The revelation that, when Charles Darwin was at school, hockey was played on the ice in cold winters, has upset quite a few of our Canadian friends who assumed that ice hockey was invented in Canada.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk...s-9433766.html
There's no doubt Canadians refined the game sufficiently to make it what it is today but some still insist the new information is just a hoax. It makes sense that, when grass is frozen, rather than turn it into a quagmire, playing on the ice is much more fun. There are early photos of English school matches on the ice.