At first glance, Ireland and Canada couldn’t seem more different. One is home to lush green
fields and rolling hills, while the other, nearly 142 times larger than our island, is covered in
countless mountains, forests, and lakes. Even our sports appear different; while Ireland is home
to hurling, a field sport with over 3,000 years of tradition and history, Canada is the home of ice
hockey, a sport that, while younger, still carries as much cultural significance to Canadians as
we hold in our Gaelic Games. However, these two national pastimes share a lot more than what
initially meets the eye. In fact, they share a history that stretches across the Atlantic.
Hurling is the fastest field sport in the world. With roots stretching back more than 3,000 years, it
is one of Ireland’s oldest traditions, played with a wooden stick called a hurl or hurley, a ball
called a sliotar, and on a field twice the size of an American Football field. It is a game that
combines speed, agility, and a tremendous amount of grit to create an atmosphere that is truly
unique to Ireland. To us, hurling is more than a sport; it is a symbol of Irish identity passed down
from one generation to the next through our local GAA clubs and communities. Today,
UNESCO recognises hurling as an important element of Ireland’s cultural heritage.
Conversely, ice hockey is the fastest team sport on ice. Played with a long curved stick, a small
puck, and on a rink half the size of an American Football field, ice hockey is a game that also
lives by speed, strength, and grit. Oftentimes players will reach speeds of up to 48 km/h, and
some slapshots have reached speeds exceeding 170 km/h. However, Canadians feel much the
same way about ice hockey as we feel about hurling. As the nation’s pastime, it is woven into
the country’s identity. Oftentimes families will gather around ice rinks before sunrise, entire
towns rally behind their local teams, and wearing your club colors is a badge of pride. Sound
familiar? That sense of belonging and identity is something both sports have always shared.
During the 1840s, hundreds of thousands of Irish people emigrated to Canada, and by 1867 the
Irish were the country’s second-largest ethnic group, accounting for nearly 24% of the
population. With them they brought their traditions, language, and beloved Gaelic Games. When
winter froze the fields, Irish communities adapted hurling to the ice, using skates to play on
frozen ponds. This early version of “ice hurling” would become an important influence on the
development of modern ice hockey.
One popular story of “ice hurling” comes from the King’s College School in Windsor, Nova
Scotia. There, Irish-born principal William Cochran encouraged his students to play hurling with
the sliotar kept on the ice using ground strikes called “pucks” modified from the Irish word “poc,”
meaning to hit. The modified game spread through local communities before evolving alongside
other stick-and-ball games, including Scottish shinty and the Indigenous Mi’kmaq, ice-based
game called Tu’aqn. While no single culture can claim to have invented ice hockey, historians
widely acknowledge that hurling played an important role in shaping the sport Canadians know
and love today.
