Origin
  Evolution   Hockeyists
  Windsor

Evolution of the Puck

1800 –
Hurley Ball, called ‘Sliotar‘
used as Ice Hurley began in Windsor

Wooden Puck

There is documented evidence that Nova Scotians used wooden
pucks from at least the 1860s and likely before.

Although wooden pucks
were free and easily obtained, young Nova Scotia boys often used other objects
as substitutes, including heels from their boots, compressed tin cans, lumps of
coal, and frozen horse droppings which they referred to as ‘horse puckies’, or
‘horse apples’. With horses being commonly used for transortation of goods in
Canada’s towns and cities well into the 1950s, horse puckies were easy for young
hockeyists to find on the main streets and fields all across the nation.

Hard
‘vulcanized’ rubber was available since its invention in 1839 by Charles Goodyear,
but was not considered for use as a puck material until the late 1880s.



Kingston’s Rubber Puck

The first one generally known to be used was in
Kingston, Ontario as teams from the Royal Military College and Queen’s University
took up the game in 1886.

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Whereas regulation rubber pucks measure three inches
in diameter and one inch in thickness, children’s smaller pucks were common in
the 1920s-50s and measured 2 1/2″ x 3/4″.

Wilson Hawco Hockey Puck

All pucks were not regulation size and shape
in the early part of the 1900s. Photos of teams taken as the seasons ended often
revealed the type of sticks, protective equipment, uniforms and pucks used by
the players. Several such photos show pucks with rolled edges.

An Oddity – A Rolled Edge Puck

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