History
The Society was formed in 1991. A group of 17 members attending the Canadian Association of Sports Heritage meeting at Kingston, Ontario, met in a special session with the aim of founding an organization dedicated to promoting, developing and encouraging the study of hockey, to establish an accurate historical account of the game, and to assist in the dissemination of the findings and studies derived from member research. Under the leadership of founding president Bill Fitsell, a retired journalist with the Kingston Whig-Standard, SIHR’s general objectives were: "To encourage and cultivate the study of ice hockey as an important athletic and social institution in Canada and other countries in which it was played." A six-page, 25-article Constitution, written by secretary Ed Grenda, was adopted at Montreal on May 22, 1993.
Among the charter members, also known as the "Kingston 17," were representatives from three provinces (New Brunswick, Quebec, Ontario) and two states (Illinois and New York). In its fledgling year, the society membership grew to 29 and in its second year the roster of 52 could be typed on one page. SIHR's membership list today stands at more than 550, with members in all ten Canadian provinces, 31 U.S. states and the District of Columbia, plus Australia, England, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, Scotland, Slovakia, Sweden, Switzerland and Wales. SIHR counts among its members the current Prime Minister of Canada, Stephen Harper.
At its 2001 annual meeting, SIHR struck a committee to examine the claim of Windsor, Nova Scotia, to be the birthplace of ice hockey. The committee's report, released in May 2002, that the Windsor proponents had not offered credible evidence that the town was the birthplace of hockey. The report expressed no opinion on when or where hockey originated.
The SIHR committee determined that the March 3, 1875 game at the Victoria Skating Rink in Montreal was the earliest documented ice hockey game. "It is the earliest eyewitness account known, at least to this SIHR committee, of a specific game of hockey in a specific place at a specific time, and with a recorded score, between two identified teams."
In 2003, SIHR started developing its statistical database, available to members on its web site. Starting with the paper records of SIHR members Ernie Fitzsimmons, John Patton and Pat Conway, combined with the input of a 10,000 player database developed by Dave Weigum, SIHR's database has grown to include over 180,000 players, coaches and officials. The database includes statistics dating back to the 1886-87 season for various professional, semi-professional and amateur male and female leagues. The database includes notes and in some cases photos.
In 2008-09, the Society launched a campaign to raise funds to erect a monument to hockey pioneer James George Aylwin Creighton, whose grave in Ottawa's Beechwood Cemetery remained unmarked. On October 24, 2009, a grave marker was unveiled, as was a biographical plaque near the gravesite.
Read more about this topic: Society For International Hockey Research
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