California, Montana etc... State X State Hockey Ancestry

[James Laverance]

The first recorded visit of a European to California occurred when Diaz crossed the Colorado River in 1540. Cabrillo, Drake, Vizcaino, and others visited the California coast during the same period."
https://books.google.ca/books?id=3A...hwithinvolume&q=colorado+1540+Cabrillo+drake+

"Then, too, where the "concrete basis of life" was as simple as among most California inland peoples."

"They indicate only that the precontact peoples made use of certain artifact types which were still employed, but not necessarily exclusively, by the modern Yokuts."

"These would include : 35 Occasional use of portable stone and hopper mortars; stone balls for gaming ; wooden shinny pucks."
https://books.google.ca/books?id=PR...ved=0ahUKEwjP4bb_hZHLAhXjr4MKHSUxCkcQ6AEIHDAA

"Games for adult men and women were shinny, played with a curved stick and a puck of oak gall or pepperwood nut."
https://books.google.ca/books?id=I6...ved=0ahUKEwjSqqzgoJHLAhWEvoMKHd8lBRYQ6AEIJzAC

"As in field hockey, the ball was struck with a curved stick. The average length of the playing sticks was about thirty-six inches, and the striking end was curved, widened, and flattened. Usually carved out of wood, shinny sticks were brightly painted with symbols of significance to the player or tribe."

"Shinny was played on a rectangular area usually two to three hundred yards long , but sometimes much longer. For example, the longest shinny field on record was a seven-and-a-half-mile field used by the Mono Indians in California."
https://books.google.ca/books?id=4v...ved=0ahUKEwjA58qVpJHLAhUqsoMKHfztDs0Q6AEIIjAB

Click to read more...

 

[James Laverance]

Indoor Yacht Club Hockey Team 1916
Bay Counties Amateur Hockey Association
San Francisco, California, USA

Team Roster
1 - Ted Clark, 2 - E. M. Borden (coach), 3 - Reuben E. Carey, 4 - Joseph S. Lewis (manager), 5 - Robert Dufort, 6 - J. S. Peters, 7 - O'Shaughnessy, 8 - Charles Robert 'Bob' Percival, 9 - Corey

The 1st artificial rink in San Francisco was opened under the name Techau Tavern Ice Palace on May 1, 1916 with a feature presentation of "Alpine Nights" supplemented with a skating ballet.

The Bay Counties Amateur Hockey Association was formed on July 10, 1916 at the Techau Tavern with the following officers duly elected from local clubs.
Honorary Presidents - William Greer Harrison (Olympic Club), and Edward H. Sinclair (Canadian Club), President - Dr. Arthur Beardslee (Olympic Club), 1st Vice President - James A. McDonald (Caledonian Club), 2nd Vice President - Corbett Moody (Polo Hockey Club), 3rd Vice President - J. H. O'Keefe (Canadian Club), Secretary Treasurer - A. C. Morrison (Polo Hockey Club), Executive Committee - John H. Thomlinson (Caledonian Club), Harold Hoeber (Indoor Yacht Club), C. H. Minto (Canadian Club), J. S. A. Macdonald (San Francisco Hockey Club), Sven Philip (Olympic Club), A. C. Morrison (Polo Hockey Club).

The pioneer season was set to play on each Tuesday evening starting July 18, 1916 to October 24, 1916 with the following teams - Polo Hockey Club, Olympic Club, Caledonian Club, Indoor Yacht Club, San Francisco Hockey Club and the Canadian Club.

A new rink was opened called the Winter Garden, which had a ice surface of 210 by 90 feet, and The California Amateur Hockey Association was also formed in 1916 in the San Francisco Bay area of California.

The 1st President was Robert W. Dodd - Vice-President Merrill E. Andrews and Wendel Kuhn a former Princeton player was named Secretary Treasurer.

The California Amateur Hockey Association started play on November 14, 1916, and was to continue for a period of 18 weeks, also playing their games on Tuesday evenings.

The first teams to play were the Olympic Club, Indoor Yacht Club, Pacific Club and the Canadian Club - Stanford University and the Caledonian Club were also members of the association.

IT SHOULD BE NOTED - The 1st Ice Hockey game played in Southern California was on May 13, 1916 in San Diego, on the ice rink at the Panama-California International Exposition (in the former Alhambra Cafeteria building).

The group of men who lined up for that game was composed of a local sportsman, an aviator from the Government aviation school, two men from the United States Marine Corps, a concessionaire from the Isthmus, a map maker, a physician, a army officer and several prominent business men. They were men from Canada, from Europe and from Eastern & Northern States, and they had played ice Hockey from Nova Scotia to China. They called themselves the Exposition and San Diego teams.
http://hockeygods.com/images/12379-Indoor_Yacht_Club_Hockey_Team_1916___San_Francisco

 

[Killion]

^^^ All interesting stuff James. Had no idea about any of that. Who'd have guessed
San Diego as the spot where the first recorded game was played?.......... not many Im sure.

 

[tarheelhockey]

Wouldn't have thought there was an ice hockey team in Cali as early as 1916. Neat stuff.

 

[ICM1970]

I've known about this for a while. The Internet Hockey Database lists the California Hockey League, which existed from about 1927 to about 1933. It featured teams such as the Hollywood Millionaires, Oakland Sheikhs, Los Angeles Richfields, and San Francisco Tigers and hockey immortals such as Vern Buckles, Rube Brandow, Evan "Peaches" Headley, Roy Rickey, Mel "Fat" Larwell, Alex "Bud" Cook (one of the Cook brothers of Kingston, I presume), and Cecil Daley.

 

[James Laverance]

I've known about this for a while. The Internet Hockey Database lists the California Hockey League, which existed from about 1927 to about 1933. It featured teams such as the Hollywood Millionaires, Oakland Sheikhs, Los Angeles Richfields, and San Francisco Tigers and hockey immortals such as Vern Buckles, Rube Brandow, Evan "Peaches" Headley, Roy Rickey, Mel "Fat" Larwell, Alex "Bud" Cook (one of the Cook brothers of Kingston, I presume), and Cecil Daley.

Yes you're right about this other league called the California Professional Hockey League.This came later on though after the First one in Cali in 1916.

By 1925 The California Amateur Hockey Association was formed, consisting of the Hollywood Athletic Club, Los Angeles Monarchs and Los Angeles Athletics. A novelty to most sports fans, games drew as many as 3,000. The league was later known as the California Hockey League and the Commercial Hockey League. The opening of the Hollywood rink led to the formation in 1926 of the California Professional Hockey League, which included the Hollywood Millionaires and Los Angeles Richfields. The league fell victim to the Depression and dissolved in 1933. The Inter-City League appeared in 1934 with teams in Hollywood, Glendale and Los Angeles, but few records of it exist. Local college players stocked the Southern California Hockey League, which had success into the early 1940s at the Pan Pacific Auditorium, near Gilmore Field and the open air Sonia Henjie Westwood Palace of Ice.

UCLA first began play in 1926. In their first two seasons, the UCLA Bruins dominated play going undefeated against teams from Southwestern University, Occidental and The Hollywood Athletic Club. For three straight season’s UCLA captured the Southern Intercollegiate Hockey League Championship.

By 1929, the Pacific Coast Hockey League was formed and along with UCLA, The Hollywood Athletic Club, Occidental and Southwestern, included USC, Loyola, California and The Automobile Club of Southern California.
http://uclahockey.com/?page_id=62

 

[James Laverance]

Ice-Shinny Montana

"The first European known to enter Montana was Pierre Gaultier, de Varennes, sieur de La Vérendrye.
Vérendrye had heard of a river that flowed to the western sea and was looking for the Northwest Passage. He came in 1738, but retreated. Two of his sons, Pierre and François, returned in 1743 and described the "shining mountains," generally believed to be the Bighorns of southern Montana and northern Wyoming."

"The most interesting winter game was ice shinny, found among numerous Northern tribes. Early North American white settlers were accustomed to the sight of a brave running across the ice pushing a puck with a curved stick. Shinny was played with crooked sticks similar to the ice hockey sticks of today. In fact, ice shinny may be considered a precursor of ice hockey. Among the Blackfoot, two upright logs were the goal posts, placed on end lines about one-quarter mile apart. The puck was a knot of wood covered with rawhide or was a stone. A game consisted of seven points. As many as 50 players were on a team."

http://www.frommers.com/destinations/montana/646838
https://books.google.ca/books?id=8t...ved=0ahUKEwig_eSor6DLAhWG74MKHUJODScQ6AEIHDAA

Also you might be interested in the link below as it mentions how the Blackfoot skated on ice and played shinny (Pre-Contact).
https://books.google.ca/books?id=hx...ved=0ahUKEwjpoKu-5JjMAhVpuIMKHfwYAL4Q6AEIMTAC

 

[Killion]

Merging...

Please post all individual State / Regional Hockey Ancestry & Antecedents in this one "catch-all" Thread.....

Fascinating stuff James, highly edifying...

Thanks.

 

[James Laverance]

Ponca Shinny Game Nebraska

"In 1541 a Spanish explorer named Francisco Vázquez de Coronado led an expedition across the southwestern United States. Coronado claimed a large area for Spain that included present-day Nebraska."

"At first European contact, the Ponca lived around the mouth of the Niobrara River in northern Nebraska.According to tradition, they moved there from an area east of the Mississippi just before Columbus' arrival in the Americas."

"The Ponca shinny game is played on a field a mile in length and about half a mile wide. At each end a goalpost about 6 feet tall is erected. The game is begun at a point half way between the goalposts. An official (formerly a shaman) draws a cross, representing the four winds (the same design painted on the ball mentioned*above), on the ground and places the ball on it.
Play commences in much the same manner as in a modern hockey game. The captains of each side raise their sticks above the ball three times, then the fourth time they attempt to drive the ball into the opponents' territory. Play is fast and*furious and often a player of one team mistakes an opponent's head for the ball.Each time one team works the ball to the opponents' goalpost one point is scored. The first team to score four goals wins."

"LMD stated that formerly there was much more ceremony in connection with the shinny game than at present. Even the goalposts were in charge of special custodians. Before each game offerings of calico were tied to the posts and they were ceremonially marched to the ball field. There were four prescribed halts on this march at which the poles were lowered to the ground and the entire group raised a great war cry, drumming the palm of the hand over the mouth. After each game the posts were returned to the camps of their keepers."

https://books.google.ca/books?id=Hb...ved=0ahUKEwidn5OVoqLLAhWHkYMKHWnXBQoQ6AEIIjAB
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponca
https://books.google.ca/books?id=ZS...ved=0ahUKEwjulPnCs6LLAhWokIMKHQtyAyAQ6AEIHDAA

 

[tony d]

Interesting, didn't think hockey would have been that big in California back then, thanks for sharing this.

 

[James Laverance]

Shinny on Ice New Mexico 1800's

"Mr T. S. Dozier ° writes as follows : About the middle of January there is played a game that is to the Pueblos what baseball is to the Americans. It is nothing more or less than the old game of shinny, generally played on the ice, as with us. The pu-nam-be, or ball, used is a soft, light affair, made of rags and buckskin or wholly of buckskin. The pu-nam-be stick is generally of willow, with a curved end, and is about 3 feet long. Men, boys of all sizes, and girls of all ages, and now and then a- married woman engage in the pastime. The sexes do not play together, nor the boys with men. Among the men wagers of every description are made.During the past winter, in a game between the men, which lasted nearly a whole day, the side that was beaten had to dance a solemn dance for a whole day. Quite a difficulty arose on account of it.-Tesuque New Mexico."
https://books.google.ca/books?id=zY...ved=0ahUKEwjR0Ob6rZnMAhXsm4MKHfAjByYQ6AEIHDAA