The facts, as we seen them today, indicate that Canada’s National game, ice hockey, began as a recreational activity with young boys on the ice of Long Pond, in Windsor, Nova Scotia, c. 1800.

In Nova Scotia, the first written evidence of the game referred to as hockey is in an 1859 news article from the Boston Evening Gazette, in which the reporter excitedly described the new game of ice hockey being played in Nova Scotia. The same excitement was building in the young James Creighton.

At the same time, in Halifax, a certain nine-year old boy was every bit as excited about the game as was the Boston newspaper reporter. William Hudson Creighton and his wife, the former Sarah Albro, who were married in the 1840’s and living at 45 Hollis Street, were the parents of the youth. Mr. W. H. Creighton was himself an excellent skater, and indeed had taken part in ice carnivals at the Halifax Skating Rink.

In 1850, Halifax native James George Aylwin Creighton was attending Halifax Grammar School and was fast matching his father’s skating skills. He went on to study engineering at Dalhousie University and was always cognizant of the great hockey fever that was developing all around him. Upon graduation, he worked on railway construction and moved to Montreal in 1873. He met new athletic friends, joined the Montreal Football Club, became a member of the Victoria Skating Rink, and was appointed a judge of figure skating.

Creighton interested his football friends in ice hockey as a way of staying in shape over the long winter months while waiting to play football again. Creighton managed to gain access to the Victoria Rink for practice sessions, and the boys became so enthused about playing that they even bribed the caretaker to let them in the rink to practice on Sundays.

Skating rink members and McGill students became interested in the game, and James helped them develop their skills. The learning process went on for two-year until two clubs were ready to face off. On March 3, 1875, the Montreal Football Club challenged the boys of the Victoria Skating Rink to the first game of ice hockey that was played inside a covered rink with a limited number of players and played according to rules. The contest took place in Montreal’s magnificent Victoria Rink. For that game, and for some time to come, the skates used by the players would undoubtedly be StarAcme Club hockey skates, designed and made in Dartmouth, world famous, and the first choice of ice ‘hockeyists’ for years to come.

There was no known protective equipment worn by the players, and the elusive object being chased about the ice was a wooden disc without a name, for the word ‘puck’ was not coined until the following year. The goal posts were at the ends of the ice surface, at right angles to the presently accepted position, and without net. Indeed it was another 23 years, in 1899, that Nova Scotians added fish net to the goal posts, as the game of hockey continued to evolve.

While Montreal claims the first game of organized hockey played inside a covered rink, there is no doubt that the man who taught the participants to play; gained access to the rink; wrote the so-called Halifax rules by which the game was played; captained the winning team; and provided two dozen sticks, sent by his friends in Halifax, for that all-important game was James George Aylwin Creighton. In so doing this superb young Nova Scotian athlete was destined to become the father of organized hockey.

Bio Courtesy of Garth Vaughan