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That tale is as good as any, because everything that happened to ice hockey up till the 1880s is strictly prehistoric. By then amateur teams had begun springing up all over eastern Canada, and in 1893 the first game was played in the U.S., either (there is some dispute) at Yale or Johns Hopkins University. Pro teams made their appearance about the same time, but it was 1917 before the N.H.L. was formed, with four teams, all located in Canada. The league's early years were mercurial at best: it was anybody's guess how many clubs would take to the ice each season, and the players were rubes and roughnecks who counted themselves fortunate to draw a salary of $750 a year. Discipline was nonexistent: booze flowed freely in the dressing rooms, and the players amused themselves on road trips with gamy practical jokes. For years, one Montreal sportswriter was tormented by the Canadiens whenever he was assigned to travel with the team—forced to drink out of toilet bowls and watch helplessly as his clothes were tossed off a train in midwinter.
Gordie & the Rocket. Pro hockey finally became a profession of sorts by the 1930s, thanks largely to the efforts of Toronto Maple Leafs Owner Conn Smythe, a tough ex-army major who banned drinking on the job, insisted that his players wear pajamas to bed on public trains, and paid them a living wage in return. Interest picked up, and the sport spread, as minor-league teams set up shop in cities well below the Canadian border. But the big boom hit after World War II, when fans jammed N.H.L. arenas to watch Gordie Howe and Rocket Richard. What they saw hooked most of them for good: 60 satiating minutes of nonstop action—the fastest game in the world.
Baseball might have its subtleties and football its science, but an average baseball game offers spectators no more than 16 min. of spasmodic action, a football game 14. N.H.L. gate receipts soared, salaries climbed to respectable levels—although as late as 1959, when baseball's Ted Williams was earning $100,000 a year, Richard got only $25,000. Pro hockey, at least on the minor-league level, became a regular attraction even in the Deep South, where ice was something to pour bourbon over.
The game itself underwent a radical transformation in 1944 with a rule change that for the first time permitted passing from one zone of the rink to another. Instead of being forced to carry the puck, shinny fashion, out of his defensive zone, a player could rifle it out to his teammates already winging far down the ice near their opponents' blue line, hoping to catch the defensive team out of position. Just as basketball's fast break made fancy dribbling obsolete, so hockey's two- or three-man dash, up the rink all but obviated the art of tricky stick handling. Then, in the late '50s, Bobby Hull and Montreal's Bernie ("Boom Boom") Geoffrion first demonstrated the full potential of the slap shot—a deadly weapon even from center ice. Speed and strength became supreme, the sport became infinitely more exciting, and the stage was set for today's superstar—a muscular acrobat with flashing feet and a slingshot for an arm.