The Early Years (1800s-1949)

Alberta was incorporated as a province in 1905, but even over a decade before that event the game of ice hockey was played on frozen ponds, rivers and outdoor rinks across the province.

The game was already a phenomenon in Eastern Canada and while the spread of hockey was slower in the major Alberta centres of Calgary and Edmonton, it was establishing itself as the sport that would eclipse cricket and soccer as the top pastime of the region. As the West was opened and new immigrants flooded into the province in search of land, the game was transformed from an activity only for British-bred aristocrats into a true sport for the people. Soon the game spread from the cities to the rural regions; within just two decades of the province’s birth, hockey had established itself as the most popular game in Alberta, a game that would survive drought, Depression and two World Wars.

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