Early Creators of Hockey

This is a painting from the 17th century
showing people playing colf, an ancestor
of hockey thought to have originiated
in Dutch lands.  

The earliest ancestors of games resembling hockey date back to the Middle Ages and even the Vikings. The Vikings and people in the Low Countries during the Middle Ages played games that involved hitting objects with sticks on an ice covered surface but weren’t playing the game we know today.  There are two dominating theories about how hockey started to evolve into the fast paced game of today. There are two groups of people that are in competition for taking the credit for developing this amazing game.

First off your typical Canadian hockey story. Yes, it is true; a lot of people believe that hockey’s origins lie in Canada. It is thought that when British soldiers came to Canada during the winter, they would compete against Canadian immigrants in a game played on ice where people had sticks to hit a ball. It is also accepted that because of the cold and icy conditions of Canada, people decided that the game should be played on states because there was a long time of the year in which there was ice to play on. Canadians are also thought to have decided to play with a puck rather than a ball.

The other group that people credit with the creation of hockey is the Icelandic people. When a volcano erupted in Iceland in 1875, a lot of Icelandic people migrated from Iceland to the United States and Canada. With them, they brought their game, Knattleikr. One of the reasons this story is so believable is because in the first Olympic hockey tournament, Icelandic immigrants played on behalf of the Canadian people and won the first medal.  

So the question remains: What story seems more accurate? Do you think that there is possibly another group of people everyone is forgetting? Tell me what you think in your comments!