BILL NO. 225
(as introduced)
2nd Session, 60th General Assembly
Nova Scotia
57 Elizabeth II, 2008
Provincial Sport Act
Chuck Porter
Hants West
First Reading: November 19, 2008
Second Reading: November 20, 2008
Third Reading: November 24, 2008 (LINK TO BILL AS PASSED)
An Act to Declare Ice Hockey to be
the Provincial Sport of Nova Scotia
WHEREAS Nova Scotian historians have claimed that Nova Scotia is the birthplace of modern Canadian ice hockey, based, in part, upon the writings of Thomas Chandler Haliburton who wrote of the playing of "hurley on the ice" during his school days in Windsor, Nova Scotia, no later than 1810;
AND WHEREAS early paintings show shinny, an early form of hockey, being played in Nova Scotia;
AND WHEREAS an anonymous writer in the Windsor Mail of 1876 wrote of the playing of hurley on the Devil's Punch Bowl and on Long Pond during his school days from 1816 to 1818 in Windsor;
AND WHEREAS during the mid-1850s hockey games were played by British soldiers stationed in Halifax;
AND WHEREAS J. G. A. Creighton (1850-1930) of Halifax is credited with introducing hockey to Montreal, for the first time under organized rules, with Halifax rules in 1875;
AND WHEREAS Howard Dill gathered a tremendous collection of hockey memorabilia and promoted Long Pond as the "Cradle of Hockey in Canada"
AND WHEREAS Dr Garth Vaughan, in his book The Puck Starts Here, chronicled the origins of hockey in Windsor;
THEREFORE be it enacted by the Governor and Assembly as follows:
1 This Act may be cited as the Provincial Sport Act.
2 Ice hockey is declared to be the Provincial Sport of the Province.
3 This Act comes into force on such day as the Governor in Council orders and declares by proclamation.
This page and its contents published by the Office of the Legislative Counsel, Nova Scotia House of Assembly, and © 2008 Crown in right of Nova Scotia. Created December 2, 2008. Send comments to legc.office@novascotia.ca.
