Outdoor Ice Hockey Rink

The world has turned to ice and instead of trying to deny the cold its supremacy, you simply strap on some skates and grab a stick, making your tribute to the gods of winter a game played on ice. Before the fun has even started, and the ice is full of scrapes, your excitement reaches an extreme level, and your teammates are already flinging insults and swinging punches of joy at each other. Ice hockey is a team sport played on ice, in which skaters use wooden or composite sticks to shoot a hard rubber puck into their opponent's net. In regions where it is popular, the game is often referred to simply as hockey. The game is played between two teams with six players on the ice. There are many examples of games throughout history that incorporated hitting a ball on an ice-covered surface that pre-date modern ice hockey. Most believe that modern ice hockey is evolved from outdoor stick-and-ball games adapted to the icy conditions of Canada in the 19th century. One theory is that the game was introduced by the Icelandic immigrants adapting the Icelandic game Knattleikr. These immigrants moved to Canada and USA after the eruption of a volcano in Iceland in 1875. Immigrants from Iceland then played on behalf of Canada and won the first ever Olympic medal in ice hockey. In 1799, William Pierre Le Cocq, in a letter written in Chesham, Buckinghamshire, England, provides a reference to the game hockey: “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.”