First indoor ice hockey game

On March 3, 1875 (149 years ago) (1875-03-03), the first recorded indoor ice hockey game took place at the Victoria Skating Rink in Montreal, Quebec.

[2] The Victoria Skating Rink was a long (252 by 113 feet (77 m × 34 m)), two-story brick edifice with a 52-foot (16 m)-high pitched roof supported from within by curving wooden trusses, which arched over the entire width of the structure.

Tall, round-arched windows punctuated its length and illuminated its interior, while evening skating was made possible by 500 gas-jet lighting fixtures set in coloured glass globes.

[5] At the time of its construction, the rink's location at 49 Drummond Street (now renumbered to 1187) placed it in the centre of the English community in Montreal, in the vicinity of McGill University.

[8] The match lays claim to this distinction because of factors which establish its link to modern ice hockey: it featured two teams (nine players per side) with a recorded score.

In order to limit injuries to spectators and damage to glass windows, the game was played with a "flat block of wood" instead of a lacrosse ball.

Hockey is played usually with a ball, but last night, in order that no accident should happen, a flat block of wood was used, so that it should slide along the ice without rising, and thus going among the spectators to their discomfort.

The players last night were eighteen in number – nine on each side – and were as follows: – Messrs. Torrance (captain), Meagher, Potter, Goff, Barnston, Gardner, Griffin, Jarvis and Whiting.

According to the Kingston, Ontario, Daily British Whig "Shins and heads were battered, benches smashed and the lady spectators fled in confusion.