Mi’kmaw Hockey History
I've come across some interesting articles on early Mi'kmaw hockey history and how it influenced modern day Ice-Hockey.
In the first article it states that the oldest hockey stick was made in between 1633-66 and to be said that hockey was played by the micmac before Jacques Cartier first set foot on North American soil in 1534.
According to Deborah Guinish, acting
Artifact kindles debate on origins of hockey - Yukon News
An excerpt out of the second article.
“Old Joe Cope, a much respected and multi
talented Mi’kmaw Elder, was a boxer, musi-
cian, and hockey stick carver. As an historian
of the Mi’kmaw Nation, he traveled from
village to village keeping in touch with the life
of the Mi’kmaq. In 1943, when he happened
to read that people in Kingston, Ontario
were claiming that they were the birthplace of
hockey, he wrote this message to the Halifax
Herald from his home in Millbrook:
“Long before the pale faces strayed to this
country, the Micmacs were playing two ball
games, a fi eld game and an ice game.”
(The Puck Starts Here: The Origin of Canada’s Great
Winter Game: Ice Hockey by Garth Vaughan.)
“Old Joe” set the record straight.
Long before the Europeans arrived, Native
craftsmen were making their own “hockey”
sticks for their traditional game of Ooch-
amadyk. Later, they gave the name of
Alchamadytk to the European game of
“Hurley on Ice” which later became known
as “Hockey.Mi’kmaq also crafted the first form of ice
skate. The skates were made of long bones
shaped and sharpened into a rough “blade”
and strapped to the foot with leather laces.
The early ice hockey sticks were carved
from Hornbeam trees that are native to
Nova Scotia. One of the tools the Mi’kmaq
used to carve the sticks was known as a
“crooked knife.” Hornbeam is also known
as ‘ironwood’ and ‘stinkwood’ because of
the unpleasant smell it gives off when it is
cut. Hornbeam was such a popular wood for
hockey sticks that eventually local supplies
began to disappear and the Mi’kmaq began
to use Yellow Birch instead.
These hand-carved ice hockey sticks were
shipped across Canada for decades, ever
since the 1870s when Montreal athletes fi rst
took up the Nova Scotia winter game of
hockey. The first games between Queen’s
University and the Royal Military College in
Kingston in 1886 were played with Mi’kmaw
hockey sticks from Nova Scotia."
Also some books from the 19th century discussing micmac skating and hockey.
Douglas Jerrold's Shilling Magazine
Legends of the Micmacs
