where and how did hockey originate?
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Most historians place the roots of hockey in the chilly climes of northern Europe, specifically Great Britain and France, where field hockey was a popular summer sport more than 500 years ago. When the ponds and lakes froze in winter, it was not unusual for the athletes who fancied that sport to play a version of it on ice.\n\nNot surprisingly, the earliest North American games were played in Canada. British soldiers stationed in Halifax, Nova Scotia, were reported to have organized contests on frozen ponds in and around that city in the 1870s, and about that same time in Montreal students from McGill University began facing off against each other in a downtown ice rink. The continent's first hockey league was said to have been launched in Kingston, Ontario, in 1885, and it included four teams.\n\n\n\ninfo from: http://www.nhl.com/hockeyu/history/evolution.html
268079
the game of basketball was invented by a Canadian named James Naismith. After serving as McGill's Athletic Director, James Naismith moved on to the YMCA Training School in Springfield, Massachusetts, USA in 1891, where the sport of basketball was born. In Springfield, Naismith was faced with the problem of finding a sport that was suitable for play inside during the Massachusetts winter for the students at the School for Christian Workers. Naismith wanted to create a game of skill for the students instead of one that relied solely on strength. He needed a game that could be played indoors in a relatively small space. The first game was played with a soccer ball and two peach baskets used as goals.\n\n  Not much is known about the original players themselves.
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Then you have the hockey teams across the north... And soccer in Suburbia. Volleyball seems to be more coastal.\n\nI couldn't find any websites on it though. But I would guess that since sports were popular long before the days when travel was easy... it has to do with weather.
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The roots of the sport are from rugby and soccer (european football).  The form of the game played in the 1870's was a contact sport played with mostly soccer rules.
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I think it really depends on the area where you live.  In southern or western states, people might ask "What's Hockey?"  But in Minnesota, Michigan or the Northeast (NY, Boston, etc.), you have a higher percentage of fans, because the sport has more appeal there, due mainly to the fact that Hockey has it's U.S. roots in those regions (the first NHL teams started there, lots of college and NHL championship history, cold weather, etc.).\n\nI know hockey appeals to me because of the fast-paced, exciting nature of the sport.  Many guys like it because it's the only sport where players can get in fistfights and not be suspended.\n\nBut for the answer why guys become obsessed with any sport?  I'd probably say it's the competitive nature of guys.  We tend to make everything a life-or-death competitition.  Playground basketball. Bowling. Darts. Poker. The specific sport/activity varies from guy to guy, but many of us are like this.  So it's not just Hockey...  it just happens to be Hockey for the guys you know.\n\nHope that helps!
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The national game : Hockey, \nThe popular game : Cricket
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The origin of the word hockey is officially unknown. It may derive from the Old French word hoquet, shepherd's crook, but it may also derive from the Middle Dutch word hokkie which is the diminutive of 'hok', meaning literally 'shack' or 'doghouse' but in popular use meant goal. The Irish game of hurling is a closely related game that is played on a field as opposed to ice, it is also close to hockey in name. Proponents of Windsor as the birthplace of hockey claim the game was named after an individual, as in 'Colonel Hockey's game'.[2] The surname Hockey still exists in the district surrounding Windsor.\nThe history of ice hockey is one of the most contested in all of sports. The city of Montreal had been traditionally credited with being the birthplace of hockey, but early paintings contest this claim; 16th-century Dutch paintings show a number of townsfolk playing a hockey-like game on a frozen canal.\nKingston, Ontario and Windsor, Nova Scotia also lay claim to its origins for similar reasons. And many think that hockey began in Virginia, the evidence of this was a post on a Williamsburg Newspaper in colonial time that recorded a snow storm and recorded hockey being played in Virginia. By 1893, Winnipeg hockey players incorporated cricket pads to better protect the goaltender's legs. They also introduced the "scoop" shot, later known as the wrist shot.
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Yes , India has a National Hockey team .\nThere is no ice rink . Because the definition of Hockey is different in India and U.S. In India , hockey is played with Sticks with curved ends amd a ball is used instead of a Puck .\nThe teams are divided into different Tier's .\nThe team details are in the following link .\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premiere_Hockey_League
384704
Hockey (A PUCK IS A BALL)
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Cricket's most likely birthplace is the Weald, an area of dense woodlands and clearings in south-east England that lies across Kent and Sussex. The game was probably devised by children of the Weald's farming and metalworking communities. There is evidence to suggest that it survived as a children's game for many centuries before it was increasingly taken up by adults around the beginning of the 17th Century. The game's origin seems to have been in Norman or perhaps Saxon times (i.e., before 1066).\n\nPlaying on sheep-grazed land or in clearings, the original implements may have been a matted lump of sheep’s wool as the ball; a crook or other farm tool as the bat; and a gate (i.e., a wicket gate) or a treestump as the wicket. It is possible that the game was derived from the older sport of bowls by the introduction of a "batsman" to stop the ball reaching its target by hitting it away. There seems little doubt that the game had a rustic upbringing and it is significant that the Wealden counties and neighbouring Surrey were the earliest centres of excellence. Eventually, it spread north to London and west to Hampshire, the two places that cemented its popularity in the 18th century.\n\nAccording to some other theories, cricket originated outside England and was brought there by the Normans after 1066. As early as the 8th century, bat and ball games were played in the Punjab region of southern Asia — the ancestors of games such as gilli-danda and perhaps polo. Like the other great recreational import of the time, chess, these sports are believed to have migrated via Persia and through Constantinople into Europe. There are 8th and 9th century accounts of bat and ball games being played in the Mediterranean region, sometimes as church-sponsored events to promote community spirit. If the games reached France in this manner, it is reasonable to assume they would cross the Channel and be introduced in England. But all of this is speculation and there is general agreement among cricket historians that the sport did originate in south-east England.\n\nEarly references are few, far between and sometimes spurious. Some manuscripts from the 12th and 13th centuries show diagrams which have been interpreted as early forms of cricket, but there is no definite evidence to support these conjectures. In c.1183, Joseph of Exeter wrote an account of a community activity played by both sexes which he called cricks, but there is nothing to prove that it was a form of cricket. The evidence is circumstantial only.\n\nThe first clue we have which is reasonably convincing comes from the Royal Wardrobe accounts of King Edward I (aka Edward Longshanks) for 1299-1300. This records that £6 was paid out for the 15-year old Prince Edward to play creag and other games at Newenden in Kent. Although there is no evidence that creag was a form of cricket, it does at least seem a likely suspect, especially given the location.\n\nThere are no other references until 1597, not even to indicate commercial interest in the game by innkeepers or other entrepreneurs. Cricket, if it was played at all, did not have sufficient popularity to be subjected to any kind of specific sanction, unlike some other games. For example, a statute of King Edward IV in 1477–8 (17 Edw.IV c.3) made the playing of handyn and handoute illegal because it interfered with the compulsory practice of archery.\n\nIn 1597 there was a dispute over a school's ownership of a plot of land in which a 59-year old coroner, John Derrick, testified that he and his school friends had played kreckett on the site fifty years earlier. This is generally considered to be the first definite mention of cricket in the English language - the school was the Royal Grammar School, Guildford, and Mr Derrick's account proves beyond reasonable doubt that the game was being played c.1550.\n\nIn the following year John Florio, in his Italian-English dictionary defined the verb sgillare
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Here's the answer you're looking for.\n\nhttp://www.all-sports-posters.com/historyoficehockey.html
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Football originated in Britain and the first 'internationals' were between the constituent countries of the United Kingdom. When football became international they carried on that way. Cricket has separate teams too. \n\nIncidentally the UK can't enter a football team for the Olympic Football event as England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland can't agree on forming a British team and so no team at all is sent for that competition
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Check this:\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hockey
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i think most people can't follow the puck. COUGH* americans COUGH* J/K\n\nHonestly i think its hard to  come from being a football or baseball fan and swithc over to hockey. Simply because hockey is so fast paced, that it is hard for new fans to learn all the rules.\n\nTake this couple from new england. Both huge Patriot fans. Now i took them two a couple bruins games. after explaining the rules during the game. they kinda got hooked and now goto games on a semi regular bases, and they watch games on the tv. \n\nIf you put a little effort into learning the basics of the game you'll love it. Also just lace up a pair of skates and get  game of pickup going...so much fun.\n\nanywho thats my two cents
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If you're looking for stats, try:\nhttp://www.nhlpa.com/\nhttp://www.nhl.com/\n\nBut IMO, hockey will only be popular in climates where ice occures naturally.  It seems pretty simple - Canada is iced over about 6 months out of the year, and up there it's the national sport.  California, Texas, Florida... the only way for them to have ice longer that 6 hours is for them to build an indoor rink.  If you're going to compare the NHL to the NFL, strongly consider geography and climate.
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Canada.  \n\nA Short History of Lacrosse in Canada\nLacrosse, which the Native People of North America knew under many different names such as Baggataway or Tewaarathon, played a significant role in the community and religious life of tribes across the continent for untold years.  Its origin lost in the antiquity of myth, Lacrosse remains a notable contribution of the Native culture to modern Canadian society. Native Lacrosse was characterized by a deeply spiritual involvement, and those who took part did so with dedicated spirit and with the highest ideals of bringing glory to themselves and their tribes, and honour to the participants and the tribes to which they belonged. \n\nIn the 1840s the first games of Lacrosse were played between the townsfolk and the Native People. Though it was many years before any significant wins were logged against the Natives, the game of Lacrosse was quickly winning the loyalty and interest of the newest North Americans.  Lacrosse was named Canada's National Game by Parliament in 1859. In 1867 the Montreal Lacrosse Club, headed by Dr. George Beers, organized a conference in Kingston in order to create a national body whose purpose would be to govern the sport throughout the newly formed country. The National Lacrosse Association became the first national sport governing body in North America dedicated to the governance of a sport, the standardization of rules and competition, and the running of national championships to promote good fellowship and unity across the country. The unforgettable motto of the organization was:\n\n"OUR COUNTRY - OUR GAME"
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Wow that brought back alot of old memories....I used to play knock hockey religiously when I was younger. To me it was the best game ever invented!....Thanks for the flashback!!!