The first ice rink was built in Buenos Aires in 1907. A second was built in 1911.  

Some efforts by Austrians and Germans were made in the mid 1950’s to get ice hockey activities going in Buenos Aires, but it never caught on. One of the people involved was the Hungarian player Béla Gosztonyi (Goszleth) who represented Hungary in the 1939 World Championships. In the 1970's, ice hockey was played around the Pampas mountains, mainly by European emigrants.

In 1981 the first indoor rink opened in the capital of Buenos Aires and recreational hockey was played there. Although close to 30 ice rinks of various sizes opened across the country, nothing happened on the hockey front.  But in 1996 and 1997 new enthusiasts took on the challenge to put Argentina on the hockey map again. In 1998 Argentina became an IIHF member for the first time. These days, inline hockey is much more popular than ice hockey, and their membership is mainly due to the increased inline activities.

There is a yearly ice hockey tournament held in Patagonia (Ushuaia), where mostly young kids play games against each other. Ushuaia in fact has a long skating tradition. In the 1860’s, British missionaries brought skates with them to the region. but no hockey was played.  The skating tradition continues in Ushuaia until today. The first Argentinian native to play ice hockey at top level was Miguel Delesalle. He represented the French national team in the 1930’s and played in the 1935 World Championships. Delesalle had a long playing career in Paris and also played a few games for the first ever Spanish team in the 1920’s. A goalie by the name of John Wrigley who was born in Buenos Aires was signed by NHL's Los Angeles Kings in the late 1960's where he spent some time in their minor league system. Currently, Argentinian ice hockey is far behind inline hockey and it will probably take quite some time before ice hockey will gain in popularity.