Feb 14, 2025 –
This labour of love took six years of my spare time. During that period, I ensured that my ideas reached hockey historians. I did so because my main priority was not to be right, but rather to assess whether the ‘Four Stars’ model has any flaws. Since then, I have received no corrections, nor did I expect any, frankly, because the Four Stars model is so basic and grounded in ‘real’ history.
In due course, the ideas below will shift the modern zeitgeist because current historical portrayals rely heavily on two fictions: that ‘modern’ hockey was (somehow) born in 1875 in Montreal, and that early ice hockey can be described entirely as an activity that required only ‘skates and sticks.’ Here is what we have introduced to the hockey history conversation during the 2021 to 2025 period:
The “Flat Thin Blade”
In the four years since December 2021, when I introduced the ‘flat thin blade’ as a way of distinguishing the Mi’kmaq stick from all other ‘hockey’ sticks, I have yet to hear any convincing rebuttal regarding its novelty or provenance. This corrects all current suggestions that early ‘hockey’ on ice was played with any kind of stick. Contrary to what is now being suggested, all the new evidence regarding early ‘sticks’ simply highlights the devices that the Mi’kmaq stick overcame, thereby inspiring mass imitation.
The 1863 Birth of Ice Hockey’s Dominant Player
In the fall of 2023, I noted—as have many others—that Dartmouth’s Acme skate was similarly dominant in its own realm. What was new in the second essay was the discussion of how the Acme’s emergence, combined with the Mi’kmaq stick in Halifax, evolved into dominant 19th-century ice hockey around 1863. The inevitable consequence of the union of hockey’s right stick and skate was the introduction of 19th-century ice hockey’s dominant player.
Halifax’s 10-Year Renaissance Period 1863 to 1872
As with every claim we make here, we invite the reader to examine what has been written about Halifax hockey during the 1863-to-1872 period. This is the only way to understand why it is profoundly incorrect to say that Montreal inherited any sort of ’embryonic’ game. Without the tools of Halifax hockey, the Montreal game would have never taken off.
Instead of likening Halifax hockey to every version of stick games on ice, the time has come to finally and seriously ask what Halifax hockey had become during the ten-year period that marked the emergence of hockey played with Mi’kmaq sticks and Canada’s Acme skates.
We must ask what the best hockey players in Halifax became after ten full years of using the proper skate and stick, during a time when all other ‘hockey’ players believed the game could be played with ‘any’ kind of skate and stick.
Recontextualizing 19th-century Montreal Hockey
Writing in mid-February of 2025, I finished my presentation in June 2024 with a focus on Montreal and British Columbia, then bundled them all into a PDF book, The Four Stars of Early Ice Hockey.
Given the long-standing embellishment surrounding 19th-century Montreal hockey, (however well-intended), it was necessary to start with the Halifax-Kjipuktuk Mi’kmaw and then the settlers of Halifax and Dartmouth to recontextualize the true significance of 19th-century Montreal hockey. All such reflection will lead to the same conclusion: without Halifax’s skates and sticks, or those that imitated their novel technologies, the Montrealers would never have been able to sell their game and make it a pillar of Canadian culture. The rise of Montreal hockey, from start to finish, to its conquest of the Stanley Cup and then professional hockey, is best understood as a ‘Halifax-Montreal’ ascension.
Two Kinds of Modern Ice Hockey
Among the ideas new to that essay is the observation that there are two significantly different forms of Ice Hockey: hitting hockey and intentional contact hockey. This distinction is strictly enforced by hockey organizations worldwide.
The True Lineal Evolution of Modern Ice Hockey
Halifax and Montreal built a game that outshone all other versions of 19th-century hockey. By officially establishing it as Canada’s way of playing hockey, they created a ‘lineal’ connection that separates Halifax from all the ‘non-lineal’ games that Halifax-Montreal hockey ultimately conquered. All of those other games serve as background to a 19th-century tale of conquest, in which Halifax and Montreal co-star. Halifax introduced ‘incidental contact’ hockey prior to 1873, and Montreal followed by introducing intentional hitting shortly thereafter.
British Columbia: Early Hockey’s 4th Star – After Halifax and Montreal conquered elite hockey late in the 19th century, British Columbia forced its way onto Ice Hockey’s elite stage by picking a fight with our 3rd Star- Montreal. This competition between East and West lasted for a decade and a half, and led to radical chances in Ice Hockey.
British Columbia introduced over two dozen innovations that have become fixtures in modern ice hockey. Based on the preponderance of these contributions, BC earns a fourth Star for significantly changing what had been the Halifax-Montreal game until the arrival of the 4th Star. In other words, modern ice hockey is based on a Halifax-Montreal-BC foundation, with ‘Halifax’ referring to the unique contributions of two nations: the Kjipuktuk Mi’kmaq stick and Canada’s Acme skate, making for a total of four main contributors to modern ice hockey.
Ice Hockey a ‘Hybrid’ Game Born in Two Nations
Two lost articles from 1943 prove that Halifax hockey was played by both settlers and Indigenous players in the 1860s. This secures Canada’s and the Mi’kmaw’s claim to ice hockey’s literal birthplace. Such a game could not have been born in Europe because it requires Mi’kmaq partners. Nor could a game that requires Acme skates be purely Mi’kmaq in origin. The stick game that became hockey was, literally, born in two nations at once. Because of their unique and enduring contributions, both of which are preserved today, it is also a ‘unique’ Canadian-Mi’kmaq game.
Since none of these conclusions have been falsified, and since A.I. agrees with their underlying logic, we presume they are correct.
Mark Grant, Author, The Four Stars of Early Ice Hockey
The Four Stars of Early Ice Hockey 