Russian Hockey in the Early 1700's

[James Laverance]

Here I've put together a thread on Early Russian Hockey.
It appears that the sport was first introduced to the country during the time of Peter the Great when in 1703 built the city of St.Petersburg next to the Neva River playing games of Hockey or "Bandy" in Skates.In the next ensueing years the game was played often on the Neva.
They even used to have a form of Skating and Hockey at the then famous St.Petersburg Ice Carnival of 1740.
The oldest reference mentioning Hockey on Ice I found was chronicled in 1870.
It would be nice to see any other references added to this thread.
Early Russian Bandy and Ice Hockey - International Hockey Wiki
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_the_Great
https://books.google.ca/books
id=YmcDAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA138&dq=peter+the+great+1703&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi_mpn5i5HeAhVInlkKHUsOC1wQ6AEITDAJ#v=onepage&q=peter%20the%20great%201703&f=false
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[tony d]

Many thanks for this, always great to hear about hockey's true history and how early the game was first played.