Hockey as we know it began in Montreal. The first organized game was played at the Victoria Skating Rink on 3 March 1875. Stick games on ice are much older, so no single town owns the whole story.
The answer to where was hockey invented depends on what you count. The IIHF named the Victoria Skating Rink the birthplace of organized hockey in 2002.
Where was hockey invented?
Montreal holds the official title for organized hockey. The IIHF made that choice in 2002.
In 2008, the IIHF held its congress in Montreal. During that congress, a plaque honoring Creighton went up at the Bell Centre.
Older games on ice came long before Montreal. Historian Paul Kitchen says northern countries played forms of hockey for hundreds of years.
What each official source says about 1875
Every official body is careful with its words. This table shows how each one describes the Montreal game.
| Source | How it describes the 3 March 1875 game |
|---|---|
| NHL.com | The first organized ice hockey game |
| IIHF | The first game announced ahead of time between two named teams |
| Government of Canada | The first recorded indoor game played before spectators |
| Parks Canada | Played by James Creighton, often called the father of organized hockey |
None of these four sources says hockey itself began in Montreal. Each one describes a first for the 1875 game.
Why Montreal is called the birthplace of hockey
Before 1875, hockey had no fixed rink, team size or rulebook. The Montreal game added all three. A 2009 Government of Canada speech says the modern sport was born in 1875.
Kitchen put it simply on a Library and Archives Canada podcast. Hockey started either in time out of mind or in March 1875. It depends on how you view the game.
Which first do you mean?
Hockey has many firsts. Pick one to see where and when it happened, and who says so.
Who invented hockey?
James Creighton is the usual answer to who invented hockey. He grew up in Halifax. He moved to Montreal in 1873 to work as an engineer.
In 1875, he set up the first organized game. Canada’s government calls him the closest thing hockey has to a founding father. Creighton never made that claim himself.
What Creighton brought to the game
The IIHF and the Government of Canada credit Creighton with these steps:
- He brought hockey sticks to Montreal from Halifax.
- He used a puck instead of a ball.
- He moved the game indoors to a rink of fixed size.
- He set a fixed number of players on each team.
- He helped write the game’s first rules.
How Canada honors him
Parks Canada named Creighton a National Historic Person on 26 February 2008. A plaque in Montreal marks the area where the Victoria Skating Rink once stood.
Creighton later moved to Ottawa. He worked 48 years as Law Clerk to the Senate.
In Ottawa, he also helped form the Rideau Hall Rebels. That team included two of Lord Stanley’s sons.
What happened at the first organized hockey game?
On 3 March 1875, the Montreal Gazette ran a short notice. It said two nines chosen from the club’s members would play hockey that evening.
Most players were students at McGill University. Creighton captained one team, and Charles Torrance led the other. Creighton’s team won 2 to 1, according to the NHL.
How the 1875 game worked
NHL.com lists these features of the first organized game:
- Two teams with goaltenders and a referee
- A set of rules agreed before the game
- Two halves, for a game of 60 minutes
- A square piece of wood as the puck
- An early version of the offside rule
The Gazette said a very large crowd came to watch. NHL.com says the square wooden puck was less likely to fly off the ice.
Nine players or eight?
Sources differ on the team sizes. NHL.com says two teams of nine played. Historian Paul Kitchen counts nine on one side and eight on the other.
Either way, far more players were on the ice than today. Nine plus nine makes 18 players. Today’s game has 6 plus 6, or 12.
The plaque at the Bell Centre
On 15 March 2026, the Canadiens unveiled a plaque at the Bell Centre. It marks the first organized game in Montreal on 3 March 1875. The plaque sits near the main entrance on Avenue des Canadiens de Montréal.
Was hockey invented in Canada?
Organized hockey was born in Canada. Stick games on ice were played in many northern countries. Several Canadian towns also claim an early role.
A 2009 Government of Canada speech says shinny was played across the country before Creighton. It named Windsor, Nova Scotia, Kingston, Ontario, and Great Bear Lake.
Windsor, Nova Scotia
Windsor has its own claim to be the birthplace of hockey. Kitchen said Windsor is still in the running.
Creighton grew up in Halifax, also in Nova Scotia. Canada’s government says an early form of hockey was played there. No official body names Windsor as the birthplace.
Kingston, Ontario
Kingston’s claim came from Captain James Sutherland. He called Kingston the birthplace of hockey, starting in 1888. The Hockey Hall of Fame says he had the year wrong.
The game he meant was played in 1886. Queen’s University faced the Royal Military College. That was 11 years after Montreal’s first organized game.
Sutherland’s case was strong enough to matter. The Hall of Fame was first set up in Kingston in 1943. It later moved to Toronto.
Délı̨nę and Great Bear Lake
Délı̨nę, in the Northwest Territories, also claims a place in hockey’s story. Parks Canada says it is the only community on Great Bear Lake.
No official page gives a date for early games there. The lake does appear in the 2009 government speech.
What hockey historians say
The Society for International Hockey Research checks each town’s claim. Kitchen, one of its members, sums up the group’s findings. “So far none of them have been well founded,” he says.
This table sums up each claim and the official record behind it.
| Place | Earliest date on an official page | What the record says |
|---|---|---|
| Montreal, Quebec | 3 March 1875 | First organized game, named by the IIHF in 2002 |
| Kingston, Ontario | 1886 | Queen’s vs Royal Military College game |
| Windsor, Nova Scotia | No date given | Called “in the running” by historian Paul Kitchen |
| Great Bear Lake, Northwest Territories | No date given | Named in a 2009 Government of Canada speech |
| Northern countries | No year given | Older forms of the game, says historian Paul Kitchen |
Who wrote the first hockey rules?
The first hockey rules appeared in print on 27 February 1877. The Montreal Gazette published seven rules, the IIHF says. They were based on field hockey rules.
Canada’s government says Creighton is widely believed to have written them. He drew on English rugby and field hockey rules.
The first teams and clubs
Sources differ on the first hockey club. The IIHF says McGill University formed the first organized team on 31 January 1877.
Creighton named a different club as his proudest honor. He captained the Metropolitan Club in Montreal, called the first regular hockey club in Canada.
Field hockey or ice hockey?
Many searches for who invented hockey mix up two sports, field hockey and ice hockey. This guide covers ice hockey.
The first ice hockey rules borrowed from field hockey. Canada’s national sports law uses the words “the game commonly known as ice hockey”.
How did hockey get from Montreal to the NHL?
Clubs, leagues and a famous trophy came next. These dates trace the path from the first game to the NHL:
- 1884: The Ottawa Hockey Club, formed in 1883, plays at Montreal’s Winter Carnival.
- Two years later: Ottawa captain Thomas D. Green, a Six Nations man, leads the world’s first hockey league.
- 1892: Lord Stanley donates the Stanley Cup.
- 1893: The Montreal Amateur Athletic Association wins the first Stanley Cup.
- 1909: The National Hockey Association begins play.
- 26 November 1917: The NHL forms at the Windsor Hotel in Montreal.
The NHL’s first season
The new NHL kept the National Hockey Association’s playing rules. It also used that league’s 25 page constitution, NHL.com says.
The first NHL games were played on 19 December 1917. Our guide to all 32 NHL teams follows the league from its first 4 teams.
How did hockey spread to the US and the world?
Hockey left Canada within a few decades of the first organized game. Europe, the Olympics and the United States all followed.
Europe and the IIHF
In 1897, Canadian skater George Meagher took hockey gear to Paris. The IIHF says the first real games in Europe came in 1902, in London’s Knightsbridge.
The IIHF was founded in Paris on 15 May 1908. Belgium, France, Great Britain and Switzerland signed the founding papers. In 1911, the IIHF adopted Canadian rules.
Today the IIHF has 84 member nations. Sixty one are full members, and 23 are associate members.
The 1920 Olympics
Hockey joined the Olympics at the 1920 Games in Antwerp, Belgium. Canada and the United States joined the IIHF there on 26 April 1920.
Canada’s Winnipeg Falcons won the gold medal. Teams played seven a side, with an extra skater called the rover.
The United States
The Boston Bruins became the NHL’s first US team in 1924. The Bruins say their first game was on 1 December 1924.
The United States won its first world title in 1933. It was the first country other than Canada to do it. USA Hockey began in a New York City apartment on 29 October 1937.
How has hockey changed since 1875?
The game Creighton organized looked very different from today’s NHL. This table compares the 1875 game with key rule changes and today.
| Year | Players per side | Game length | What changed |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1875 | 9 (or 9 and 8) | Two halves, 60 minutes | Square wooden puck, a referee and goaltenders |
| 1920 | 7, with a rover | Not listed | Olympic rink of 56 by 18 meters |
| 1923 | 6 | Three 15 minute periods | Five skaters and a goalie in IIHF play |
| 1946 | 6 | Three 20 minute periods | IIHF adds the red line and modern offside |
| Today | 6 | Three 20 minute periods | Rubber puck and a 200 by 85 foot NHL rink |
Players on the ice
In 1875, nine players a side put 18 on the ice. Today, each team plays five skaters and one goalie. NHL Rule 5.3 allows one goalie per team on the ice.
That makes 6 players a side, or 12 on the ice. Our guide to periods in hockey covers how game time grew to three periods.
The puck
The first puck was a square piece of wood. Under NHL Rule 13.1, today’s puck is vulcanized rubber. It is 1 inch thick and 3 inches wide.
It weighs from 5.5 to 6 ounces. Our hockey puck guide covers the rest.
The red line
The NHL added its center red line for the 1943 to 1944 season. NHL.com says it brought more speed and less congestion.
The IIHF added its red line in 1946. In 1997, the IIHF dropped it for passing. NHL Rule 1.5 still marks a red line at center ice.
How old is hockey?
Hockey’s age depends on which first you count. These steps work it out for 2026:
- The first organized game: 2026 minus 1875 is 151 years.
- The first printed rules: 2026 minus 1877 is 149 years.
- The first Stanley Cup winner: 2026 minus 1893 is 133 years.
- The IIHF: 2026 minus 1908 is 118 years.
- The NHL: 2026 minus 1917 is 109 years, reached on 26 November.
Is hockey Canada’s national sport?
Yes, by law, ice hockey is Canada’s national winter sport. The National Sports of Canada Act became law on 12 May 1994.
The same law names lacrosse the national summer sport. It says nothing about where hockey began.
Still wondering?
Who invented ice hockey?
James Creighton set up the first organized ice hockey game, in Montreal in 1875. He is often called the father of organized hockey. Older stick games on ice came before him.
When was the first hockey game?
The first organized hockey game was played on 3 March 1875. It took place at the Victoria Skating Rink in Montreal. Creighton’s team won 2 to 1.
Where was hockey invented first, Canada or Europe?
Organized hockey came from Canada, in Montreal in 1875. Older forms of the game were played across northern countries for centuries, Kitchen says.
Where is the Hockey Hall of Fame?
The Hockey Hall of Fame is in Toronto. It was first set up in Kingston in 1943. The Hall opened in Toronto in 1961, and its current home opened in 1993.
Can you visit the site of the first game?
The Victoria Skating Rink is gone. Two plaques at the Bell Centre, near the old rink site, tell the story. One honors Creighton, and one from March 2026 marks the first organized game.
When did hockey become an Olympic sport?
Hockey was first played at the 1920 Olympics in Antwerp. Canada won the gold medal. Women’s hockey joined the Olympics in 1998.
Take your shot
A friend says hockey began in Kingston in 1886. Which came first, that Kingston game or Montreal's organized game?
Pick one to take your shot.
Checked against IIHF and NHL.com
NHL.com, the first organized game
Hockey Hall of Fame history
IIHF timeline of hockey history
Checked October 2026
