A 150-year-old hockey stick made by the Mi’kmaq people sold at auction for $2.2 million in 2006. The Mi’kmaq designed and manufactured the first commercial hockey stick. For decades, the Mic-Mac hockey stick dominated the international hockey stick market.
But if the Mi’kmaq invented the modern hockey stick, the question arises: Did the Mi’kmaq invent hockey itself?
The Mic-Mac Hockey Stick
When Europeans first made contact with the Mi’kmaq, they had lived for 10,000 years along the Atlantic coast from Newfoundland to Boston. They spent spring and summer hunting and fishing on the coast, then moved inland for the cold months. They traveled by canoe and snowshoe. When Europeans arrived, they focused on fur trapping and trading.
Miꞌkmaq Women Selling Baskets, Halifax, Nova Scotia, by Mary R. McKie c. 1845
By the 19th century, the Mi’kmaq sustained themselves by farming and selling handcrafts. They made pick handles for coal mines, canoes and snowshoes. Mi’kmaq women made baskets and moccasins.
Then in 1863, a company called Star Manufacturing Co. in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, began buying the hockey sticks from the Natives in bulk. Star Manufacturing distributed them as the Mic-Mac hockey stick. After hockey exploded in popularity in Canada in the 1890s, it became the best-selling hockey stick internationally.
Mi’kmaq men made most of their livelihood from carving hockey sticks. They made so many hockey sticks they depleted local supplies of ironwood (also known as hornbeam). The Mi’kmaq then turned to the yellow birch, a hard wood much like ironwood. They carved the sticks from the root and trunk of the trees, which made them exceptionally durable.
By 1927, the Mi’kmaq were still the experts at making hockey sticks, according to the department of Indian Affairs for Nova Scotia. Their supremacy didn’t last long. By the 1930s, machines made hockey sticks.
As of 2023, about 67,000 Mi’kmaq people live in the Canadian Maritimes, with 9,245 claiming to speak the Mi’kmaq language. About 1,500 live in the northeastern Maine towns of Presque Isle and Limestone.
Origins of Ice Hockey
Written accounts from the 18th century describe Mi’kmaq stick-and-ball games like hockey on land and on ice. The Mi’kmaq called the game they played on ice “Oochamkunutk.”
But the English, Irish, Scots and Dutch also played games on ice with sticks and balls since at least the Middle Ages. Paintings from the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries show Europeans on ice skates with sticks and balls.
17th-century Dutch painting, “Winter landscape, with skaters playing IJscolf,” by Hendrick Avercamp
From there, few agree.
According to one account, the boys of Kings College School in Windsor, Nova Scotia, invented hockey as we know it today.
According to another, British soldiers brought hockey to Canada.
A story in “Vancouver 2010 Official Souvenir Program” recounted how soldiers played it to stay in shape and ease their boredom.
The British [English] played bandy, the Scots played shinty and golf, the Irish, hurling, while the Dutch soldiers probably pursued ken jaegen. Curiosity led some to try lacrosse. Each group learned the game from the others. The most daring ventured to play on skates. … Hockey is the conclusion of all these beginnings.
A Mic-Mac Hockey Stick Carver Weighs In
Cheryl Maloney, a political science professor from the Sipekne’katik First Nation community, believes her people invented ice hockey. Her grandfather, an expert stick carver known as “Old Joe” Cope, in 1943 wrote a letter to a newspaper claiming the Mi’kmaq started it all.
“Long before the pale faces strayed to this country, the Mi’kmaqs were playing two ball games, a field game and an ice game.”
Nova Scotia hockey historian David Carter calls himself Hockey Holmes Heritage Detective, having researched the history of hockey. He told CBC News he’s more comfortable calling the Mi’kmaq the “roots” of ice hockey.
Mi’kmaq making hockey sticks from hornbeam trees (Carpinus caroliniana) in Nova Scotia about 1890.
The $2 Million Mic-Mac Hockey Stick
The $2 million stick was hand carved from ironwood and curved at the end. Made of one piece of wood, it looked more like a field hockey stick than today’s version. That it lasted as long as it did testifies to its durability.
Another pricey Mic-Mac hockey stick belongs to the Canadian Museum of History, which paid $300,000 for it. Called the Moffatt stick, it dates to 1830, where a Mi’kmaq craftsman carved it from a sugar maple tree on Cape Breton Island.
Mark O’Neill, museum president, said it was worth every penny. “Hockey is Canada’s game,” he said. “We developed it and we cherish it like no other country in the world.”
Mic-Mac Hockey Stick Adopters
An amateur team of Mic-Mac hockey stick enthusiasts, The Rideau Hall Rebels, popularized hockey throughout Canada and Europe during the 1890s. The sons of the Governor General of Ottawa, Lord Stanley, belonged to the team. The full name of the team – the Vice-Regal and Parliamentary Hockey Club – suggests the status of the members. They were young men on the rise and included a future governor of Madras, law clerk to the Senate of Canada, the British ambassador to France and a Member of Parliament.
The Rideout Hall Rebels with their Mic-Mac hockey sticks.
Organized in 1884, the team, based in Ottawa, took its name from Rideau Hall, the governor general’s residence. The governor general himself, Lord Stanley, and his wife, became ardent hockey fans. Back then, regional teams played for championships, but Canada had no national championship.
The Stanley Cup
In 1892, Lord Stanley commissioned the “Dominion Hockey Challenge Cup” for the top-ranked amateur team in Canada. In 1915, the two professional hockey leagues agreed that their respective champions would play each other each year for the Stanley Cup. Not until 1947 did National Hockey League champions compete for the Cup.
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Image: Stanley Cup: By Alex Goykhman – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=44669468.
Native American history
