The game of hockey originates from the middle ages, various hockey-type games were known in Europe under regionally different names: ‘Hurling’ in Ireland, ‘shinty’ in Scotland, ‘crosse’ in France. The name of today’s hockey has also French roots because ‘hoquet’ is the French term for a sheperd’s curved stick. In 1527, the Irish ‘Galway Statutes’ provide a list of prohibited games, including the following words: "(...) the horlinge of the litill balle with hockie stickes or staves." (taken from Dr. McLennan’s ‘Shinty in England, pre-1893’ - see sources section below). The term ‘hockie’ would surely not have seen use in the document if it had not been common.

So there are good reasons to declare early 16th century Ireland, namely Galway, the brithplace of hockey: The sports had found the basic game concept and its name. When and where did hockey as we know it today emerge?

It was surely not the England of the 1600s and 1700s, where teams of 60-100 players often represented whole villages in nearly inordinate, rough matches. In Windsor, Nova Scotia, a game heavily influenced by Irish hurling and a similar game of the native Micmac Indians developed step-by-step in the period between 1800 and 1850. According to an undocumented local legend, it had been named after a certain Col. Hockey. There is surely truth in this, but although the Canadian Town of Windsor claims to be the ‘Birtplace of Hockey’, this is just one of many proto-hockey variants. The British Isles are the real cradle of modern hockey: The first hockey club, Blackheath, was founded in 1849 (1861 according to other sources, including the club itself), making hockey a sports no longer practiced only occasionally. The gradual development of organized hockey led simultanously to more precisely fixed rules, like in 1852, when the sportsmaster of the English Public School of Harrow stated that no team may have more than 30 players on the field at the same time.

Hockey became a sports very popular at British schools during the 19th century. In the 1860s, a first set of fixed rules was worked out at Eton College, in 1875 the London hockey club (est. 1871) refined the existing rules, and in the same year the English Hockey Association was founded. Henceforth it was forbidden to play the ball with the hands nor to lift their sticks above shoulder height. In 1883 team numbers were restricted to 11 players but the most important development was the introduction of the shooting zone, all of which was incorporated in 1886 into the newly formed English Hockey Association, the current men's governing body, the Hockey Association. The All-England Women's Hockey Association in 1895 was established - a year after the Irish Ladies' Hockey Union.

What do these data indicate? Hockey has not been ‘invented’ by someone, it has no ‘birthday’ or ‘place of birth’. Like most sports, it developed over the centuries and in many countries, cities, towns and villages. Even modern hockey has many fathers who have all added their bit, their ideas and their imagination to upgarde, reform and enhance a game which already many generations had played then.

Sources:

Google answers,Subject: Re: Birthplace of hockey Answered By: scriptor-ga on 30 Jun 2002 11:40 PDT

History of Hockey, by Indianhockey.com, 1999 http://www.indianhockey.com/html/history.htm

Roman Ball Games, by Dr. Wladyslaw Jan Kowalski, Pennsylvania State University, 2002 http://www.personal.psu.edu/users/w/x/wxk116/romeball.html

The story of the hockey stick from its roots to the age of composite, by tk-hockey.com http://www.tk-hockey.com/EHome/history/hauptteil_history.html

Et HocGenus Omne - Shinty in England, pre-1893, by Dr. Hugh D. McLennan, University of Stirling (Scotland), 2000 http://www.umist.ac.uk/sport/Mclennan992.htm

A History of Hockey, by Victorian Hockey Information, Australia, 2002 http://www.alphalink.com.au/~hockeyv/history.htm

A research paper on hockey, by Janet Klinkhachorn, 1997 http://www.csee.wvu.edu/~klink/hockey/History.html

Hockey’s History, by the Windsor Hockey Heritage Society http://cnet.windsor.ns.ca/Pages/Hockey/history.html

Hockey, by an unknown author http://lovepk.freeyellow.com/hockey.htm

Blackheath and its History, by the Blackheath Preservation Trust, 1999 http://www.blackheath.org/history.htm

History of Windsor, by the Town of Windsor, 1999 http://www.town.windsor.ns.ca/History.HTM

Search terms used: "history of hockey": http://www.google.de/search?hl=de&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF8&newwindow=1&q=%22history+of+hockey%22&meta= hockey hockie: http://www.google.de/search?hl=de&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF8&newwindow=1&q=hockey+hockie&meta= hockey birthplace: http://www.google.de/search?hl=de&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF8&newwindow=1&q=hockey+birthplace&meta= history windsor "nova scotia": http://www.google.de/search?hl=de&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF8&newwindow=1&q=history+windsor+%22nova+scotia%22&meta=