The View From Wisconsin

On March 3, 1875, James George Alwyn Creighton, a student at McGill University in Montreal, organized a game on the Jubilee Ice Rink in the city.

The game featured two teams on skates, using curved sticks, a wooden flat disc, and targeting two "goal markers" set at each end of the ice. There were no side boards, and spectators had to dodge out of the way when the disc was hit off the ice.

At the end, Creighton, who was a student of journalism, notified the Montreal Gazette of the spectacle - and how many of those in attendance found this new game, which he called "ice hockey", to be very entertaining.

Though it is commonly believed that Creighton had simply "organized" and "codified" rules to a game that had been played in Canada years earlier, the instance of this game is the first official appearance of hockey as an organized sport in the annals of history.

Thus, today, March 3, 2005, is the 130th "birthday" of the game of hockey.

Please celebrate responsibly.