Introduction
Field hockey, commonly known as hockey, is a popular sport for men and women in many countries. It is played in open field.
Two opposing teams try to drive the ball into the opponents' net with the help of curved sticks.
The team putting the ball in opponents' net maximum scores the most.
History
No once not known when and where hockey began.
Historical records show that hockey type game was played in various antique civilizations.
4,000-year-old drawings found in the Beni-Hasen tombs, in the Nile Valley (Egypt) depicted men playing this sport.
Some other traces show that the Arabs, the Persians, the Romans (a version called paganica) , the Ethiopians and the Aztecs were playing a variation of hockey.
The first ever evidence of a a team sport was found on bases of statues, which were part of the wall built by Themistocles in 478 B.C.
The European settlers in Argentina in the 16th century described a somewhat hockey-like game of the Araucaño Indians known as cheuca or 'the twisted one' from the twisted end of the stick used by players.
In the Middle Ages, games like hockey were played throughout Europe. It was known as cambuca (or comocke or cammock; compare modern camogie) in England, shinty in Scotland, jeu de mail in France, and het kolven in The Netherlands.
Modern hockey was developed in the British Isles. It became firmly established
al A slightly different form of hockey was played in England in the 17th or 18th centuries. A whole village would play against another whole village. It was possible that a team had sixty to one hundred players. Each team would try to get a ball into the opposing team's common ground. Generally, a hockey match would last for days together, and its form was chaotic, many players used to end up with broken limbs and other injuries. They used to have umpires, but umpires could not make any calls unless a player or a team asked them to do so.
Indian and Pakistani national teams dominated men's hockey until the early 1980s.
India and Pakistan won four of the first five Hockey World Cups.
After 1980, Netherlands, Germany and Australia gained importance.
Other strong hockey playing nations are Spain, Argentina and South Korea.
In 1908, this game was played in Olympics for the first time, and only men were allowed to play. It was only in 1980 that women were allowed to play this game. Now, almost every country has a team and they compete not only in Olympics, but also in World Cup and Champion's Trophy as well.
