Hockey
Introduced in the 1920 Summer Olympics, and subsequently played in every Winter Olympics from 1924-onwards, hockey is, not surprisingly, best played in Canada and, more specifically, in Montreal, where the local pro hockey team (the Montreal Canadiens) holds the greatest number of Stanley Cup wins of any NHL team and the students of McGill University wrote the definitive hockey rule book in the 1870s. Going to a professional hockey game here is tantalizing enough for many amateurs, but you can also try hitting the puck with your own stick in one of the city’s 100+ free public ice rinks during the long winter months. Pick-up hockey – where you basically show up to play and don’t need anything except a hockey stick and sheer pluck – is incredibly popular here; two of the best rinks to join in the fun are in Parc Lafontaine and Parc Mont-Royal (the latter also happens to be designed by Frederic Law Olmsted, of New York’s Central Park). While pick-up hockey usually finds more men than women shooting the puck, women can take to the ice with their peers at the Montreal West Arena, on Saturday mornings.
