Page:Hockey, Canada's Royal Winter Game.djvu/19

 which the most important took place on New Year's Day, but if our imagination be given scope the effect is anything but pleasant.

Of all the games that developed from the old Roman sport the British hockey alone shaped the destiny of ours. There can be but little doubt, but that "shinny," the forerunner of our scientific hockey, is the Canadian interpretation of the game played across the water, adapted in its application to the climate of the country. Hockey in England is played in the winter on the frozen ground. It consists in driving a ball from one point to another by means of a hooked stick. The players are divided into two teams, each of which has its goals, which are fixed towards either end of a tolerably spacious ground. The goals are two upright posts, about six feet apart, with a cross pole placed at the height of four feet. Through these the ball must be driven in order to score a point. As regards the playing of the game, it is unnecessary further to speak, because it bears but little reference to hockey as played in Canada. Suffice it to say that in the shape of the sticks, not limited in their proportions, in the nature of the object that was used as a ball, in the unlimited numbers of the players, and in its principles, it is the parent of "shinny on the ice."