People are such meddlers. They turn sensible games into ludicrous carry-ons – volleyball on beaches, tennis on tables and hockey on roller skates. Some fool even thought that it was a great idea to play hockey on ice!

Ice skating is already a nightmare, without worrying about balls and goals and stuff. But surprisingly, everyone wants the credit for inventing ice hockey; the one sure thing is that it came from Canada, where it’s still the national sport. One claimant is the British Army; its officers, not content with giving snooker to the globe, played a form of ice hockey in 1860, in Ontario. Busy chaps, British officers; with all this frantic inventing, it’s a wonder that they ever got any fighting done! Other claims are supported by documentary evidence, and are rather much more reliable.

The history of ice hockey starts when students at Montreal’s McGill University wrote down some ice hockey rules in 1879 – although they did use a square ‘ball’, with an extremely unpredictable bounce! The International Ice Hockey Federation (UHF) was formed in 1908, and also the game featured in the Olympics within the summer of 1920. Since 1924, it has been played – much more appropriately! – In the Winter Olympics.

You will find expert leagues in numerous nations, but the most prestigious is North America’s National Hockey League (NHL); here, frozen hockey is so well-liked that people don’t even bother with the word ‘ice’! The League was formed in Montreal in 1917, when all four of its teams were Canadian; nowadays, sixteen of 24 sides are based in US cities, exactly where the crowds are bigger. The NHL has four Divisions; each and every year, the Divisional champions meet in play-offs. The two winners contest a best-of-seven match to decide the Stanley Cup.

Throughout the history of ice hockey, Europeans were always strong in amateur ice hockey – the USSR won numerous Olympic gold medals, and dominated the annual World Championships. The NHL began to hire Russian and Czech stars in the 1970s. Today, just 60% of NHL players are Canadians; 20% come from Europe, and 20% are from the USA. Professional players are now eligible to compete at the World Championships and the Olympic Games. The top ice hockey nations are Canada, Sweden, Russia, Finland, the USA, Slovakia, and the 1996 World Champions, the Czech Republic.