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.

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. 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.

There is no doubt that the man who taught the participants to play, gained access to the rink, captained the winning team, and provided two dozen hockey sticks from Halifax for that all-important first game was James Creighton. This young Nova Scotian was destined to become the father of organized hockey.