Mixed Martial Arts: Most Likely The Most Secure Contact Sport In History

Posted by fts on 17th, 2009

When you think about contact sports the main ones that probably pop into your head are football, boxing, hockey and mixed martial arts. Of all of these pastimes the most vilified currently is Ultimate Fighting. People tend to deride it as barbaric and potentially lethal. And while there is considerable potential for bodily injury there are a myriad of factors that help to keep it safe. In its nearly 17-year history there have only been two verified fatalities. Additionally there is evidence to suggest that the two participants who died were the victims of pre-existing physical ailments that contributed heavily to their untimely deaths. The other sports listed above with MMA have been directly responsible for more deaths in their histories, both in total and on average, than MMA.

Take hockey for example. Hockey players can skate as fast as 25mph. We’ll assume that is top speed. Even when two players skating toward each other at less than top speed, maybe 20mph each collide, that is a 40mph collision. At that speed it is easy to knock someone unconscious. Hitting an unforgiving surface like ice while out cold can be deadly. There are more than a handful of players that have died from on ice head injuries. There are players that have died from taking a frozen puck to the chest too; And this is not old school hockey, this is modern-day hockey. Graham Christie died in 1997 from having his heart stopped by a puck in the chest. And what about Miran Schrott? He died on the ice after being slashed in the chest by an opposing player, stopping his heart. The velocity of the players and the velocity of the puck, combined with player-to-player and player-to-surface (i.e the boards or the ice) contact are bound to collect more lives.

Football’s history is much more grave than that of hockey. The origins of football are littered with deaths. (This is not to mention all the career ending or other crippling injuries such as paralysis that have occurred) According to The National Center for Catastrophic Sports Injury, 325 men and boys have died either directly or indirectly from playing football at the high school and college level between 1982-2008 (26 years). Direct injuries are defined as those fatalities, which resulted directly from participation in the fundamental skills of football (such as tackling and blocking). Indirect injuries are those injuries that are caused by systemic failure as a result of exertion while participating in football activity or by a complication, which was secondary to a nonfatal injury (such as heart failure and heat stroke). 1990 was the first and only year there was no fatality in any level of football from the years 1931–2008.

It is remarkable to think that football goes largely uncriticized as a potentially hazardous sport while a sport like mixed martial arts is still referred to by people, ignorant of the rules and practices of MMA, as “barbaric” or “human cockfighting.” This basic misconception of the sport is a detriment to its legitimacy as a high level athletic endeavor.

The worst sport to this day for deadly injuries and certainly life altering injuries is boxing. Boxing gloves are 14oz – 16oz and are designed to protect the hands of the puncher and not the head of the punchee. Oddly enough it does a great job of protecting the punchers hands to the extent that he can deliver far more blows to his opponents head and thus cause much greater cerebral damage than if he were simply able to knock his opponent out with smaller gloves like MMA participants wear.

MMA gloves are 4oz. They protect the hand to a moderate degree, but still allow knockouts to occur. I bet you never thought a knock out would be safe. But in comparison to repeated blunt force trauma, it is by far the safer alternative. The main goal in boxing is to hit your opponent until he is unconscious or unable to continue from repeated blows to the head. Further, it is rare that a fighter’s corner will throw in the towel to save their fighter. It is considered shameful and unmacho. Mixed martial arts, though, has a variety of ways to end fights. Furthermore there is no stigma to submitting whether it is to a Brazilian Jujitsu technique like a choke, joint lock or due to strikes. It is actually considered intelligent to submit to joint locks or strikes to avoid serious injury. Maybe that makes boxers (and football player and hockey players) tougher than MMA guys. I guess you can just keep stacking those tough dead guys on top of each other while the less tough, but smarter MMA guys live to fight another day. There are many places to train to be a fighter or participate in MMA St Louis, Chicago, New York, Las Vegas, Bettendorf, IA or even Appleton, WI. Simply make sure you find a good, safe school in which to train.

About Rodrigo Vaghi: Rodrigo started his Gracie Jiu-Jitsu at the age of 14, in the original Gracie Academy in Rio de Janeiro. Vaghi’s instructors were Grandmaster Helio Gracie and his sons: Rickson, Royce, Royler and Rolker. After many years of training with the Gracie Family, Rodrigo has become a close family friend and black belt instructor representing the undisputed champion of the Gracie’s: Rickson Gracie. Rodrigo Vaghi is the proud owner of Vaghi Martial Arts and head of its Brazilian Jiu Jitsu St Louis Program.

When Hockey Players Were Tough

Posted by fts on 2nd, 2009

To find hockey players that could brave exhaustion, hockey fights, and sleet and snow, we have to go way back to 1905 and an early Stanley Cup contest. The Stanley Cup had started in 1892, and in those days there was no playoff structure, so an opposing team could simply issue a challenge to the reigning champion. The team from Ottawa presently held the title, and a team from Dawson City in the Klondike issued a challenge to Frank McGee and his Ottawa team. The Klondike in the Alaskan wilderness that was having a gold rush just like the one in California in the 1840s. Adventurers and people looking to strike it rich rushed into the area, and one of the lucky ones, Colonel Joe Boyle, issued a challenge to the Ottawa Silver Seven for the Stanley Cup.

The Silver Seven were known for their physical and sometimes cruel playing style, but this rough and tumble town felt they were up to the match. The team had raised the $3000 they needed to get to Ottawa, and now they just needed to get a few more players. They picked up Albert Forrest, a seventeen-year-old goalie, and the youngest player in Stanley Cup history. In the middle of their journey the rag-tag hockey team picked up their last team member.

The journey started in mid December in the frozen north, leaving Dawson City by dogsled. The team covered about forty miles a day, and temperatures got as low as twenty-eight degrees below zero. Travel by dogsled requires that you walk alongside the sleds for large stretches of time, and most of the team got sore feet and blisters on this part of the trip. They arrived near Juneau, Alaska too late for the weekly steamboat, and waited a week for the next boat to Seattle. The hockey team finally got to Vancouver, where they caught the train to take them to Ottawa. As the train traveled across the Canadian north, towns were alerted that the hockey team was coming, and they were met at the station by enthusiastic crowds that
cheered them on.

It took twenty-four days to go from Dawson City to Ottawa, and the visiting hockey team arrived only one day before the Stanley Cup competition was scheduled to begin. Tired from travel, the train, and the dogsled, they asked for an extension. The Ottawa Silver Seven said no, and so the contest of three hockey matches began the next day. Ottawa won the first game nine to two. That evening one of the Klondikers remarked that the legendary McGee of the Silver Seven, who was blind in one eye, “didn’t look like much”, since he had scored only one goal.

The remark was reported to McGee, who responded in Game 2 with fourteen goals total, including eight goals in a row. The final score for Game 2 was twenty-three to two. One of the most difficult trips to get to a Stanley Cup competition ended in the worst rout of any game in its history. And the final blow for Forrest, the youngest of the Klondikers: once he was back in Alaska, he had to walk the final 350 miles to his home.

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Using Your Hockey Stick Effectively

Posted by fts on 2nd, 2009

Ice Hockey is composed of two basic skills, great skating technique and great stickhandling skills. In this introduction, let’s look at good basic stickhandling. The very first thing to consider is whether the hockey stick you are using is the best one for you. It may be an old stick inherited from a friend or brother, or it may be the “top of the line” that you had just read about in a magazine. There is no best shape or material for a hockey stick, but the most important consideration is to have as much of the stick blade on the ice as possible. This is known as “stick lie”. To check this, look at the wear on your stick blade. It should be worn pretty evenly all along the middle. Wear just along the toe, or just at the heel, shows that you may need a stick with a different lie number.

Players who like to play hunched over a bit (like Wayne Gretzky) will require a lower lie number, like a 5, and players who skate more upright use sticks with higher lie numbers.

A stick should be long enough for you to feel comfortable receiving and executing passes, and this is best determined by trying out different stick lengths. You might do this by trading sticks for a few days with your friends or team members. The old rule that your stick should come up to your chin is just a rough estimate, and is not a hard and fast rule. Finally, a rule that is usually quite sound is “the younger the player, the less curved the stick should be.” It is easier for younger players to develop good passing skills with a stick that is straighter. As he matures and his skills develop, he can change sticks.

Place your hands on the stick far apart enough to be comfortable, but the farther down the lower hand is, the more you will need to bend at the waist. So take a comfortable standing position and adjust your hands accordingly. To begin a pass, the puck is taken from behind the body and swept to the area of the midline of the body. When the puck is in this area, this is the critical time to ensure the puck will get to its target. Once it is through this area, shift your weight to the front leg and point the stick blade at the intended target. This last motion has the same effect as the follow through of a stroke in golf, ensuring that the puck is sent in the right direction.

Practice a pass slowly, thinking through each step: start the puck toward the midline, center yourself and the target, and follow through. Remember that the motion is a sweeping motion, not a slapping motion. A slapped puck may dance across the floor instead of sliding, or may explosively get to a teammate before he is ready to receive the puck. If possible, aim “tape to tape”, from your hockey stick to a teammate’s hockey stick. If there is no one open, pass to an area that a teammate can skate to and receive the pass. If you practice these skills thoughtfully and slowly, you are guaranteed to become more comfortable and proficient in passing!

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Top Attendance Records In Hockey And Number Of Registered Players

Posted by fts on 2nd, 2009

Thousands of people attend a single hockey match, but there are two matches in hockey that are the top two for a single game. The first match took place on October 6th 2001 for a game commonly known to fans of the University of Michigan and Michigan State University as ‘The Cold War’. This season opener took place at Michigan State’s outdoor Spartan stadium. The university spent $500,000 on a sheet of ice for the rink and the temperature was 30 degrees, and the game drew in a crowd of 74,554 spectators over the 55,000 spectators at the championship game between Sweden and Russia when the game took place in Moscow, but the date is unknown.

The largest single crowd to view an NHL game was during the November 23rd, 2003 Heritage Classic was when 57,163 spectators attended the match between the Montreal Canadians and Edmonton Oilers at Commonwealth stadium in Edmonton, Alberta Canada. Montreal defeated Edmonton 4-3. The only thing that makes this match stand out is that it was the only NHL game played outdoors since all NHL matches are played at indoor rinks. The megastars game which is known as the old timer’s match with former players of the Oilers and the only game that Wayne Gretzky has played since his retirement from professional hockey and insists that the game would be his official and last.

Local hockey games usually don’t draw in the number of people that professional hockey teams can draw in during a single game. That’s because more people are apt to want to attend professional events than a minor league or college/university match since there’s more of a bigger interest in professional sports than a local team unless you’re rooting for your hometown, but on the realistic scale most people find the thrill and excitement bigger for those at professional events. The top two countries with registered hockey players are Canada with 543,390 registered players in the country and the United States comes second with 435,737 registered players.

Slovenia comes in last with 980 registered players so that clearly shows the Canada and the United States are the most popular areas to play hockey since they have the most people registered in each country. Hockey is and always will be the most popular sport in Canada and the United States since it draws in the most crowds because of the unique players the get from other countries since not a lot of Americans are playing professional hockey they’re more likely to play baseball, basketball, and football than professional ice hockey

The only reason being is that ice hockey starts in the fall the same time basketball and football begin so there’s some competition for audience participation and television coverage, but hockey gets their share of loyal viewers and audience attendees. The only team so far that’s having a hard time winning a Stanley cup championship is the Chicago Black hawks since they haven’t won a single championship since 1961 over 40 years ago so they could join the ranks of the other local Chicago pro teams that won championships in the last 35 years. Articles past described Chicago has having the worst record in games and attendance until the team was bought and the new owner had made some changes over time that had turned the attendance deal around, but it still doesn’t stop the fact that the Black hawks have not won a championship since 1961 and barely even made it to the playoffs at the end of the season since they were usually out the first round.

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Women’s Hockey Teams

Posted by fts on 2nd, 2009

Women’s hockey has made a place for itself in the last twenty years. It has become an accepted and well-played sport in a number of countries, from the US and Canada to Europe and down to Australia. The first women’s international hockey tournament was in the year 1916 in Ohio, between teams from Canada and the United States. This continued through the years until the middle 1970s when Europe and Korea, Japan, and China started participating in international hockey tournaments. A number of women’s teams at various levels tour other countries, with teams of teenage girls playing a number of exhibition games in Switzerland, Australia, and other locations. National teams at the professional level also gain experience and publicity by doing hockey exchanges, often organized by USA Hockey. The US Women’s Select Team has done tours to Finland, Sweden, China, etc.

Women’s hockey is earmarked by fast skating, remarkable stickhandling, swift passing, good puck protection, accurate shooting, and quick goaltending. It is exciting hockey, and cleanly demonstrates the pure principles of hockey. In the 1990s there was some dispute whether bodychecking should be allowed in the international championships for women’s hockey. It had been disallowed in both the US and Canada in order for the size difference to become less of an issue, so that smaller or younger players would not be overpowered physically, and be able to use their skills. Europe allows it, and bodychecking would also let the European teams slow down the faster skating US and Canadian players.

Since the early 1970s, the American Girls Hockey Association has lobbied to have women’s ice hockey included as an Olympic event. There were many discussions on the issue, due to several real problems. The first was the difference between European and American rules, such as the bodychecking rule above. Another was the worry that the different countries did not have enough participants in women’s ice hockey, that the same few teams would not have enough depth to give really exciting games. Finally, women’s ice hockey was accepted as an Olympic event for the 1998 Olympics.

How does a girl become a good enough ice hockey player to try out for a national team? The first step for a number of young women is to play minor hockey on a boy’s team. In many novice or peewee leagues, girls are more coordinated than boys of the same age and do quite well on the teams. Another possibility is to have one or two all girls teams and have them play exhibition games until they gain enough experience to join the boy’s hockey league in the area. Girls that live in large cities, especially large northern cities, may have a well established girl’s hockey association ready to recruit and train anyone interested in playing.

Two of the “old stars” of women’s hockey never played on real teams as they were growing up. Shirley Cameron of Canada grew up on a farm, and just skated and played hockey with her brothers on frozen marshes around her farm. Judy Diduck skated but did not start actual ice hockey until she was 19 years old. She became a four time gold medallist with Team Canada.

Women’s hockey is an exciting and skillful game that is both interesting to watch and exciting to participate in.

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Women In Hockey

Posted by fts on 2nd, 2009

Ice hockey has increased in popularity in women’s sports with the number of participants increasing by 400% in the last decade. It wasn’t until 1998 when women’s hockey was added as a medal event at the winter games in Nagano, Japan. The United States won gold that year with Canada winning silver and Finland coming in last with bronze. The minor difference in women’s hockey and men’s hockey is that there’s no body checking in women’s hockey. After a 1990 hockey match body checking was eliminated all together in women’s hockey due to the fact that female players in some countries don’t have the body mass and size that many North American players.

With the rising number of females who are almost half the size and shape of their male counterparts it’s making them just as equal as their male counterparts. In some matches body checking is a minor penalty, which is enforceable at the referee’s discretion. Full-face guards are required in female hockey matches. The first women’s team was formed in 1921, but since then women have only played in small independent leagues since there’s no professional league for women like they do for basketball. In time there will be a chance for women to go professional in the United States in hockey, yet that’s a long ways away.

Women have made their mark in the sporting world by taking on a sport that’s been predominantly male since it was invented in the 18th century and has since carried an audience that spreads to many parts of the world. Women are moving up the ranks quickly in terms of their participation and the formation of teams, and it’s just a matter of time and acceptance of women entering this sport. If women could enter the world of professional basketball and play domestically instead of going overseas then it’s just a matter of introducing hockey into this country in the same fashion.

It hasn’t been an easy journey for women to enter this sport because of the constant scrutiny of women playing sports that were mostly reserved for men to participate in. Women still deal with the inequality in this sport because people still view women differently than they do for men. Males dominated this sport since the sport was invented more than 100 years ago, but recently with the 100-year anniversary since the foundation of the National Hockey League (NHL). It would sound strange if they had a professional league called the WNHL since they managed to establish the WNBA for women’s basketball.

It would be pretty cool to see women have a leg in the professional world of hockey since women can play just as hard as a man and be just as good as her male counterparts, if given a chance to prove herself. Unfortunately, the world hasn’t really accepted women in professional sports since it was a long journey to get basketball on the map, now it’s just getting the world to be open to professional hockey league for women. A woman can play just has hard as the guys if not better, but the world still don’t agree that women shouldn’t play sports that has been dominated by males for more than 100 years and women should have the opportunity to play hockey professionally like males do. Females had to break the glass ceiling to even push for the opportunity to play professional sports in America, but it started with basketball and now hopefully hockey will establish itself one day as a professional sport that’s played the same way in the NHL.

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The History Of Hockey

Posted by fts on 2nd, 2009

This unique sport of using a stick and a hard rubber puck has pretty unique history going back as far as 17th and 18th century England. In the Irish term it was coined as ‘hockie’, and over time it’s made its way to what it is today. The sport over time had acquired a pretty high charged and chaotic competitive side. Whole villages would play against each other and according to what was noted in history it was an expression of pride and manhood and up to 100 people would participate in the games played. The game would last nearly 2 months and it resulted in many people getting seriously hurt and injured.

The umpire (don’t know why they used this term which is normally addressed in baseball) would only make calls when the team requested the umpire to do so and they were basically mute spectators. Later ‘umpires’ became referees, which is the common term used in the sport of hockey. After a few years and some advancements in the sport with the implementation revising the rules and that’s when it was limited to 30 players per team when modern day NHL hockey teams have a total of 22 players that are sent out in increments of 6 players.

The first real hockey organization kind of like a prototype to what is known as the NHL (National Hockey League) in today’s terms began around 1875 when Eton College had been the originators of the official rules (regulations in NHL speak) to bring order and maintain sanity in the game which was the setting for the modernized rules and regulations that the NHL currently uses to this day. The early form of rules actually drew on the idea of giving the referee more authority to make calls during a game, which made the game a lot more organized and improved the quality of how the game is played. The whole sport of hockey has been through a transformation in terms of how its development is concerned. Fast-forward to today and hockey is played under strict regulations and guidelines, which goes across the board for all the teams in the NHL.

The National Hockey League (NHL) was founded in 1917 so the league has only been active for 100 years as of November 16th, 2007 when the anniversary of its establishment is commemorated. The league actually started with a group of small expansion teams out of Canada, and it wasn’t until the 1920s that the United States had entered the league since the Boston Bruins hosted the Montreal Canadians in the first official game on American soil. Since then the league has grown to a total of 30 pro teams and that doesn’t count the expansion teams that are established and growing as new teams forms over time. The league went through lots of changes beginning with a handful of Canadian teams and it’s since grown into 30 teams across the United States and Canada for the past 100 years.

The teams and their regulations had changed in the last 100 years with new requirements for drafting and regulations throughout the league for each team. Teams today are more likely to recruit new players from colleges, universities, and minor league teams. The way the draft worked before was that they allowed walk-ons and that was more than 25 years ago so standards of the draft has changed since then with the exception is that they don’t accept everyone and records are what play a huge part in the scout’s decision to offer a spot on the team.

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Pro Hockey Games That Are Not On Television

Posted by fts on 2nd, 2009

The one thing that people who are not economically savvy is that people invest $213 billion dollars just in professional sports, alone which only makes up 1/8 of the national economy. It takes about $70 million+ to operate a single NHL franchise despite the popularity of a team. This is why so many teams have resorted to raising ticket prices due to a number of factors low television exposure due to getting out bidded by other networks for broadcast rights to that teams games, increases in ticket prices due to team franchises trying to draw in crowds to more games in the season since the majority of their revenue comes from ticket and merchandise sales during games, freezing of work opportunities and even when popular players or team management get fired, traded, or dropped.

This can affect attendance since some players have such a mass fan base that if people are not just paying to see a game they’re paying to see their favorite player(s) as well. It’s like that theory with the Chicago Bulls when Michael Jordan made a comment about the fact that he’s the reason the team was selling out season after season even during the 6 years the Bulls won the NBA championship because he was the most popular and favorite player for many of the spectators who came to games throughout the season.

Many NHL owners would air games locally, but when you’re getting out bid by other teams for a single network to exclusively air their games it can be like an auction selling cattle where single teams are single handedly trying to win years-lengthy contracts in broadcasting games locally and nationally. Mostly satellite companies like Dish Network and Directv are getting the broadcasting rights to air games overseas. Sportsvision and ESPN are the only networks that air games for various sports, but NHL hockey is aired on Comcast as a package people can purchase to watch so many games for one price instead of airing it on regular television. The owner of the Chicago Black hawks refused to air games on local television apparently in attempt to bring crowds back to see the Black hawks play at the United Center. An article dating back to 2003 addressed the possibility of bringing an NHL franchise to Milwaukee Wisconsin to join the ranks of pro teams Milwaukee Bucks, Milwaukee Brewers and the Green Bay Packers. The main reason was that there wasn’t an interest from the city or anyone who planned to invest the $50 million dollar price tag to the cost of starting up a franchise. This was information taken off a survey issued in 1990 to find out the level of interest people would have for possibly bringing a professional hockey franchise to Wisconsin.

The idea wouldn’t sound too bad since they got the weather and surely there’s got to be throngs of people there who live for the sports you play in the wintertime and what good is winter if you can’t have hockey to go along with it? Anyone who’s a serious snow buff has to have a regular schedule of hockey games with friends or family to spar off with. Some people go to the rink 2-4 times a week during the hockey season or in some cases year round if you’re really into training like a professional hockey player. Most people like playing year round, which keep them in shape if they play in small local leagues or a full-assembled team. Most small teams usually play year round if it’s just a few friends getting together for a couple hours.

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The Terminology Used In Hockey

Posted by fts on 2nd, 2009

The language used in hockey is so detailed that only a true hockey enthusiast can really understand each and every term that’s used by referees and many of the terms used are also the same things that cost some teams penalty shots or even time in the penalty box. There are a total of 27 different plays that are considered penalties according to league rules and regulations. In order to be a referee one must know all the terms and what they mean and to be able to execute them during a game. A hard-core hockey fan can learn this easily through enough exposure to the game.

Learning the terms used in play calls are almost similar to what referees in basketball and football do since there’s a lot more calls than you would see in baseball. The most common of calls is when players fight against each other or against rival team players. Most of the other calls aren’t frequently used so much, but you’re likely to see a lot more fighting and unsportsmanly conduct on the ice. In order for someone to completely understand the terminology it’s what you call an acquired talent because it takes a lot of listening and patience to really embrace the terms used in this line of sport.

Some players who have tempers or behavior that’s unconventional or unsavory can be linked to a respective term which doesn’t help that particular player(s) because this only feeds into how the media views them too when they have to do by-lines for their articles and stories. The terms are so out of the ordinary it’s like they need their own dictionary or thesaurus to make full sense to those who don’t understand these terms enough to really explain them in detail. Either way the terms are very much a reality in hockey since back in years past the terminology wasn’t even in existence.

Some of the expressions in hockey today weren’t even used in the past, but as modifications in language changed that’s when they came up with these funky expressions for player’s behavior, team pep talks, and when it came down to someone’s playing ability there was a special term for everything and some of it is quite hilarious if you hear it often enough. The expressions alone could have their own section in the dictionary since for someone that doesn’t understand hockey they surely won’t understand the terms that both players and coaches will use on a constant basis.

Most of the time you’ll just see people using terms for poor sportsmanship and fighting since most of the time the other terms are used during a game. The hockey world is almost separate from every other sport because of the uniqueness of them using words that aren’t even along the lines of football and basketball since the terms are more in depth than the other two sports. Unless you’re a hockey enthusiast you’ll never really understand the terms of this sport. That’s why it’s a learned trait to understand the language used in hockey. If you sit with someone you can learn things most normal people who are not hockey fans don’t hear very often. The average hockey fan that is totally into the game are busy using 4 letter words more than staying calm. The adrenaline rush is so great that many hockey fans can actually make themselves dizzy from the stress.

Many fans don’t realize how hyped up they can get even at a simple referee call which can sometimes incite stuff on the ice with players going at it with each other.

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The Origin Of Ice Hockey, Skates And Rink Maintenance

Posted by fts on 2nd, 2009

Ice hockey evolved and developed from the concept of field hockey that was played in Europe for hundreds of years. A McGill University student named J.G.A Creighton, as many of us know took the modern day version of ice hockey from its roots in Canada. He was the dubbed the ‘grandfather’ of ice hockey regulations since his rules were used in the first game of ice hockey played in Montreal in 1875. Around the 18th century the first rink or playing area for ice hockey was used in a game common at the time in Scotland called ‘curling’. The original team line up consisted of 30 people on each side and their answer to a goal was frozen stones on both ends of the field which is known to us as goal lines.

The rules of ice hockey were drafted at McGill University in Montreal in 1879 and by 1893 the sport of hockey had made its way to the United States and by the turn of the century in the 1900s hockey had slowly made its way to various parts of Europe and England. This also brought the birth of the first ice rink (mechanically-refrigerated) was built in 1876 called the Glaciarium, this place was built about 30 years before hockey had really implemented itself as a popular sport in England.

Ice hockey in its infancy needed maintenance because the ice would be rough and difficult to skate on and they didn’t have a zamboni machine, which was later invented in 1939 by Eureka, Utah native Frank Zamboni and later released, for commercial use in 1942 and since then more than 8,000 Zamboni resurfacing machines are used by professional, college, university, and recreational ice facilities to keep their rinks maintained. This was a long way from the birth of the automatic refrigerated rink, which required people to hand scrape the rink, which was time consuming. Until the Zamboni machine cut that time down drastically by being able to drive the length of a rink and have it smoothed out in virtually 15-20 minutes before and after use. The University of Minnesota was the recipient of the 8,000th Zamboni machine in 2005.

It wasn’t until 1867 when a factory foreman by the name of John Forbes developed the first steel bladed skate at the Dartmouth, Nova Scotia-based factory Starr Manufacturing Company and the prototype was a clip on design, but 13 years earlier James A. Whelpley had came out with the first “official” ice skate that was designed for long distance skating called the “Long Reach Skate”.

This skate got its name after an area along the St. John River in New Brunswick where James Whelpley and his family owned a factory that manufactured the skates. The skate along with Forbes’ later modification of the skate had steel blades on them with the exception of Forbes’ design that was changed to make the blade shorter for rink skating. Over the years more modifications followed to what we have as the modern skate today that’s manufactured by companies like CCM (Canadian Cycle and Motor Company-established in 1889 out of Weston, Ontario, Canada)-the main supplier of hockey gear for many college, university, semi and pro hockey teams for their skates, and other Canadian-U.S. based companies like Bauer Sports to make the skates that are purchased by hockey enthusiasts all over the world today. Many hockey buffs are usually very selective in their skates because they want the best and top of the line skates since a serious hockey player will pay good money for skates.

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