🤔 Today's Trivia Question:

The First Hockey Pucks Used in Early Hockey Games Were Made of What?

Correct Answer: B) Frozen Cow Dung

🏒 From Cow Dung to Rubber: The Evolution of the Hockey Puck

The first hockey pucks were quite rudimentary, crafted from frozen cow dung and leather liver pads. These early versions were only good for a single game as they would become either too soft or too hard to use. Eventually, they were replaced with wooden pucks, and later, the now-standard vulcanized rubber disks.

A hockey puck is a disk, either open or closed, used in various sports and games. There are specific designs for use on ice, like in ice hockey, and different designs for floor hockey, including the wheeled variant known as inline hockey or roller hockey. Essentially, hockey pucks serve the same purpose as balls in ball games.

In ice hockey, a puck is a short cylinder made of vulcanized rubber. These pucks are designed for use on ice, dry floors, or underwater, though open disk designs are reserved for floor use only. Open disk pucks, shaped like a toroid, are used in certain styles of floor hockey and should not be confused with ringette rings, which are also toruses but used in the sport of ringette.

The word "puck" has uncertain origins. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, it might be linked to the verb "to puck," akin to "poke," used in shinty and hurling for striking the ball, derived from the Scottish Gaelic "puc" or Irish "poc," meaning "to poke, punch, or deliver a blow." Settlers in Nova Scotia, many of whom were Scottish and Irish, likely introduced the term to Canada. This is supported by the Canadian use of "shinny" for informal hockey games, derived from the Scottish game of shinty. The first printed reference to "puck" appeared in the Montreal Gazette in 1876, a year after the first indoor hockey game was played in Montreal.

Colloquially, a hockey puck is sometimes called a "biscuit," and scoring a goal is referred to as putting the "biscuit in the basket."

In ice hockey, pucks are made of hard vulcanized rubber, measuring 1 inch thick, 3 inches in diameter, and weighing between 5.5 and 6 ounces. These pucks often feature team or league logos and are frozen before games to minimize bouncing.

Source wikipedia.org