Ice hockey (frequently simply called hockey) is a team sport played on ice, that originated in Canada around 1800. It is a fast-paced and physical sport. Ice hockey is most popular in areas that are sufficiently cold for natural reliable seasonal ice cover such as Canada, the northern United States, Scandinavia and Russia. With the advent of indoor artificial ice rinks, however, it has become a year-round pastime at the amateur level in major metropolitan areas such as cities that host a National Hockey League (NHL) or other professional-league team. It is one of the four major North American professional sports, where the NHL is at the highest level for men, and the Canadian Women's Hockey League (CWHL) and the Western Women's Hockey League (WWHL) are at the highest level of women's ice hockey in the world. It is the official national winter sport of Canada, where the game enjoys immense popularity. Only six of the thirty NHL franchises are based in Canada, but Canadians make up a slight majority of the league's players.

While there are 66 total members of the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF), Canada, the Czech Republic, Finland, Russia, Slovakia, Sweden and the United States have finished in most of the coveted 1st, 2nd and 3rd places at IIHF World Championships. Of the 63 medals awarded in men's competition at the Olympic level from 1920 on, only six did not go to the one of those countries, or a former entity thereof, such as Czechoslovakia or the Soviet Union. Only one of those six medals was above bronze. Those seven nations have also captured 162 of 177 medals awarded at 59 non-Olympic IIHF World Championships, and all medals since 1954. Likewise, all nine Olympic and 27 IIHF World Women Championships medals have gone to one of those seven countries.

History

From oral histories, there is evidence of a tradition of an ancient hockey-like game played among the Mi'kmaq First Nation in Eastern Canada. In Legends of the Micmacs, (1894) Silas T. Rand, describes a Mi'kmaq ball game, which the people called tooadijik. Rand also describes a game that was played (likely after European contact) with hurleys, called wolchamaadijik.Dalhousie University (2000). Thomas Raddall Selected Correspondence: An Electronic Edition. Print source: Thomas Raddall Fonds, Correspondence. From Thomas Raddall to Douglas M. Fisher, 25 January 1954. MS-2-202 41.14. Retrieved on 2009-05-10. European immigrants brought various versions of hockey-like games to Canada, such as the Irish sport of hurling, the closely related Scottish sport of shinty, and versions of field hockey played in England. Where necessary, these seem to have been adapted for icy conditions; for example, a colonial Williamsburg newspaper records hockey being played in a snow storm in Virginia. Early paintings show "shinney", an early form of hockey with no standard rules, being played in Nova Scotia, Canada.