Ice hockey is the most popular indoor sport in Scotland, with a fairly established presence in each of the population centres and a spectator attendance lower only than football and rugby union. The term "hockey" is usually reserved for field hockey in Scotland, and "ice hockey" is normally referred to by its full form. As with curling (a sport of Scottish origin), the game tends to be more commonly played indoors these days, due to milder winters in the past few decades. Ice hockey is thus played on indoor rinks in Scotland, with the possible exception of street hockey, which is played at an informal level within the country.

Governing body

The national governing body is

Scottish Ice Hockey Scottish usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including: *Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family native to Scotland *Scottish English * Scottish national identity, the Scottish id ...

History

Shinty and the possible Scottish origins of ice hockey

Despite the official introduction of ice hockey into Scotland in the twentieth century, its roots in Scotland go far deeper. To this day, ice hockey is often referred to as "shinny" and "hurtling" in Canada, suggesting a tie up with

shinty Shinty ( gd, camanachd, iomain) is a team game played with sticks and a ball. Shinty is now played mainly in the Scottish Highlands and amongst Highland migrants to the big cities of Scotland, but it was formerly more widespread in Scotland, an ...

and Ireland's

hurling Hurling ( ga, iománaíocht, ') is an outdoor team game of ancient Gaelic Irish origin, played by men. One of Ireland's native Gaelic games, it shares a number of features with Gaelic football, such as the field and goals, the number of p ...

. Shinty is the national stick game of Scotland, and Phil Dracket who favours an English origin for the game, in the Fens of Cambridgeshire admits: :"in the formative years of the game the dividing line between hockey,

bandy Bandy is a winter sport and ball sport played by two teams wearing ice skates on a large ice surface (either indoors or outdoors) while using sticks to direct a ball into the opposing team's goal. The international governing body for bandy is ...

and shinty was always a fine one." In fact, Charles Goodman Tebbutt, who wrote down the first English bandy rules, claimed the words were interchangeable: :"THE game of bandy, otherwise known as hockey or shinney, or shinty, is doubtless one of the earliest pastimes of the kind ever known." However, the similarities between the two sports, post-codification are still notable: :" n shintyas in ice hockey, both sides of the hook

f the stick F, or f, is the sixth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''ef'' (pronounced ), and the plural is ''efs''. Hist ...

are used to strike the ball, but there is no restriction on the height to which the stick may be raised.""Shinty" in ''

Collins Encyclopedia of Scotland ''Collins Encyclopaedia of Scotland'' is a reference work published by HarperCollins, edited by the husband and wife team, John and Julia Keay. History Scots had provided the impetus for a number of well-known references works, ''Chambers Dic ...

'', HarperCollins , 2000, , p.868

20th century

Domestic structure

References

Bibliography

* Drackett, Phil ''Flashing Blades, the Story of British Ice Hockey'', The Crowood Press Ltd; (12 October 1987, ) * Hutchinson, Roger '' Camanachd!: The Story of Shinty'', Birlinn Ltd (16 November 2004, ) * MacLennan, Hugh Dan, ''Not an orchid'', Kessock Communications (1995, Scotland, )

External links

A-Z of Ice Hockey
{{Sport in Scotland History of sport in Scotland Scotland Shinty