In the ensuing 26 months, shrapnel was the only thing that kept him from the front.
He was first injured on Oct. 7, 1916, while in action near Courcelette, about 30 miles northeast of Amiens, in what came to be known as the Battles of the Somme.
Four days later, Abbott was admitted to No. 14 General Hospital at Boulogne with a wound to his left shoulder. Two days later, he was in England, safely ensconced in a war hospital in Reading, a few miles west of London.
A doctor noted a “shrapnel bullet localized near wound.” That shrapnel was removed on Oct. 24; he was discharged from hospital on Nov. 13.
Abbott rushed back to the front and stayed until June 3, 1917, when he was granted 10 days leave, which he spent in Paris.
On July 26, 1917, following the Battle of Vimy Ridge, Abbott was awarded the Military Cross “for conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty. He handled his men in the most able manner, and successfully led them through an intense hostile barrage. He set a fine example of courage and initiative.”
Three months later, on Oct. 27, he was awarded a Bar to his Military Cross.
The Bar, according to a letter Potts received from Abbott in early November, was “just for a little trench raiding affair.”
Abbott also mentioned that he now was wearing “a pair of plate glass spectacles on account of recent injuries to my eyes.”
The glasses were the result of his being wounded for a second time. He took a bullet – or a piece of shrapnel – in the right temple on Sept. 4, 1917, while raiding enemy trenches near Leuze, just over the border from France in the southwest part of Belgium.
A medical report indicates this was a “Severe G.S.W. (gunshot wound) near right eye.” Before he reached the hospital in Boulogne, the shrapnel//bullet was “removed with giant and small magnet.”
The Sept. 11 edition of The Leader reported, under the headline Popular Regina Young Man Is Among Wounded:
“As the casualty lists come in, more and more Regina soldiers are listed either as killed, wounded or gassed. In the list of yesterday appears the name of one of the best known and popular young men of the city, Lieut. Edward Lyman Abbott, as being wounded. This is the second time within 10 months that ‘Hick’ . . . has suffered injuries on the battlefield.”
The story continued:
“. . . he has written to friends in the city and appeared to be carrying on without much worry. Abbott was one of the finest athletes and best sportsmen in the city, standing at the head in every branch of sport he entered. He was particularly noted for his prowess at hockey, and football, two games in which he had no superior in the west.”
By Sept. 15, he had been “invalided, wounded and detached” to the Manitoba Regimental Depot and was being cared for in the 3rd London General Hospital in Wandsworth.
A doctor's report noted: “Recommended for convalesence . . . to report back in three weeks.” Abbott was discharged on Sept. 24, 1917, and spent the next month at St. Mark's College, leaving there on Oct. 25, 1917.
The next entry in his medical record is dated Sept. 14, 1918. It is short and to the point: K. in A.
Killed in Action.
It was, in the words of General Erich Ludendorff, the “black day of the German army.”
It was Aug. 8, 1918. It was the day on which the Battle of Amiens began. It was the battle in which Hick Abbott died.
After recovering from his head wound, Abbott returned to France on Dec. 24, 1917. A week later, he was back with his unit.
With Capt. G.M. Thomson heading for England, application was made for Abbott to be an acting captain with the 52nd Battalion. That was approved on March 16, 1918.
Abbott, then, was a captain when the Battle of Amiens, one of the war’s most decisive battles, began. The German’s spring offensive had been stopped only eight miles from Amiens. Now it was time to push them back. Later, after the Armistice had been signed on Nov. 11, 1918, it was generally acknowledged that this was where the tide had turned. In two weeks, 46 German divisions were defeated – 34,250 prisoners and 270 heavy guns were captured.
“It was,” said Ludenhoff, “the black day of the German army in the war . . . To continue would be a gamble. The war would have to be ended.”
On Aug. 14, with the battle almost won, Abbott – always the leader – was first out of a trench as he led a charge towards the enemy.
According to Earl Longworthy, an acquaintance of Abbott’s, he was killed by a sniper’s bullet to the head.
Longworthy was with Abbott’s battalion the day after his death and reported the platoon “worshipped the ground Abbott walked on and were in sorrowful spirits because of his death.”
A testimonial, author unknown, reads in part:
“Abbott was the type of Canadian, and the type of Britisher, that the Germans cannot understand; the type that fights with a silent fury and yet that does not hate; too much of a sportsman to fight unfairly, but more dangerous in attack than their finest products of hate-inspiration because of utter recklessness combined with a deadly skill and total inability to recognize defeat.”
By the time of his death on Aug. 14, 1918, Abbott’s father also was dead. Hick’s medals went to his sister, Robena, who was living in Regina at 2072 Angus St. A plaque and scroll went to his brother, Samuel, at White Bear.
Abbott’s will, dated July 1, 1916, indicated that there may have been another woman – besides his sister – in his life.
His will appointed his sister and R.D. MacMurchy, a Regina barrister, as executors. It read in part:
“I give and bequeath unto my sister Robena Myrtle Abbott all property, real and personal in my possession or due me at the time of my decease and in the advent of her prior decease all said property, real and personal to Miss Edith May Longworthy, 2035 Hamilton St., Regina, Canada.”
Word of Abbott’s death was reported in The Leader of Aug. 22, 1918:
“The death of the popular young Regina officer came as a great shock to his many friends in the city and to the hundreds who knew him through the province particularly as one of the finest athletes who ever appeared before the public in the province.”
Joe Potts was devastated by the news and wrote an appreciation that appeared in The Leader:
“The world of sport of Regina, and for that matter the entire province of Saskatchewan, is the poorer today by the loss of Hick Abbott.
“As long as Regina is, the name of Abbott will live. To the present generation his name stands supreme as a monument to the best that was in sport. To the future generation he has left an ideal for them to attain.
“The citizens of Saskatchewan have lost one of nature’s gentlemen, one who held dear the traditions of his land and one who ever had at heart one thing – the interest of his fellows.
“A hero among his fellows he was equally loved by the boys. No business was ever too pressing to prevent him claiming their comradeship. To the younger lads of Regina his life and glorious death will be an inspiration.
“In expressing these thoughts I am but giving voice to those of everyone in the city who knew him. As one who knew him intimately from the time he grew out of boyhood the loss is personally great.”
Potts, who had named his first-born son after Abbott – J. Lyman Potts, born on Nov. 11, 1916, is retired and living in Burlington, Ont. – would make certain that Hick wouldn’t be forgotten.
Late in 1918, Joe Potts started a fund-raising drive, the result of which would be the Abbott Memorial Cup, which for years would go annually to the champion of western Canadian junior hockey.
When the subscription drive started, the first name on the list was Lyman Potts ($10). The second name was that of Lieut. Austin Creswell, the captain of the 1914 Victorias.
E.A. Jolly, a prominent Regina druggist, sent in $5, along with a note:
“Captain Abbott was one of the highest types of Canadian citizens and his record on the ice and subsequently on the battlefield proved him a man of whom all of us should be proud. I remember the great games with Melville when Abbott worked so valiantly and well for victory, and I also remember what a great power Abbott was to the Victoria team when they won the Allan Cup on that great night in Winnipeg nearly five years ago.”
Dick Irvin, who would later prove to be one of the NHL's great coaches, wrote from Belgium where he was a private “doing despatch work on a motorcycle . . . and seeing the sights of France and Belgium over the handle bars.”
Irvin was a 21-year-old centre on the Winnipeg Monarchs team that lost the 1914 Allan Cup final to the Vics.
“I am interested in what you say about the proposed Abbott Cup and you can put (me) down for a five spot,” Irvin wrote. “I think the idea splendid for junior hockey in the west and, as far as the memorial is concerned, you couldn’t have picked on a better name as Abbott was a . . . man all through.”
Hector Lang, the principal of Regina’s Central Collegiate during Abbott’s high school years who later moved to Medicine Hat and would be the Alberta trustee for the Abbott Cup, wrote that Abbott “at his studies, in his games, and on the field of battle, displayed always in the highest degree the character of the true sportsman. I remember, too, the other boys who studied and played with him – all good boys and true sports, and all of them better because of the influence of the big-hearted and fair-minded Hick Abbott.”
Sid Smith wrote from Gull Lake, Sask., expressing the hope that “this trophy will not be handled in such a way that it will fall into disregard, be forgotten as is often the case with such.”
Almost 80 years later, the Abbott Memorial Cup no longer could be considered a prominent trophy. Where it once went to the winner of a best-of-seven series, in its last years it was presented to the winner of one round-robin game between two western representatives during the Royal Bank Cup.
“I know absolutely nothing about the Abbott Cup,” admitted one member of the Melfort Mustangs, Abbott Cup winners for 1996.
“It’s just an appetizer (for the Royal Bank Cup),” added another player.
It seems, alas, that Sid Smith’s worst fears were recognized.
Hick Abbott, who left Regina to fight for his country’s freedom, never returned to his adopted home town.
He is buried in Roye New British Cemetery, a few miles north of Paris.
Plot 1, Row B, Grave 13.

(J. Lyman Potts, Joe’s eldest son, realized in the mid-1990s, that the Abbott Cup no longer was being given the respect it deserved. He wrote to old friend Tom Melville, a former Regina Leader-Post sports editor, and the two of them mounted a lengthy campaign that resulted in the Abbott Cup being retired to the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto.)

Gregg Drinnan's Blog - Taking Note ...with Gregg Drinnan http://gdrinnan.blogspot.ca/

Meet Foster Hewitt, W A Hewitt & Family at Home - 1956 - CBC

At his home in Forest Hill, Ont., Foster Hewitt has just finished cooking a steak. A crew from CBC Television's Graphic is on hand to witness not only Hewitt's prowess in the kitchen, but to meet the entire Hewitt clan. Foster proudly presents his father and wife, then approaches the table where his children are playing Scrabble. Between introductions, we hear anecdotes about Foster's boxing career, his first hockey broadcast and his secret for remembering names.

• Foster Hewitt married Elizabeth Kathleen How in 1925 and the couple had three children (Bill, Wendy and Ann.)
• The Toronto Star's radio station went off the air in 1933; the Star had supported public ownership of radio and, after the 1932 Broadcasting Act, looked toward government stations eventually replacing private ones. Hewitt's broadcasts were then carried on Toronto's CFRB and relayed to other stations.

• When the CBC was created in 1936, Hewitt's games were carried on CBC affiliate stations. In the 1950s the name Hockey Night in Canada was used.
• In 1951, Foster Hewitt also started up his own radio station with call letters ending with his initials: CKFH, AM1430. It started at a power of just 250 watts but grew to a powerful 50,000 watts. In 1963 Hewitt retired from his other duties to devote all his time to CKFH.

• In the spring of 1952 Foster Hewitt became the first broadcaster to try play-by-play skills on television for CBC. Hewitt called a closed-circuit broadcast of a Memorial Cup game at Maple Leaf Gardens for a group of hockey and broadcasting officials, convincing them the same style of commentary could be done on TV.

• On Nov. 1, 1952, Foster Hewitt broadcast Canada's first televised hockey game for Hockey Night in Canada, a match between the Montreal Canadiens and the Toronto Maple Leafs. In 1957, he turned over the television role to his son Bill, and returned to radio (though Foster continued to do the televised post-game wrap-ups and announce the games' three stars).

• Bill Hewitt's hockey broadcasting career actually began at age eight. Each year Foster would give him one minute of radio airtime on "Young Canada Hockey Night" a practice that lasted 11 years. Bill Hewitt went on to be a manager of CKFH before taking over CBC Television's Hockey Night in Canada from his father.

• In 1973, Bob Cole replaced the ailing Bill Hewitt, who eventually retired in 1981 due to a debilitating blood infection. In 1996, the Hockey Hall of Fame awarded Bob Cole the Foster Hewitt Award for Excellence in Hockey Broadcasting. You can see Bob Cole paying tribute to the late Foster Hewitt in our additional clips.
• Kay Hewitt died in 1969 after a battle with cancer. In May 1972, Hewitt married Joan Darlie Lang.

CREDIT - CBC Digital Archives at http://www.cbc.ca

New Years Eve Game 1975 - Montreal Canadiens vs Soviet Red Army

Three years after the Summit Series captivated hockey fans across Canada, the Soviet Union's best players return for a New Year's Eve matchup with the Montreal Canadiens in 1975. Almost 19,000 fans are on hand at the Forum to witness a match representative of the ongoing Cold War, pitting the freedom and democracy of the West against the communist repression of the U.S.S.R. In these segments from the game, the teams' disparate styles of play are on show: the Soviets' puck control and long forward passes, and the Habs' suffocating defense and creative on-the-fly attack.

• The match was officially billed as an exhibition contest, but for the members of the Canadiens, the game was a showdown between the best hockey teams in the world. Just as the Habs dominated the NHL most seasons, the Soviet Red Army team (known domestically as CSKA Moscow) was perennially atop the Soviet elite league standings.

• Combined, the two teams boasted an astounding 37 championship titles.

• Soviet goaltender Vladislav Tretiak faced seven shots before his cross-rink rival, Ken Dryden, saw a single puck come his way. The Canadiens scored two goals in the first eight minutes of the game. Early in the second period, Boris Mikhailov scored one for the Soviets before the Habs got a third goal. The Red Army scored two more in the third.

• Although the Canadiens outshot the Soviets 38-13, the historic game ended in a 3-3 draw.

CREDIT : Medium: Television
Program: CBC Television Sports
Broadcast Date: Dec. 31, 1975
Duration: 5:36

Chris Kreider Scores 2nd Playoff Winner & a place in NHL History

New York Rangers Rookie Chris Kreider is rewriting the NHL Records books in Spectacular Fashion. The kid can score at any level, and he thrives with pressure, and winning results follow him at every level of Ice Hockey he has played.

While Playing for the Boston College Eagles, Kreider scored a goal in the 2010 NCAA title game in which Boston College defeated the University of Wisconsin to win the NCAA National Title and was named to the 2010 Hockey East All-Rookie Team.He also scored six goals for the Gold Medal Winning USA IIHF World Championship Team in 2010. Kreider was chosen to represent the United States once again at the 2011 World Junior Ice Hockey, and led the team with four goals in six games as the USA won the bronze medal. Two of his goals were scored in the bronze medal game, and he was named the USA's best player for that game. Kreider's ten goals in WJC play ties him with John Leclair and Mike Modano for third all time among USA players, behind just Jeremy Roenick's 13 and Brian Gionta's 11. Kreider was also selected to the United States National team to compete in the 2011 IIHF World Men's Ice Hockey Championship held in Slovakia.

Kreider was named Most Valuable Player of the 2011 Beanpot Tournament, as Boston College won the tournament for the second straight time. In 2011-12, he won a second NCAA title with Boston College, and led the team in scoring with 23 goals and 45 points in 44 games.Kreider's 23 goals were 2nd overall in Hockey East and tied for 8th in the NCAA and his 45 points were 5th in Hockey East and tied for 19th in the NCAA.He also tied for the Hockey East lead in game winning goals with 5, short handed goals with 3 and short handed points with 5. He also finished in the top 10 in Hockey East with 7 power play goals and 17 power play points.

Now playing for the New York Rangers after debuting on April 16, 2012 in a playoff game vs the Ottawa Senators, it didn't take long for Kreider to get back in the habit of scoring big goals, as he does here with his 1st NHL Goal on April 23, 2012 vs Ottawa Senators - A Game Winner. CHECK IT OUT BELOW

Here Kreider's other Game Winner vs Washington Capitols on April 28, 2012

Video Game Hockey History - Most Games to 2009 - Informative

A Very Good Hockey Video Game History With Music, Commentary, Ads, Games & Consoles

Goalie Mark Visentin Scores Longest Goal in Ice Hockey History

While short-handed, Goalie Mark Visentin corralled the puck behind his own net and lofted the puck down the ice into the vacated Ottawa 67’s goal for the game’s final goal and the History Books. Check out how close to the boards behind the net Mark Visentin when he lofts the puck down the ice and into the net.

LEGENDS ~ ICE ~ Bibi Torriani ~ Switzerland

Riccardo Torriani - Richard "Bibi" Torriani

Born: October 1, 1911 at Sankt Moritz, Graubünden, Switzerland

Died: September 3, 1988 in Chur, Graubünden, Switzerland - age 76

Bibi Torriani holding the Spengler Cup in 1936

Bibi Torriani is considered the best Swiss Ice Hockey player ever. Playing for HC Davos for most of his career, he won 18 Swiss titles between 1930 and 1950. With the two Cattini brothers Pic and Hans, he formed the so-called "Ni-line" at his club and with the national team. In 111 international matches, he scored 105 times, winning a host of medals. In 1928 and 1948, with the Games held in St. Moritz, Torriani won Olympic bronze medals, also winning a silver medal (1935) and three bronze medals at the World Championships. In 1935 and 1939, Switzerland was also the best European country at the World Ice Hockey Championships, earning the European title. After his active playing career, Torriani coached the Swiss National Team, Italian National Team and Club Teams in Italy and Switzerland, winning the Swiss Title again as a coach with EHC Visp (1962). Torriani also participated in the 1957 luge World Championships in Davos, taking second place. In 1997, Torriani was the first Swiss player to be inducted in the International Ice Hockey Federation - IIHF Hall of Fame.

L to R:

Hans "Joe" Cattini, Ferdinand "Pic" Cattini and Bibi Torriani The Famous Ni-Line for HC Davos and the Swiss National Team

Bibi Torriani speaking the Olympic Oath on behalf of all Winter Olympic Athletes at St. Moritz, Switzerland on opening day, January 30, 1948

Youngest Player to play at Senior Ice Hockey World Championships - 16 Years, 4 Months.
International Ice Hockey Federation - Hall of Fame - 1997.
Winter Olympic Games - Ice Hockey - Switzerland - 1928 (Bronze) - 1936 - 1948 (Bronze).
European Ice Hockey Champion - 1935 - 1939.
18 Swiss Championships with HC Davos.
6 Spengler Cup Championships - 1933 - 1936 - 1938 - 1941 - 1942 - 1943.
105 Goals in 111 International Ice Hockey Games.
Flag Bearer at 1948 Winter Olympics.
Only Ice Hockey Player to Speak Olympic Oath at Start of Olympic Games.

Oldest Known Image of Ice Hockey - 1797 - England

River’s Frozen, Hockey Anyone?

Article by http://consultlefebvre.com

The origins of the modern game of ice hockey are obscure, and a perusal of the history of the sport’s development is … well … conflicting. An entry for “ice-hockey” in the 1936 edition of the Encyclopedia of Canada, indicates the murky beginnings of the game:

“Ice-hockey is sometimes regarded as a game of Canadian origin; but this is true only in a limited sense. In its primitive form, the game was long known in England as ‘bandy’, in Ireland as ‘hurley’, and in Scotland as ‘shinty’. In Canada, it was known as ‘shinny’, obviously a corruption of the Scottish name. These early games were played, however, almost without rules, and with a ball or almost any other similar object for a ‘puck’. The present game of ice-hockey, with its fixed number a side, and its standardized rules and equipment, does seem, however, to have originated in Canada.“¹

Nationality can play a role in one’s view of the development of ice hockey. For instance, as with the modern game of golf, which had precedents in Dutch game of kolf, ice hockey has vague similarities to the Dutch game of ijskolf – essentially the game of kolf played on ice with a round ball. Additionally, the Irish field game of hurley possibly was adapted to the winter climates of England and then Nova Scotia in the 18th century; and the stick-and-ball games of Canadian First Nations may have contributed to the development of ice hockey as well. Most agree that the first modern indoor game of ice hockey occurred in 1875, in Montreal, played by students from McGill University.

The latest discoveries into the history of both field hockey and ice hockey can be found at the Society for International Hockey Research (SIHR).

This collaborative effort is establishing that ice hockey was a winter adaptation of the old stick-and-ball games known by the names of hurling, bandy, and shinty, and that the term “hockey” began to be used in London in the mid-18th century. Gathered on the SIHR website are the following historical references.

In 1776, Richard Johnson (1734-1793), under the nom-de-plume “Master Michel Angelo,” published in London the illustrated volume Juvenile Sports and Pastimes in which he devoted a chapter to “New Improvements on the Game of Hockey.” This was the second edition of the volume, as the first had been published in 1773 or 1774.² The game, which Johnson played as a youth, he described as “a noble and manly exercise, but is proper only for the cooler months of the year, as it requires a great share of activity. It was undoubtedly first taken from the Irish game of Hurling, which it resembles in almost every respect.“ The equipment included the goals, hockey-sticks, and the “hockey.”

The goals, made of very long pieces of briar with ends stuck in the ground, formed an “erect arch.” The sticks, which were a bit more difficult to obtain (and which Johnson, as a boy, had traded a mince-pie for a particularly fine one), were a yard long and made of wood, curved at the end, and thicker at bottom. The “hockey” or what is now known by the Canadian term puck, “must be made of the largest cork-bung you can get. Cut the edges round, and then it is prepared for use.”

Johnson’s description of the playing of the game sounds remarkably like contemporary field hockey, but 18th century English field hockey was played with a flat cork bung instead of a ball:

“The goals being fixed, the hockey prepared, and the parties agreed upon, you then proceed to your sport in the following manner. Both parties meet as nearly as possible, in the middle between the two goals, when the hockey is tossed up, and every one tries his best to beat the hockey through the goals of his antagonist; which being accomplished, the game is over. I have known a game to last for two or three hours … There is a wide difference in merely playing this game, and playing it genteely. Some boys are of such an eager, warm disposition, that they care not whom they hurt, or whose skin they break, so that they get at the hockey; but this is the mark of a bad player.”

Aside from Richard Johnson’s writings, the earliest contemporary reference (not a later remembrance) to the playing of a winter game of field hockey is from a personal letter. In December of 1799, writing from Chesham, Buckinghamshire, England to his parents in Guernsey, Channel Islands, fourteen-year-old schoolboy William Pierre Le Cocq penned his description of playing hockey:

“Thursday, December 17, 1799

I must now describe to you the game of Hockey; we have each a stick turning up at the end. We get a bung. There are two sides one of them knocks one way and the other side the other way. If any one of the sides makes the bung reach that end of the churchyard it is victorious.“³

^{* * * * *}

These two pieces of historical evidence add up to the English origins of hockey, but early visual evidence for the playing of the game on ice has been elusive – until now. Last year I came across a 1797 English stipple engraving which supports the precedent for ice hockey in England in the late 18th century, and, as it turns out, is the earliest known representation of a hockey-like game played on ice.

The earliest known depiction of a hockey-like game played on ice with a "bung" or "puck." Hand-colored stipple engraving published by Joseph Le Petit, London, 1 September 1797. Private Collection.

The image, a setting of a frozen body of water with an obelisk on land in the background, depicts what is probably the River Thames (which froze over in the winter of 1794-95, and again in December 1796) in the vicinity of the King’s Observatory at Kew/Richmond. Two fellows with skates are on the ice: the lad at right is adjusting his skates; the one in the center wears Dutch-looking krulschaatsen or curl skates, and holds a curved stick. But, instead of the expected round ball of ijskolf, a flat bung is in the foreground. The print is inscribed in the plate, “London Published by J Le Petit 22 Suffolk Street, Middlesex Hospital 1st Sep 1797“.

Joseph Le Petit Jr. (London c. 1770 – 1858 Dublin) was a member of a French immigrant family in the United Kingdom. Little is known of Le Petit, who worked between 1797 and 1820 in London and then Dublin, publishing a variety of prints.

Although the lower margin of the print has been trimmed and designer and engraver therefore are not identified, a similar 1798 print published by Le Petit titled Winter, in the British Museum’s collection, was drawn by the Anglo-Dutch artist Benedict Anthony van Assen (1767 – c. 1817), and engraved by one Piercy Roberts.

Van Assen’s drawing is similar enough for a loose attribution of the work to him, but Piercy Roberts’ style is not as close as that of another stipple engraver who worked with Le Petit and Van Assen – his name is known only as “I. Burrows.” Two prints by Burrows are located, the first published by Le Petit in 1798 and titled Crowning the Bust of Captain Cook is at Grosvenor Prints in London. The second, titled Belinda, or the Billet Doux from 1794 is at the British Museum.

Very likely the 1797 Le Petit “ice hockey” print was drawn by Van Assen and engraved by Burrows, recording what was a common-enough winter sport to garner the attention of the artists and publisher, who themselves were young men and possibly enjoyed playing the game.

Recently, I was so curious about the Le Petit print that I contacted the folks at the SIHR to take a look at it. Their reply – “What you have here is the first engraving / painting depicting a stick and ball game on skates, which is / or that resembles ice hockey … at least what we are aware of at this moment …. Although the year is still young, this is by far the most exciting find so far (and historically important).”

With this picture on a piece of 215-year-old paper, the origins of ice hockey are a little less obscure.

Many thanks to James Milks, Patrick Houda and Dr. Carl Gidén of the Society for International Hockey Research for their assistance and evaluation.

Notes:

¹Wallace, W. Stewart, Editor, The Encyclopedia of Canada, v. III. Toronto: University Associates of Canada Ltd., 1936, p. 237.

²No copies of the first edition are located, but two copies of the second edition of Johnson’s Juvenile Sports and Pastimes exist – in the Douce Collection of Bodleian Library, Oxford, and in Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Library / Society for International Hockey Research.

³Collection of Priaulx Library, Island of Guernsey, Channel Islands, England / Society for International Hockey Research.

William George Barker, First President of The Toronto Maple Leafs is Honoured

Conn Smythe named William George Barker - Will Barker, the first President of The Toronto Maple Leafs in 1927.

On Thursday, September 22, 2011 a memorial statue was unveiled in front of the mausoleum in Mount Pleasant Cemetery where his body lies.

“Will Barker came back from the war, suffering painful wounds that remained with him the rest of his life,” Lt.-Gov. David Onley said at the ceremony. “Yet, he was determined to honour his friends and colleagues by building a great nation.”

During the unveiling of the statue, a CF-18 fighter jet and two Sopwith Camels — Barker’s favourite old-time war planes — flew over the crowd of 500.

“We’ve really fulfilled a duty we’ve owed to our grandfather,” said Ian Mackenzie, 60, one of Barker’s three grandsons. “He should’ve had this public monument from the very beginning. He has a number of different legacies...now, he’s more of an icon.”

Video of Ceremony http://tinyurl.com/4x28tnp

Biography of William George Barker and Wikipedia information below, along with link to a book about him.

BARKER, WILLIAM GEORGE, soldier, air force officer, and businessman; b. 3 Nov. 1894 in Dauphin, Man., son of George William John Barker, a farmer, and Jane Victoria Alguire; m. 1 June 1921 Jean Kilbourn Smith, and they had one daughter; d. 12 March 1930 in Rockcliffe (Ottawa) and was interred in the Mount Pleasant Mausoleum, Toronto.

The eldest of nine surviving children, William Barker was born in a log house on the family farm and was educated at schools in or near Dauphin and Russell, Man. His sister Edna remembered Willie as a boy with innate poise and self-confidence as well as an intense personality. As a teenager he displayed all the qualities that would later make him an exceptional military pilot. He was a kinaesthetic young man, attracted to risk, yet possessed of an analytical and independent mind. Gifted with exceptional eyesight, he was adept at shooting and was a skilled horseback rider. He served in the militia with the 32nd (Manitoba) Horse in 1913. After the outbreak of World War I, Barker, in his final year of high school at Dauphin Collegiate, volunteered for the Canadian Expeditionary Force, enlisting as a trooper in the 1st Canadian Mounted Rifles Regiment on 1 Dec. 1914. He trained as a machine-gunner and arrived in the United Kingdom in June 1915. About 26 September his regiment entered the Ypres (Ieper) salient in Belgium, where he served until late February 1916.

Weary of trench life, Barker volunteered for the Royal Flying Corps as a gunner; he received four weeks of field training with 9 Squadron. He was commissioned a temporary second lieutenant on 2 April 1916 and then joined 4 Squadron as an observer, undertaking artillery cooperation and photographic and visual reconnaissance for ground troops. In July he was transferred to 15 Squadron. Four months later he and his pilot received the Military Cross for their superior work in support of an assault on Beaumont-Hamel (Beaumont), France. In December he was sent to England for pilot training.

Barker completed all flying and ground school training in the brief period of four weeks, was graded a flying officer on 14 Feb. 1917, and returned to 15 Squadron. By the end of May he had been promoted captain and given command of C Flight, and had received a bar to his Military Cross. Wounded by artillery fire in August, he was sent to England for a rest as an instructor.

With no enthusiasm for teaching novices, Barker frequently disobeyed regulations and on at least one occasion performed a low-level aerobatic display over Piccadilly Circus in London. He was transferred to 28 Squadron on 29 September and flew to France on 10 October. By the end of October he had logged at least 35 hours in combat in his Sopwith Camel, B6313, and was credited with destroying three enemy aircraft.

Barker’s squadron was one of several units transferred to northern Italy in late October. On Christmas Day he and Lieutenant Harold Byrne Hudson completed an impromptu low-level attack against a German aerodrome, probably at San Fior, setting fire to one hangar and damaging four aircraft. In January 1918 he and Hudson were reprimanded by the commanding officer of 14 Wing for their successful but unauthorized attacks against enemy kite balloons. As a result of, or perhaps despite, his unauthorized patrols, Barker was awarded the Distinguished Service Order; the citation noted that “his splendid example of fearlessness and magnificent leadership have been of inestimable value to his squadron.” In March he received a second bar to his Military Cross “for conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty.”

By the time he joined 66 Squadron on 10 April, Barker had 22 victories. As commander of its C Flight, he would be credited with another 16. In May 1918 Barker received the French Croix de Guerre. He was promoted temporary major in July and given command of 139 Squadron, equipped with two-seat Bristol Fighters. Unhappy with this aircraft, he was allowed to keep B6313 and added 8 more victories, bringing his total to 46, a unique achievement by one pilot with one machine. British historians would call B6313 “the single most successful fighter aircraft” in the history of the Royal Air Force.

On the night of 9–10 August, Barker and Captain William Wedgwood Benn dropped an Italian army agent by parachute behind enemy lines. For this flight Barker received the Silver Medal for Military Valour, one of Italy’s highest military decorations. That same month he was awarded a bar to his DSO. Remarkably, in over 12 months of scout operations, from 9 or 10 Oct. 1917 to 27 Oct. 1918, he had never had a wingman killed in action and no aircraft he escorted had been shot down.

Prior to taking up a new command in late October, Barker was permitted to fly anywhere in France for a ten-day roving commission. He selected a Sopwith Snipe, E8102, and attached himself to 201 Squadron. On 27 October he attacked and shot down a German two-seater at around 22,000 feet and, in turn, was attacked by about 15 Fokker D-VIIs. He was wounded three times, but also shot down three more enemy aircraft. Bleeding profusely and barely conscious, he managed to crash-land and was evacuated to a field hospital. Awarded the Victoria Cross on 30 Nov. 1918, Barker now had 50 victories to his credit. Italy later conferred a second Silver Medal on him. While he struggled for survival in a French hospital, the Canadian Daily Record (London, England) declared that he held “the record among Canadians for fighting decorations won during the war.”

Barker’s wounds would cause him considerable physical and emotional pain for the remainder of his life. His legs were damaged and his left elbow was destroyed, effectively turning him into a one-armed pilot. While recovering in London, he met fellow VC recipient William Avery Bishop*. After the end of the war and Barker’s release from hospital in April 1919, the two men first founded Bishop-Barker Company Limited in Ontario and then, in November 1919, a Toronto-based air charter and aircraft maintenance and sales firm, Bishop-Barker Aeroplanes Limited. Around this period they established an American importing firm, Interallied Aircraft Corporation, in New York City.

Barker tackled civil aviation with the same intensity he had shown in combat. Between 23 Aug. and 6 Sept. 1919 he led an aerial display team at the Canadian National Exhibition in Toronto, the first occasion on which formation flying was performed in Canada for a non-military audience. On 25–27 August he participated in an air race from Toronto to New York and back, becoming the first Canadian pilot to carry international airmail. He flew the first commercial cargo between the United States and Canada, from New York City via Montreal to Toronto in January 1921.

A commercial failure, like many other flying companies of this period, Bishop-Barker Aeroplanes ceased flying operations in 1922. On 3 June Barker was commissioned a wing commander in the Canadian Air Force, which had been created two years earlier [see Sir Willoughby Garnons Gwatkin]. His first permanent posting was as the commanding officer of the air station at Camp Borden, where he served from 1 Nov. 1922 to 15 Jan. 1924. He would be remembered for his highly innovative ideas and experiments in aircraft armament. He was then transferred to Ottawa and in mid February assumed the highest position within the CAF, acting director. He held this post on 1 April 1924, when the CAF was disbanded and the Royal Canadian Air Force was officially born [see Sir James Howden MacBrien*]. The following month he was posted to England as the RCAF’s representative to the British Air Ministry. As a liaison officer, Barker witnessed RAF operations in Iraq in the spring of 1925 and in May he began advanced studies at the Royal Air Force Staff College in Andover; he graduated in March 1926.

Barker returned to Canada knowing that he would have to serve under Group Captain James Stanley Scott, the director of the RCAF and an officer he did not respect. Unwilling to compromise, he submitted his resignation in August 1926. He had struggled with the usual adjustments to civilian life of any wounded veteran and especially with the burden of being a much decorated hero. In these last years of his life he also suffered from alcoholism and possibly from post-traumatic stress disorder.

In 1927 the Toronto Maple Leafs’ manager, Constantine Falkland Cary (Conn) Smythe*, a former RAF pilot, had Barker appointed the first president of the hockey club, a symbolic gesture to help raise the losing team’s profile. Smythe, a teetotaller, had no appreciation of the emotional challenges Barker faced and no sympathy for alcohol abuse; this situation led to public embarrassment for both men. Barker was also appointed general manager of an Ontario tobacco-growing company owned by his wife’s father, Horace Bruce Smith. Oddly, Barker was a non-smoker with an antipathy to farming. As a sinecure offered by an unsympathetic father-in-law, the tobacco job was unrewarding, if not humiliating.

A much better post, suited to Barker’s natural talents and experience, was secured when Fairchild Aircraft Limited of Canada in Montreal hired him in January 1930 as vice-president and general manager. While demonstrating a new biplane trainer, the Fairchild KR-21, at the RCAF air station in Rockcliffe, he lost control of the aircraft at the apex of a steep climb and was instantly killed when the aircraft struck the ice on the Ottawa River. His state funeral, held in Toronto on 15 March, included political and military leaders, six VC recipients, and an honour guard of 2,000 men.

On 6 June 1931 an airport in Toronto was renamed Barker Field in his memory and Bishop lauded his friend both then and later as “the deadliest air fighter that ever lived.” Author Ernest Hemingway had another point of view. In a short story published in 1936, “The snows of Kilimanjaro,” he portrayed Barker as a “bloody murderous bastard.” Barker’s character was in keeping with the tradition of the larger-than-life hero. He was driven above all else to excel – to be a figurehead was anathema to him. Because of his untimely death many of his war and post-war achievements would later be overlooked and he would be overshadowed by Bishop, who lived to 1956. The RCAF picked Barker as one of its role models for the recruitment of a new generation of flyers during World War II, but afterwards his legend, well known in Great Britain and the United States, faded in Canada. Few Canadians are aware that he was, and still is, Canada’s most decorated war hero.

Wayne Ralph

[This biography is based on the author’s book Barker VC: William Barker, Canada's most decorated war hero (London and Toronto, 1997), which contains an exhaustive list of the documentation consulted: military files in the archives of Great Britain, Canada, and the United States, personal papers, logbooks, monographs, newspaper and magazine articles, as well as interviews with relatives and military personnel. w.r.

Wikipedia information on Will Barker http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_George_Barker

Book information - Barker VC: William Barker, Canada's most decorated War Hero

Available at http://www.amazon.ca/Barker-VC-William-Canadas-Decorated/dp/0385256825