By: Funké Joseph
(Video by Larry Heng)
Hockey – a classic Canadian game where brave players go for their hardest on frozen water, with the wind in their hair and ice knives on their feet. Even though it isn’t Canada’s official sport, many Canadians still hold it close to their hearts which is very noticeable with all of the national excitement surrounding the sport.
But where did this sport come from?
Well, the origins lay with baggataway, a fifteenth century stick and ball game played by the Indigenous Peoples of Canada. It involved hundreds to thousands of men dueling in fields over a ball which was made of either hair-stuffed deerskin or knotted leather strips. The objective was to get the ball in between goal lines which were sometimes placed miles apart. The massive number of players and passion for the game meant a rough play style that sometimes leads to injury or even death. This intense sport was taken by Europeans (as usual) and extremely modified into plenty of different sports which involved sticks and objects, including lacrosse, shinny, ice polo, and hockey.
Modern ice hockey became an official sport starting in 1875. The scenery was massively different in comparison to baggataway and lacrosse. The new ice rinks consisted of rubber pucks and a whole bunch of white guys. Around that time it was mostly just casual play. The amateur leagues emerged around the 1880s and professional leagues in the early 1900s. It was a long time before 1917 when the National Hockey League that Canadians love so dearly was actually formed. That league has been an integral part of Canadian culture for almost a 100 years.
There was a point in time when people wanted to do more than play hockey and watch it on television. People wanted interactivity, and that started a new wave in the sport: games. Hockey table, fantasy, and video games allow people who aren’t able to play actual ice hockey to emulate the same feeling the players get on the ice.
The first interpretation of an off the ice hockey “game” was table hockey. It was created by a Toronto man named Donald H. Munro Sr. and his family back in 1932. The great depression had them struggling financially, but they still wanted to play some version of hockey together at home. They worked together to build an old-fangled, demo version of table hockey. They used resources from around the house, such as coat hangers, twin, clock parts, scrap wood and metal to make miniature players and a miniature rink.
After developing their pinball-esque contraption, they were encouraged by people to pitch it to the local Eaton’s department store. And they did. It evolved into a commercial product and was placed in movie theatres, bars, and homes and also inspired another game – air hockey. Air hockey formed around the 1970s and built off of the idea of table hockey by stripping it down. Removing the small players, side paddles, and sticks to bring it down to the core concepts of one puck and two players controlling “strikers” (little paddles to hit the puck).
“I actually got an air hockey table for Christmas when I was six or seven maybe,” said Lexia Khan, a second year journalism student. “You can get super into it and dive across the table, and like whip things at each other.”
Khan says the game got her more into hockey in general, and that’s the same for many Canadians around the time it was invented. Because these table games were in everyday environments it drew in people who otherwise wouldn’t have even thought about playing hockey in any form.
Hockey video games are another huge interactive form of hockey, which brings families, friends, and even communities together. The release of “Hockey! Soccer!” for the Magnavox Odyssey in 1979 marked Hockey’s first step into the digital realm of interactive entertainment. In the 38 years that have passed since then, two main series emerged: NHL (developed by EA sports) and NHL2K (developed by 2K Sports).
They were intense competitors, constantly one-upping each other with fresh mechanics, online capability, and better graphics until 2011 when the NHL2K series dropped out of the game and let EA’s NHL take the throne as the most popular hockey video game on all consoles.
“When I was a kid, me, my dad, and my brother used to sit around the PlayStation 2 and play NHL 2005, 2006,” said Jacob Marshall. “I’m not a huge hockey fan when it comes to watching. [NHL 2005] made me appreciate the sport a bit more, having to know the tactics and all of the aspects of the game in a more in-depth manner.”
Hockey has changed a lot over the centuries that it’s existed. From sticks and balls to ice and rink, to household games, and finally to online multiplayer video games. Even though hockey is an old sport, it is adaptive, ever-evolving, and will stick around for a long time through its different forms.
Play this hockey pong game – the Leafs vs. the Canadiens:
Hockey pong game and timeline of hockey video games curated by Lawrence Drown
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