5 facts about hockey that will interest not only his fans

1. Hockey was banned in the Middle Ages

Modern hockey originated in Canada. The first competition according to the rules that are still used today took place on March 3, 1875 at the Victoria skating rink, in the city of Montreal. This place is considered the birthplace of ice hockey.

But earlier forms of this game have been known since at least the Middle Ages. Then it was played not only on ice, but also just in the field, and even on horseback - thanks to this, field hockey and polo on horseback arose.

The game itself originated from curling - and this is the oldest entertainment Irish, which is at least 3,000 years old. The first reliable mention of the word "hockey" was found in a statute approved in the Irish city of Galway in 1527.

In general, historians draw most of the information about the sport of the Middle Ages from documents and laws that prohibit it. Here in the Galway Statute of the 16th century in black and white written:

The ban was most likely due to injury risk harsh medieval hockey - in the heat of battle, they could charge it with a stick on the head, but then no defense had yet been invented. Therefore, the Galway authorities decided to ban this harmful and counterproductive entertainment. Well at least they allowed kicking the ball with their feet.

In neighboring England, however, even that was not allowed: Henry VIII once estimated how much damage football fans cause to royal property, called this sport was a "plebeian game" and in 1548 banned it under pain of death.

2. Hockey was originally played with cow dung.

A modern hockey puck is a vulcanized rubber disc. But it was not always so. In the XIX century in Montreal, Canada, at the dawn of the development of ice hockey, as a sports equipment applied... frost-bitten cow dung cakes.

Naturally, such a puck could not serve for a long time - a maximum of one game. And so that it would not fall apart after the first blow, it was wrapped in an improvised leather pillow.

Later, by the 1870s, Canadians decidedthat in such a harsh male game as hockey, playing with cow dung is somehow undignified. And they tried to make pucks out of wood - and they were square. But these projectiles proved to be inconvenient, and in the end they were replaced by rubber washers: they were made by cutting rubber balls in half.

And only in the 1880s competitions hockey players of the Canadian club Les Canadiens de Montréal for the first time used a rubber puck of a modern form. Since then, it has been driven on ice.

3. Sometimes hockey referees used cowbells.

For the first time in sport whistle steel use football referees - at least since 1878. Before that, they gave signals by waving a handkerchief, which, as you understand, is less noticeable to both the players and the spectators.

Hockey referees have also tried blowing whistles, but they have had difficulty doing so. The fact is that in the cold the lips froze to the metal.

One of the most famous referees in the history of hockey, Fred Waghorn, nicknamed Old Wag, tried to correct this problem. He began to bring a bell to his matches, which was hung around his neck. cowsand signaled to them.

True, in the end this invention did not take root. The fact is that local young farmers who attended the games brought their bells with them, interfered with the referee and confused the players.

That's why hockey referees returned to whistles - when they began to be made not from metal, but from plastic.

4. The job of a hockey referee is quite dangerous.

Hockey is generally a risky sport, but early versions of the game were especially dangerous, both for the players and the referee. According to the rules, the match begins as soon as the on-ice referee administers the face-off. But it was not always so.

Formerly hockey referees at the start of the game placed the puck between the sticks of two players... hands. And the athletes began the competition without waiting for the judge to remove them. Naturally, this ended in cuts, bruises and fractures fingers.

The judges, apparently, got tired of enduring this, and in 1914 the rules of the game changed: now the referee did not put the puck on the ice, but simply threw it from a safe distance.

5. Hockey players find very unusual uses for their award

The main award for the winners of the professional hockey league in Canada and the United States is the Stanley Cup. His called in honor of the Governor General of Canada, Frederick Arthur Stanley, who in 1892 in London bought a decorative punch bowl for 10 guineas (48.67 in today's money). He brought it with him to Montreal and used it as a reward for hockey players.

The modern goblet is a replica made by jeweler Carl Peterson in 1964 from silver and nickel. This is a healthy container. weighing 15.5 kilograms.

When a team wins a cup, it is given out for a day to each of its members, and he can do whatever he wants with the reward.

And over the years, a lot of interesting things happened to this poor bowl.

Usually the winners are simple and straightforward drink champagne, punch and other strong drinks from a goblet - after all, this is what it was intended for. But in 1920, the players of the Ottawa Senators got into a fight for joy, dropped the cup into a ditch, and it lay there all night.

And in 1982, hockey player Clark Gillis used the bowl as a dog bowl so that his dog could eat from there and celebrate the victory with him.

In 1986, goalkeeper Patrick Roy dropped an award in a pond near his house, but, fortunately, one of the fans got it. In 1996, Sylvain Lefebvre christened his daughter in the cup. And Antoine Vermette in 2015 used the bowl as a makeshift baby bed for his child.

With a goblet they steamed in the sauna, filled it with caviar, carried it with them to a strip bar - in general, whatever they came up with. And New Jersey Devils goaltender Martin Brodeur in 2000 captured take a bowl to the cinema, where he ate popcorn from it.

By the way, the names of all the winners who have ever received it are engraved on the cup. For example, the name of the goalkeeper Jacques Plante is there recorded as many as five times - and each time with errors.