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Celebrating hockey's first indoor -- brawl?

Related Topics: Victoria Skating Rink

So, as we mark the 142nd anniversary of the first hockey game played indoors, it's refreshing to note that sometimes things really do stay the same, things like truculence and the battle over ice time.

And so it was on that night at the Victoria Skating Rink in Montreal on March 3, 1875, that two squads of nine players who were from the skating club that called the rink home, made history even if it didn't end exactly as they had anticipated.

The game, organized by Halifax native James G.A. Creighton -- considered one of the fathers of hockey in Canada -- came to a premature halt when other members of the skating club, enraged by the length of the game and the fact a bunch of men skating around trying to whack a wooden disc into a goal were impeding their ability to skate freely, tangled with the players.