History of Canadian sports facts for kids
The history of Canadian sports is like a long game with five main periods. It started with fun activities before 1840, then came organized competitions from 1840 to 1880. After that, national sports groups formed between 1882 and 1914. Both amateur and professional sports grew quickly from 1914 to 1960, and then there have been many new changes in the last 50 years.
Some sports are famous around the world for being Canadian, especially ice hockey, lacrosse, curling, and ringette. Even though many people think of baseball as American, it actually started in Beachville, Ontario, Canada. Also, American football was first developed by Canadians at McGill University before it split into American and Canadian football. Many Canadians play and watch sports, and hockey has become a big part of Canada's identity.
Girls and women play in most of these sports today. In the past, team sports sometimes involved betting. Sports like horse racing and boxing often had big prizes. Individual sports like figure skating, skiing, golf, paddling, swimming, and track and field have always been important in Canada. Recently, "extreme" sports like snowboarding, rollerblading, and mountain climbing have become more popular.
Like in many countries, sports in Canada have faced challenges. These include things like unfair treatment, high salaries for professional athletes, and the huge costs of new stadiums. But sports are also about important values like staying healthy, working as a team, being responsible, being loyal, fairness, winning, having fun, and feeling free.
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How Canadian Sports Began
When people moved to Canada from other countries, they brought their favorite games. They often changed these games to fit the snowy weather. The games played by the First Nations people greatly influenced sports, especially lacrosse. British soldiers and settlers brought games like association football (soccer), rugby, curling, and cricket. Sailors introduced rowing competitions. The British thought these sports helped with boredom, built team spirit, and kept people healthy. They were also seen as a better choice than "blood sports" like cockfighting.
First Nations Games
First Nations people played many sports. Some of these involved First Nation athletes joining mainstream sports, which sometimes brought challenges like unfairness. Other sports were played among the tribes themselves. Lacrosse is a great example of a sport that came from First Nations games. Different tribes also played and bet on toboggan, snowshoe, and canoe races. They also enjoyed archery, wrestling, spear throwing, and running events. These games were fun for everyone and helped people practice important survival skills, like being able to handle pain.
Early Organized Sports
Organized sports in Canada started around the 1770s. This often began with horse racing at British army bases, curling in Scottish communities, and lacrosse among First Nations. Some of the first sports stars were Canadian rowers who won many international competitions.
Sports and Canadian Identity
By the 1700s, French Canadians were influenced by First Nations culture. They started to compete in activities like canoeing, snowshoeing, tobogganing, and lacrosse. This helped them feel strong and proud of their identity. It also helped them build a sense of national identity that was different from the British idea of sports for gentlemen.
In English-speaking Canada, ideas from an English writer named Thomas Hughes were very important. His book Tom Brown's School Days (1857) suggested that sportsmanship taught good morals and helped people become good citizens. These ideas still influence youth sports programs today.
In the 1800s, Canadians started to believe they had a special "northern character." They thought that only strong people could survive the long, cold winters. Sports like ice hockey and snowshoeing, which showed this toughness, became known as truly Canadian. Outside of sports, Canadians are often seen as peaceful and polite. But inside a hockey arena, they cheer loudly for the speed and excitement, making hockey a unique symbol of Canada.
Sports Fans and Funding
Larger cities had many people who could pay to watch sports. To get fans to events that were further away, special boats, trains, and trams were used. By the 1830s, boats took people to horse races. In the 1860s, special transportation brought fans to rowing, track and field, and bicycle races.
Baseball became popular in the 1870s. It was seen as a rule-based game that could help with social problems. But when professional baseball started in the 1880s, players and fans sometimes misbehaved. Betting became common, and working-class players and fans joined in. This led to a split between amateur baseball for gentlemen and the more rowdy professional version.
Even if small towns had their own teams, people paid close attention to the famous players on big-city teams. New technology like the telegraph, radio, and television allowed people to follow major games live. This helped fans feel connected to the Canadian nation and its growing popular culture.
Stadium Costs
In recent years, professional sports have needed a lot of money for stadiums. Fans' strong interest in their local teams encourages leaders to spend public money on new arenas. When a new arena opens, there's often a "honeymoon" effect, meaning many more people attend games for the first few years. This boost in attendance usually lasts about 5 to 8 years.
Sports in the Media
As daily newspapers became popular in Canadian cities in the late 1800s, they started covering local and national sports in detail. This helped readers feel proud of their community and connected them to the wider world of sports. The telegraph allowed news of events to travel almost instantly. Even with long distances between them, Canadians felt like they were part of a shared national audience as they followed hockey, baseball, rowing, and boxing.
How Sports Are Organized
In the early 1900s, major sports created volunteer national groups to manage them. By 1914, there were 20 such groups. The Amateur Athletic Union of Canada (AAU) became the main leader by 1919 and helped Canadians participate in the Olympics. These groups believed sports helped train good citizens and promoted Canadian nationalism. They tried to stop professionalism in sports. However, in the 1930s, there were disagreements, and some sports like ice hockey, basketball, and lacrosse left the AAU. By 1939, the AAU mainly oversaw track and field and other individual Olympic sports. The Canadian Olympic Association became separate in 1948.
From 1909 to 1967, the Canadian Track and Field Association (C.T.F.A.) managed track and field. It was part of the AAU. In 1968, the C.T.F.A. became independent. The AAU eventually dissolved in the early 1970s as each sport's national group went its own way. In 1991, the C.T.F.A. changed its name to Athletics Canada.
Ice Hockey
People had played stick-and-ball games on ice for many years, especially in Eastern Canada and at military bases. Modern hockey rules were set by students at McGill University in 1875. The game quickly spread across the country. In 1893, Lord Stanley, Canada's governor general, created the Stanley Cup, which showed how important the sport had become. Early ice hockey was a winter sport with flexible rules, played on outdoor ice. There weren't many spectators.
Professional teams started around 1900. In 1904, five cities in the United States and Ontario formed the International Hockey League (IHL). This league paid salaries, attracting many Canadian star players. Canadian amateur teams secretly paid their players too, even while saying they were amateur. The IHL ended in 1907. In 1908, the first Canadian professional league, the Ontario Professional Hockey League, began. The Timiskaming League, funded by mining money, also started paying players and recruiting from other teams.
By 1910, hockey had split into two parts: amateurs playing for the new Allan Cup, and professionals playing for the Stanley Cup. The National Hockey Association (NHA) was formed, organizing teams as businesses with player contracts and salary caps. Professional hockey also came to the west coast with the Pacific Coast Hockey Association (PCHA). By this time, professional hockey was played across Canada.
In 1917, the NHA became the National Hockey League (NHL). After a few tough years, the NHL grew by adding teams in the United States. By 1940, it had strong teams in Montreal, Toronto, Boston, New York, Chicago, and Detroit—known as the "original six." After 1926, the NHL controlled most professional hockey.
Amateur hockey continued to be competitive. The Winnipeg Falcons, a team of Icelandic Canadians, won the Canadian national championship and the 1920 Olympic gold medal. Their success made them a symbol of Canadian strength.
During the Great Depression, the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association faced money problems. They changed their rules about amateurism and worked with the Amateur Athletic Union of Canada. Canada's hockey team did not do well at the 1936 Olympics, leading to more changes.
The NHL partnered with the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association (CAHA). These partnerships gave the NHL more control over players, including rules about signing young players. Even though the NHL only had six teams, they had the best players. Players could be signed to an NHL team's organization as young as twelve.
The "original six" era made the NHL very popular in Canada, especially with the rivalry between the Montreal Canadiens and the Toronto Maple Leafs. Maurice "Rocket" Richard (1921–2000) of the Canadiens became a Canadian hero, especially in Quebec. He played from 1942 to 1960, scoring many goals and leading the Canadiens to eight Stanley Cups. He was known for his exciting style of play and determination.
After World War II, amateur hockey declined as professional hockey grew and was shown on TV. Many amateur leagues became professional. The NHL expanded to 12 teams in the 1960s, filling new spots with players from minor leagues. Rules about signing young players changed, and the NHL started drafting players. Junior leagues became very important in Canada.
By the 1960s, Canada struggled to form strong amateur teams for international competitions. University players and a national amateur team couldn't compete with organized amateur teams from Europe. Canada eventually stopped sending amateur players to the Olympics and world championships, asking for professionals to be allowed.
In September 1972, Canada's best NHL players played against the top amateur players from the Soviet Union in a friendly series. This Summit Series was a big deal, seen as a contest between East and West. Canada won the series, which sparked new interest in developing hockey in Canada. Safety rules improved, and there was a focus on better coaching. Canada later returned to international play when professionals were allowed in the IIHF and Olympics.
More professional teams formed with the World Hockey Association. Some of these teams joined the expanded NHL in 1979. The 1980s saw European players join NHL teams. In the 1990s, some Canadian NHL teams moved to the United States due to economic reasons.
Women's hockey grew in popularity in the 1980s. The first women's world championship was held in 1990. Women's ice hockey became an Olympic medal sport in 1998. Women players became so skilled that professional leagues were created, and some women even played in men's professional leagues.
The Memorial Cup, a tournament for junior-level teams, became more popular. Junior leagues also grew and expanded into the United States. These leagues started allowing non-Canadian players. Cable television also showed more junior-level games.
By 2022, the NHL had 32 teams. The junior leagues had combined into three main leagues. In 2002, Canada won its first men's Olympic ice hockey title in 50 years in Salt Lake City, using NHL players. The Canadian team won again in 2010 at the Vancouver Olympics.
Ringette
Sam Jacks, a Canadian born in Scotland, invented ringette in West Ferris (now North Bay, Ontario) in 1963. Red McCarthy helped create the first official rules, using ideas from basketball. Different organizations helped develop the sport in Canada, and eventually Ringette Canada took over the rules.
Football, Rugby, and Soccer
The game of soccer started centuries ago in England. Around 1823, it changed into rugby. The first game in Canada was in the 1860s, with British officers playing university students in Montreal. Universities and rowing clubs quickly adopted the sport. Americans were developing a similar game, so in 1874, McGill University played two games with Harvard, switching between rules. Canada eventually adopted rules similar to American football, but with some differences like field size and three downs instead of four. Canadian rules were made official in 1898.
Governor General Earl Grey donated a championship trophy in 1907 for the best amateur team. This Grey Cup later went to the professional champions in 1954. New plays, like the forward pass, came in the 1920s and 1930s with American athletes and coaches. In 1936, to prevent too much American influence, the Canadian Rugby Union limited the number of foreign players. These limits are still in place today. After 1945, football became very popular at universities and professionally. The Canadian Football League (CFL) had teams across the country, and many people watched the games. The Grey Cup championship game, first shown on TV in 1952, attracts millions of viewers. The CFL tried adding American teams in 1993, but this didn't work out well. Despite some challenges, football is doing well in Canada today.
Soccer in Canada has become more popular in recent years, especially as a school sport for boys and girls. It has more players than ice hockey. At the professional level, the Toronto FC became the first Canadian club in the American Major League Soccer (MLS) in 2007. Later, Vancouver and Montreal also got MLS teams.
Other Sports
Lacrosse
Lacrosse was created in the 1850s when middle-class people in Montreal adopted the First Nations game of "baggataway." This was a rough game played by many people. The Montreal Shamrocks became a strong team in the 1860s. Field lacrosse spread across Canada with settlers from Ontario and Quebec. By the early 1890s, it was the most popular summer game. Its golden age was in the 1900s with two professional leagues. However, increasing violence led to these leagues ending in 1914. The sport's support then became smaller.
In 1931, "box lacrosse" was introduced to attract more fans in the summer. Played in a smaller indoor space or baseball stadiums, it was a very physical game. The Great Depression made it hard for people to afford tickets. While promoters didn't make a profit, they changed Canadian amateur lacrosse, making it different from the field lacrosse played in other countries. In 1987, the National Lacrosse League started with teams in Canada and the United States.
Field lacrosse was revived in the late 1990s when some Ontario universities added it to their women's sports programs. Now, university women play a game once mainly associated with Canadian men.
Basketball
James Naismith, a Canadian who moved to the U.S., invented basketball in Springfield, Massachusetts, in the 1890s. It quickly became popular as an indoor winter sport because it didn't need much equipment. It grew popular in high schools and colleges in both the U.S. and Canada. In 1946, the owners of the Toronto Maple Leaf hockey team started a basketball team, the Toronto Huskies, in a new professional league. The Huskies struggled and eventually folded. They couldn't compete with Toronto's successful hockey, baseball, and football teams.
Boxing
Boxing, both amateur and professional, has been practiced in Canada since before the country was formed. Professional boxing was illegal in Canada for a time, but fights still happened in secret. The first widely recognized world boxing champion from Canada was George Dixon, a Black man from Halifax, Nova Scotia. Canada has produced many world-class boxers.
Curling
Curling, which became an Olympic sport in 1998, arrived with Scottish soldiers in the 1750s. The Royal Caledonian Curling Club in Scotland set the rules in the 1830s. In curling, players slide a heavy granite stone towards a target on the ice. Other players use brooms to sweep the ice in front of the stone, which helps it go further and straighter. By 1903, Winnipeg was known as the world's curling capital, and it was a very competitive winter sport across Canada.
Baseball and Cricket
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Cricket never became very popular, even though some people tried to promote it as a way to connect with the British Empire. It was linked to upper-class Canadians and didn't appeal to most people. Despite being named a national sport by Canada's first Prime Minister, John A. Macdonald, cricket declined because of the rise of baseball and Canada's short summer season. During World War I, Canadian soldiers in Britain played baseball, not cricket.
Today, more people from countries where cricket is popular have moved to Canada, leading to a small increase in the sport's popularity.
Frisbee Sports
Organized disc sports in Canada began in the early 1970s. Events like the Canadian Open Frisbee Championships in Toronto (1972–1985) and the Vancouver Open Frisbee Championships (1974–1976) helped them grow. Freestyle, double disc court, disc guts, ultimate, and disc golf were the first disc sports events. The first Canadian Ultimate Championships (CUC) for the open division were held in Ottawa in 1987.
Girls and Women in Sports
While sports are very important in Canadian culture, girls and women didn't always participate as much as boys and men. For a long time, some people believed that intense physical activity could be bad for girls' and women's health. But better science, education, and changing attitudes, along with new technology, helped more girls and women get involved. New laws also helped create more opportunities. In the past, rules for girls' and women's basketball even differed by region in Canada. It took time for uniform rules to be developed. Sports created just for women, like synchronized swimming, netball, and ringette, have had their own unique history.
The growth of women's sports was slower for a while. Historically, fewer women were interested in sports, and there were few women in leadership roles in sports organizations. There were also fewer women coaches. The media often focused on men's sports, which sometimes made it seem like women who were serious about sports were doing something unusual.
However, women's participation in sports really started to grow after 1980. Important steps included the Fitness and Amateur Sport Act of 1961 and a report on the status of women in 1970. A key event was the National Conference on Women and Sport in 1974, which brought together coaches and athletes to discuss how to move forward. The 1980s saw even more progress with programs like Sport Canada's Women's Program and the Constitution Act of 1982.
At first, women faced challenges. They had to overcome the idea that women's bodies were too delicate for strong physical activity. The "new woman" movement around 1900, with women taking up bicycling, started to challenge these ideas. Women also became more involved in education, work, and fighting for their rights.
The 1920s were a big step forward for women in sports. The Women's Amateur Federation of Canada (WAAF) was formed in 1926 to create new opportunities, especially in international competitions. The WAAF worked to show that strong competition was not "unwomanly." They even set up medical checks for all women athletes. The WAAF partnered with the Amateur Athletic Union of Canada, which allowed Canadian women to compete in the Olympics and the British Empire Games.
1920s Achievements
Many barriers for women in sports fell in the 1920s. The Edmonton Grads became world champions in women's basketball in 1924. Canadian women also participated in the Olympics for the first time, and women sportswriters started covering their achievements.
1930s Challenges
The 1930s brought some setbacks. Some critics suggested that non-competitive activities were better for women. In women's ice hockey, the Preston Rivulettes faced challenges getting ice time and money. Despite this, they dominated women's hockey in the 1930s, winning many championships. The Great Depression in Canada also made it harder for women's sports to get funding.
1940s Star Athlete
Figure skater Barbara Ann Scott was a famous female athlete in the 1940s. She won the 1948 Olympic gold medal and was a two-time World champion. The media covered her a lot, but often focused more on her beauty than her athletic skills.
After World War II
After 1939, the focus on men during Second World War limited opportunities for women in sports. Women's ice hockey largely disappeared during the war. After the war, some believed that a return to traditional family roles caused women's sports to fade into the background.
1970s and Beyond
Even though feminists in the 1970s didn't always focus on sports, more and more women started doing aerobics and organized sports. After 1980, women became even more active. In 1981, Abby Hoffman, a former Olympian, became director general of Sport Canada, and its policy called for "equality" in women's sports.
Canadian court cases and human rights commissions addressed issues related to women's rights in sports. Gender equality in sports became an important political topic.
1990s and New Challenges
New challenges arose for sportswomen trying to achieve equal status, such as raising money, attracting audiences, and finding sponsors. However, women's college sports gained momentum, and more women in student bodies increased the visibility of their sports. The Canadian Women's Intercollegiate Athletic Union was formed in 1969 to oversee events and national championships.
Multi-sports Games
Olympics
Canadians have been part of the Olympics since 1900.
The 1976 Summer Olympics, held in Montréal, was the first Olympics in Canada. Quebec prepared extensively, which sparked new interest in amateur sports across the province. The city went into debt, but the Games helped introduce Quebec and Canada to the world. Nadia Comaneci's amazing gymnastics performances helped make the sport popular in Canada.
Like Montreal, Calgary, Alberta, used the 1988 Winter Olympics to show itself as a world-class city.
The 2010 Winter Olympics were held from February 12 to February 28, 2010, in Vancouver, British Columbia, and nearby areas.
Commonwealth Games
Canada hosted the very first British Empire Games in 1930 in Hamilton, Ontario. It also hosted the 1954 British Empire and Commonwealth Games in Vancouver, British Columbia, the 1978 Commonwealth Games in Edmonton, Alberta, and the 1994 Commonwealth Games in Victoria, British Columbia.
Pan American Games
Canada has hosted three Pan American Games. Winnipeg hosted the 1967 Pan American Games and the 1999 Pan American Games. Toronto hosted the 2015 Pan American Games, which was the largest multi-sport event Canada had ever hosted in terms of athletes.
See also
- Heritage Minutes
- History of sport
