The Puck Starts Here: The Origin of Canada's Great Winter Game-Ice Hockey

Dave Jenkinson is a professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Manitoba and the author of the “Portraits” section of Emergency Librarian.

Garth Vaughan, a member of the Society for International Hockey Research
and also the curator and founding director of the Windsor Hockey
Heritage Centre, sets out to prove in this readable book that Windsor,
Nova Scotia, not Montreal or Kingston, was the birthplace of hockey. As
recounted in the book’s first four chapters, hockey evolved from the
Irish field game of hurley, which in the early 1800s was transformed
into hurley-on-ice by the lads at King’s College School in Windsor;
hurley-on-ice later migrated to (as opposed to being created by) other
locales. The remaining nine chapters indirectly lend support to
Vaughan’s initial thesis. Chapter 7 traces the evolution of hockey
outfits and equipment. Chapter 8, “Mi’kmaq Hockey Stick Makers,”
describes how, up until the early part of the 20th century, the hockey
sticks of choice were those that were hand-carved from hornbeam trees by
Nova Scotia’s aboriginal peoples. Equally interesting are two social
history chapters: “Women in Hockey” and “The Coloured Hockey
League of the Maritimes.”

Black-and-white illustrations constitute a significant portion of the
contents. The book concludes with a chronology that focuses on events
from 1800–1900, and a glossary of archaic hockey terminology. A
valuable addition to academic and public libraries, The Puck Starts Here
should also find a readership among high-school–aged hockey fans.