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Evolution

Overview

Stick-Ball

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Rules
Hurley/Hockey
Halifax
Montreal
On Side
Face Off

Glossary

The Montreal Rules

Continued from Halifax Rules

As time went on, J.G.A. Creighton and his athletic friends, as members of a Montreal men's sporting club, the 'Metropolitan Club', rewrote the rules of Ice Hockey and published them in 1877 as the "Montreal Rules". Also in 1877, as McGill University formed its first Ice Hockey team, a description of "The Halifax Hockey Club Rules" appeared in the students campus paper called The University Gazette. In the 1998 edition of the N.H.L.'s Total Hockey book, Mr. William Fitsell of Kingston wrote Chapter 2 entitled Kingston, Ontario - A Special Place in Hockey History. Concentrating his attention on the major achievements of Kingston's hockey greats, Mr. Fitsell noted that as the Montreal version of Ice Hockey rules became popular, "Thereafter, Nova Scotia teams adopted the Montreal rules and the Halifax rules were forgotten." - not so - the Halifax Rules could never be "forgotten" because they were an integral part of the Montreal Rules. Creighton would have seen to that personally, for he was the secretary of the prestigious Metropolitan Club and played a key role in the actual composition of the new version of the rules. And just so that the Halifax Hockey Club Rules will never be forgotten, the McGill students recorded the evidence of their presence and importance to the student body in their newspaper. Some have recorded that J.G.A.Creighton actually wrote the original Halifax Rules himself but there is no documented evidence known to support that, and it is unlikely, as they would have been in existence when Creighton learned to play the game back in his native Halifax.

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