Lisa Laughy January 30th, 2012
Frozen feet:
The ice in the School Pond this year has averaged about thirty-six inches thick. Under the S. P. S. rink, which is kept clear of snow, it must have been close to the record thickness of forty-six inches.
Lisa Laughy September 26th, 2011
Shy swans and daring ducks:
Owing to an aversion to publicity, the new swans have not ventured away from the extreme upper recesses of the School Pond. The ducks, on the other hand, have been so hungry that they have swallowed their pride (which must have relieved them considerably), and spend much of their time waddling around on the shore at the Lower School end of the Pond.
David Levesque January 5th, 2011
In celebration of Matthews Family Hockey Day on Saturday, January 8th, as well as the arrival of black ice and a beautiful outdoor hockey rink on Lower School Pond, Ohrstrom Library has on display in the Upper Level display cases an exhibit of historic photographs and materials from the SPS Archives entitled “St. Paul’s School : the Cradle of American Hockey.”
In St. Paul’s : the Life of a New England School, August Heckscher writes this of hockey at SPS:
At first it had been an informal scrimmage on the ice, gradually settling into a more organized contest with eleven men to a side, playing with a square piece of wood for a puck. In 1896, the Canadian version of the game, with seven players on each side, was adopted. That same year the School team played for the first time on the fabled St. Nicholas Rink in New York against a group of alumni. The alumni won 3-1. But the encounter was a spectacular event, and the School was off upon a long career of hockey playing, which was to make it known in the sports world and to fill many of the places on the top college teams with skaters trained upon the Millville ice.
You are invited to take a moment upon your next visit to Ohrstrom Library to view this exhibit created with materials from the SPS Archives, in celebration of the long and illustrious history of hockey at SPS.
Lisa Laughy January 26th, 2009
Lisa Laughy – Archives Assistant
SPS Students on Lower School Pond, Jan. 2009. Photo by Jana Brown.
One of the benefits of colder temperatures is thicker ice on Lower School Pond. Workers have carefully cleared the surface of the pond behind Ohrstrom Library and have set up nets and backboards for playing ice hockey. St. Paul’s School has a long and honored relationship with the sport, especially considering that SPS is credited as being the birthplace of hockey in the United States. Those first hockey games played in the early 1880s took place on the same pond as today, and that connection is maintained each winter when SPS students put skates to the ice on Lower School Pond.
There are a great number of images in the SPS Archives that document the history of hockey at the school. SPS Archivist David Levesque has assembled a select display of Archive materials in the lower level case located outside the Writing Lab. Take a moment to view the display next time you are in Ohrstrom.
Below are a few examples of images featured in the Sesquicentennial online exhibit:
Hockey Rinks on Lower School Pond
“Seven rinks and two practice rinks are seen on the Lower School Pond. The first ice hockey game in the United States was played at St. Paul’s on the Lower School Pond. The game was imported from nearby Quebec. The Athletic Association made the rules in 1884: eleven players on a side and goal posts to be ten feet apart. The puck was then called the “block.” Sportswriters called St. Paul’s “the cradle of American hockey” under the guidance and coaching of Malcolm K. Gordon of the Form of 1887 and faculty 1889-1917.”
Hockey Team
“An early hockey team poses on the ice with coach Malcolm Kenneth Gordon, Form of 1887, and a Master 1889-1917. Sportswriters called St. Paul’s “the cradle of American hockey” under the guidance and coaching of Malcolm Gordon, who coached such famed hockey players as Hobey Baker, who attended SPS from 1903-1910.”
Hockey Game on Lower School Pond
“Hockey as we know it was first played in the United States right here on Lower School Pond. It was imported from Canada in the 1880s when the Rev. James P. Conover (Master 1882-1915) visited Montreal. As he wrote in a letter, “I got sticks, pucks (wooden tubes covered with leather) and rules from Canada myself. We flooded the field just below the dam with a few inches of water so we had safe and early skating, and when it snowed we flooded over the snow…this worked beautifully till the ice got so thick it thawed out from the ground and floated, so we put teams on the pond…at first you may remember we marked the boundaries by beams laid on the ice…it must have been somewhere about 1885. Malcolm Gordon was another of the early hockey enthusiasts.” At first it had been an informal scrimmage on the ice, gradually settling into a more organized contest with eleven men to a side. In 1896 the Canadian version of the game, with seven men on each side, was adopted. That same year the school team played for the first time on the fabled St. Nicholas rink in New York against a group of alumni. The alumni won 3-1. But the encounter was a spectacular event, and the school was off upon a long career of hockey playing, which was to make it known in the sports world and to fill many of the places on the top college teams with skaters trained upon the Millville ice.”
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