Ice Hockey In Canada

Ice hockey is a team sport played on ice and skaters use sticks to direct a puck into the opposing team's goal. Fighting is denied in rules. At the professional level in North America fights are unofficially condoned. It is the official national winter sport of Canada and it is VERY popular in there. Ice hockey has been a source of inspiration for numerous films, television episodes and songs in North American popular culture.

All twelve Olympic and 36 IIHF World Women Championships medals have gone to one of those seven countries (Canada, the Czech Republic, Finland, Russia, Slovakia, Sweden and the United States), and every gold medal in both competitions has been won by either Canada or the United States. At Olympic Winter Games this year Canada won again :).
There is no doubt that hockey has been played for a long time in Canada and individual clubs were known a long time ago. The first organization actually dealing with the administration of the sport was the Amateur Hockey Association of Canada (AHAC), which was organized on the 8th of December, 1886.


Women playing hockey at Rideau Hall circa 1890 (earliest known image of women's hockey)


The largest hockey attendance in history was on October 6, 2001, for a game commonly known as the Cold War. Two college hockey rivals, University of Michigan and Michigan State University, opened their season with a game in Michigan State's outdoor football arena, Spartan Stadium. A $500,000 sheet of ice was used, and the temperature was 30 °F (−1 °C). The game drew a record-breaking 74,554 spectators, smashing the previous number of 55,000 attendance during the Sweden vs. Soviet Union game during the world championship in Moscow.

The annual men's Ice Hockey World Championships are more highly regarded by Europeans than North Americans because they coincide with the Stanley Cup playoffs. Canada, the United States, and other countries with large numbers of NHL players have not always been able to field their best possible teams because many of their top players are playing for the Stanley Cup.
Hockey has been played at the Winter Olympics since 1924 (and at the summer games in 1920). Canada has won eight golden medals. Women's hockey has been played at the Olympics since 1998.






http://www.hockeycanada.ca/index.php/ci_id/57519/la_id/1.htm ; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_hockey ; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lffkj9Xf8TY