Sports Equipment: Ice Hockey Puck

A puck is a disk used in various types of games serving the same functions as a ball in ball games. The best-known use of pucks is in ice hockey, a major international sport. Let's see some interesting things about ice hocky puck.

Ice hockey requires a hard disk of vulcanized rubber. Pucks are often marked with silkscreened team or league logos on one or both faces.

The game evolved in Great Britain by 1820 from bandy, which was played with a ball on ice by field hockey players who wanted to continue to train during the European winters. Early forms of ice hockey, once known as "Canadian rules bandy", used a ball rather than a puck when it first came to North America from Europe. Early players of the game found that the rubber ball used in field hockey was far too active on the hard ice surface, so they cut off the top and bottom of the ball to form the hockey puck. It is often said that the puck was first used in organized play to protect spectators from the highly active ball used previously. Today, pucks are frozen a few hours before the game to further reduce bouncing during play.

The origin of the word "puck" is obscure. Though commonly believed to be it is evidently not connected to Shakespeare's Puck or the mythical Puck. The Oxford English Dictionary suggests the name is related to the verb "to puck" (a cognate of "poke") used in the game of hurling for striking or pushing the ball, from the Scottish Gaelic puc or the Irish poc, meaning to poke, punch or deliver a blow:

• PUCK, a blow. He gave him a puck of a stick on the head. More commonly applied to a punch or blow of the horns of a cow or goat! (Ask Little Britainers!) The cow gave him a puck (or pucked him) with her horns and knocked him down.
• The blow given by a hurler to the ball with his caman or hurley (stick) is always called a puck.
• Also, a free shot in hurling is a free puck.

It is possible that Halifax natives, many of whom were Irish and played hurley, may have introduced the word to Canada. The first known printed reference was in Montreal, in 1876, just a year after the first indoor game was played there.

Hockey pucks are also referred to colloquially as a "biscuit" in published and broadcast media.

(video: Ice hockey puck - How it's made)

Technical Characteristics:
Thickness: 25.4 mm
Diameter: 3 inches (76.2 mm)
Weight: between 5.5 and 6 ounces (156-170 g)
Color: black

(source: Wikipedia)