Road trips are all about roadside attractions. Often they creep up on you and drag you in. Then they amaze you and make you wonder why they weren’t your primary destination in the first place. Getting unexpectedly drawn in to an attraction is exactly what happened to us after we left Annapolis Royale and embarked on our journey to New Brunswick. As we approached the little town of Windsor, Nova Scotia, we kept seeing signs for the “birthplace of hockey.” Canada claims hockey as the country’s national sport, but surely they didn’t invent it. Hockey is one of the most prominent international sports. Did it really start in some small town in the north Atlantic of Canada? I was skeptical but our guidebook seemed to support the claim. We had to stop.
We navigated through the little town of Windsor following signs until we came to an estate gate. Really, this is where hockey was invented? We drove up the driveway past a little pond and into a grass-covered parking area with no markings. There were some guys in the shed working on the lawn mower. Were we really supposed to be here? Was this really the place where the great game of hockey began? It was feeling more like we were trespassing.
As with everything Canadian, it is humble and understated. Lest you have any doubt, they have the historical documentation that this little property with a pond was where they first started hitting wooden pucks around on the ice with sticks carved out of tree roots. This modest sign really was the only indication that we were actually where hockey became a thing. This unapposing house was really the home of the Canadian Hockey Heritage Museum.
The game that is hockey’s precursor is commonly known today as hurling, but to the Gaelic people who settled Nova Scotia, it was known as hurley. Wealthy students at a boys school in Windsor needed some entertainment during the winter when everything was frozen and they were desperate to get outside and enjoy some sport. They started batting balls around on the ice with sticks the way they would during the summer months, but that just wasn’t very satisfying. Eventually, they started cutting disks out of tree limbs and carved sticks out of curved tree roots. Of course, this all also led to the development of skates. It all really happened on this little pond in Windsor, Nova Scotia, and they have the historical documentation to back it up.
How can something with such intensive national significance live in such an out-of-the-way town in and unimposing estate house with very few visitors in the middle of the summer. Its understatement defied the importance. It is all here. The evolution of ice skates, hockey pucks, goalie masks, and rules of the game. Wow!
Of course, as with many institutions we assume were created by Anglos, hockey’s true history belongs in a large part to the black people who most likely settled the lands involuntarily or fled the oppression of slavery in the United States. One of the most significant, important, and moving exhibits in the museum provides a chronology of the original black hockey leagues and players who develop and popularized the sport. I can hear Dave Chappelle saying, “It was the black man who invented hockey!” He would be right that the strong black history of hockey helped make the game what it is today. Canadians and actually black Canadians were responsible for the development and popularization of hockey. Thanks to the Canadian Hockey Heritage Museum for preserving the story and sharing it with us.
Of course, I’m an Avalanche fan and 2022 was the year everything finally came together and the team took the Stanley Cup. I write this post just shortly after I learned that we missed, by ONE DAY, Nathan MacKinnon’s Stanley Cup parade in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Had we had any idea . . . Again, timing. Looks like it was one hell of a party, and we rolled into town the day after to catch a flight having no idea.
Anyway, one of the highlights for me was to actually see three Avalanche pucks in the museum display–one actually signed by the 1995-1996 Stanley Cup championship team! Hmmm, don’t think I see a Red Wings puck there. Interesting. Could not have been a coincidence that our team had such an outsized representation, but I never learned why. Other than they’re awesome!
The entire experience was completely unexpected and ended up being one of the highlights of the day and our entire trip to Atlantic Canada. Go Avs! Congrats to Nathan and his fans in his hometown of Halifax, Nova Scotia. If you look in the middle right-hand side of the display, you’ll see a Halifax Mooseheads puck–MacKinnon’s hometown junior hockey league team.
Learned several new things from this post – thanks for sharing!
Very cool that you got to see this. I did not know that hockey gave us skates. The tape on the sticks brings me back.
Is it true that jock straps were created before helmets?