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Where and when did hockey originate?

The location and the approximate date of ice hockey’s origins, as with many sports, are much-debated and conjectured issues. Stick-and-ball games have deep roots and various types can be traced back to ancient Egypt, Persia, Greece, and Rome. Hockey appears to have evolved from a number of older sporting endeavours that employed some sort of stick (usually short and curved) and a ball: Irish hurling or hurley, Scottish shinty, English field hockey and bandy (the latter becoming popular in Scandinavia and Russia), Canadian/ American shinny, and American ice polo. North American First Nations also likely influenced the development of stick games on ice and were probably inspired in turn by European games. Gughawat, or Indian shinny, and baggataway, or lacrosse, were certainly played by First Nations people when the first Europeans arrived on the scene. Both games utilized short, curved sticks, numerous competitors per team, and fierce competition (practically an all-out battle) for possession of a ball.