The first hockey players attached to the shoes cheese cutters

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In Lviv, the first hockey match took place on Sunday, January 15, 1905. This debut meeting took place at the skating rink of the Pansky Lakes and caused a real interest of the Lviv public, which gathered quite a lot on that frosty day. The next day, on Monday, a detailed report was posted in the Gazeta Lvovskaya, separately, the reporter noted that "all the warming drinks were drunk."

We will not fight for the priority of Lviv regarding the holding of the first matches from different sports (football, hockey, basketball, water polo), which is documented in many publishing houses dedicated to the history of Lviv sport. And today we have a hockey team called "Galician Lions", which under the name of M. Chekantseva performs in the highest league of Ukraine, conducting their matches at the ice rink in Novoyavorevsk.

I want to remind you where this unusually popular sport went today for strong men (and women too!). Hockey is often called Canadian because it was born there in the late 18th century, when Great Britain won Canada from Canada and her soldiers brought hockey on the ground with them. But the winters here are severe and long, and therefore, attaching to the boots knives for cheese, the Canadians played this game on the ice of frozen rivers and lakes.

March 3, 1875 in Montreal on the rink "Victoria" there was a hockey match, which wrote the Monfreal Gazette. The teams then consisted of nine players, played with a wooden washer, and for the first time on the ice hockey gates were put. A few years later, they invented a rubber washer, made the first rules, and in 1885 founded the Amateur hockey league. According to the rules printed in 1886, the teams already had seven players: the goalkeeper, the front and back defenders, the central and the two extreme attackers, and the rover-bombardier was cruising the entire width of the field. Then there were no substitutions that were allowed already in 1910 of the year. Indoor skating rinks with natural ice began to appear, and ice was not thawed in the walls and roofs, narrow slots were made to access the cold wind, and the first ice rink with artificial ice was built, of course, in Montreal in 1899. "A year later, a metal whistle of the judge was replaced with a bell, and eventually with a plastic whistle.

The first professional team was created in 1904. The team consisted of 6 players (gates, two defenders, three attackers), a standard size skating rink, 26 by 56 meters.

Just then began to be interested in hockey in Europe, and in 1908 four countries: Belgium, Britain, France and Switzerland - founded the International Ice Hockey Federation, which Canada joined in 1920. In the same year, hockey was included in the program of the Summer Olympic Games in Antwerp (Belgium). The winners were teams from the North American continent - Canada was the first, the second was the United States, and the third was Czechoslovakia. But the most terrible tournament of national teams is the European Championship, which is held since 1910, and the first champion was the team of Great Britain. And I remember that in 1929, at the next European Championships in Budapest, the Polish team achieved significant success, took second place behind Czechoslovakia, and three hockey players from the Lviv Pogonyi - Vatoslav Kukhar, Roman Sabinsky and Jan Gemerling .

But, returning to the country of birth of hockey, it is also worth remembering that in Canada during the twentieth century there is a noticeable Ukrainian trace, as evidenced by memos in the Museums of Hockey Glory. It was first discovered in Kingston, a small town 250 kilometers from Toronto, where it is believed to have been first shown by hockey, and in 1963 the Hall of Fame moved to Toronto, where I was lucky to visit. Here at the stands one can trace the history of the development of secular hockey: skates , sticks, washers, equipment of players and goalkeepers, photos of celebrities. To get into the number of "immortals", you need to have at least 500 matches for the goalkeepers or 800 for the field players. The player who enters the Hall of Fame, receives a gold ring with the image of the emblem of the NHL, on which his name is engraved. Ukrainian roots have three goalkeepers - Terry Savchuk, Johnny Bover and Walter Broda. The first of them still holds the record for the number of matches - 115. In addition to them, seven more field players of Ukrainian origin have their place there: Mike Bossi (Mikhail Barey), Johnny Bucik, Bill Mosienko, Volly Stoyanovsky, Bronko Horvath, Bernard Federko and Dale Haverchuk.

Bill Mosienko left his stick in the Museum, which he established an unusual achievement: in 21 seconds he scored 3 goals! Bill then acted as the right-wing attacker of the Black Hawks ("Black Hawks" from Chicago) and March 23, 1952, held a match at the New York Palace "Madison Square Garden" against the local "New York Rangers": three throws in the zone of opponents and three washers by hand Mosienko! In Winepeed, where Mosienko lived the last years and died in 1994, there is a sports arena named after him, and on the wall of one of the brick houses a huge graffiti painting is painted - a portrait of Bill with three washers in his hand. The Ukrainian candidate for the Museum of Glory is today the legendary Dave Andreychuk, who just finished performing, remaining the NHL record holder for the number of washers, abandoned in the majority. From former celebrities of Soviet hockey in the Hall of Fame - coach Anatoly Tarasov, goalkeeper Vladislav Tretyak, defender Vyacheslav Fetisov and striker, "professor" Igor Larionov. It is rumored that the candidature of the legendary striker Valery Kharlamov will soon be offered.

In the Hall of Fame there is also the famous NHL prize, the Stanley Cup, which in 1893 was founded by Governor-General of Canada Arthur Stanley. He bought the Cup, similar to the inverted pyramid of silver rings, which was first awarded to the best amateur team in Canada, and from 1927 - only to the winner of the NHL championship. The team-champion leaves on the silver ring of the Cup a memorable inscription about his victory. Each of the hockey players who got the Cup, gets a memorable ring and has the right to take it for the day home. I also visited the silver prize in Ukraine: in 2004 he was brought to Kiev by the player of the Tampa Bay club Ruslan Fedotov, and two years later he again visited the capital of Ukraine with Anton Babchuk. It's clear that such a relic of hockey is of interest to fans of hockey, who would like to touch the famous prize, which was in the hands of many legendary hockey players. Perhaps they do not know that the original Stanley Cup never leaves its place in the Museum: in the ceremony of awarding the team-champion and in travel with the players is his exact copy. Perhaps this is correctly looking at the kind of adventures he had to visit. For example, Brian Trotteuil, taking the prize home, settled in with him in bed, to wake up and see him next to him. Or Clark Gills, who filled the cup with dog food, so that his beloved dog could take part in the celebration. And the famous goalkeeper Patrick Roy drowned the goblet in his pool, where he had to get it.

Who visited at least once in Canada, could be convinced that the Canadian life is permeated with hockey. It was impossible not to bring some kind of hockey souvenir. If all over the world hockey is a game, then in Canada - not only the national sport of Canadians, but also a business that brings great profits.