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When you are trying to do some serious hockey research in an area that
wasn't exactly a hotbed of hockey, one develops a jaundiced eye at the
accuracy of some of the stories you read. I've read stories in the Long
Beach and San Diego newspapers of someone I've never heard of who claims
they once played in the NHL eons ago. I though I ran into another tall
tale until I did some research and found something to make me change
my original opinion. The news story I found involves this old fellow
who lives in Los Angeles in the mid-1940's and claims to have developed
the rules of hockey. This story is from the Monday, October 28, 1946
issue of the long defunct Hollywood Citizen-News.
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Today's 'Rough' Hockey Irks Game's Rulemaker
By Jim Healy
Ice hockey, the Coast's fastest climbing sport, may provide the fans
with plenty of kicks, but as far as W. L. Murray-the game's first
rulemaker-is concerned, things are getting just a wee bit too rough.
"When I set up the first rules for ice hockey back in 1879," said
Murray, "we played the sport as gentleman, and didn't try to kill off
our opponents."
"Now, however, these players aren't happy unless they're jamming
someone into the boards or breaking a stick over another player's head."
Murray, who still swims and skates regularly despite his 86 years,
was attending McGill University in Montreal when he said he first
conceived the idea for the game. An Englishman by the name of W. L.
Robertson had come over to introduce a sport similar to British
football-played on the turf with a large ball and sticks.
Cold Up There
However, he soon found out that all the fields iced over as early as
the first of November in Montreal, making the sport impractical. It was
then that Murray deviced his scheme of moving the game to ice.
So, he and Robertson set up a set of rules, ordered three dozen
hockey sticks from a nearby Indian village, and within the year games
had sprung up all over Canada. Finding the large English ball a little
impractical, Murray simply sliced off the top part and he had the first
puck.
"Of course, we used 15 men on the ice at the beginning," said
Murray, "but it didn't take us long to find out that that was too many.
Pretty soon we knocked it down to eight, but now I see they've cut it
still further to six."
Five Years
Murray played from 1879 to 1884 in the first recognized hockey
league, the six-team Montreal circuit, then left the sport actively
forever.
"In those days we played the game for fun, and the only things the
clubs ever paid for were the suits and sticks-and we thought even that
was a pretty good deal." added the slight, 132-pound "Abner Doubleday of
hockey."
Asked how he would far in these days of driving, slashing hockey,
Murray didn't try to kid himself. "Why, what chance would I have with
all this roughhouse stuff? In my day we played just as fast a game as
they do here on the Coast today-but we didn"t go in for all the
slam-banging around."
Lives Here Now
After leaving Montreal in 1884, Murray went West and served as an
Oregon cowpuncher for many years. He followed with a gold-hunting trip
to Alaska, and finally landed here in L. A.
Incidentally, Murray will be very happy to show some of the
present-day hockey players-who are mighty luckey if they see 10 active
years-the secret of his ageless vitality.
His theory? Plenty of exercise-but for fun, not blood.
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This story is substantiated by an article in the Canadian Government's
online archive. To read it, click
here.
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