Do you want to know the real story of modern Ice Hockey’s birth and early evolution? If so, remember the four flags below. They represent communities that we call “Stars” here. We do so, because their contributions to your modern hockey are truly in a league of their own. Simply put, you cannot hope to understand the origins of all versions modern Ice Hockey without knowing their back stories.
Hockey historians have long known that our Four Stars are the real deal – for more than a century. In the language of baseball, they combine to form what is known as a “grand slam ‘walk-off‘ home run,” due to how they define a game’s history: in epic, incontrovertible, quad-related fashion.
And here’s why you might want to know about the Fab Four of the early game: These days, whenever “ice hockey history” is discussed, the narratives that dominate search engines almost always suggest that the origins of modern hockey are “mysterious.” There is no mystery. This widespread confusion is due to the fact that all of today’s dominant narratives either ignore or downplay the contributions of the first Two Stars. Mark Grant, The Four Stars of Early Ice Hockey
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1 of 5 – A music piece concerning the 1972 introduction of best-on-best international Ice Hockey and the greatest Ice Hockey rivalry of the 20th century, Canada verses the Soviet Union. (Foster Hewitt on lead with Phil Esposito on backup) :
1972: Ode to the Original Team Canada
2 of 5 – Our PDF Essay A good place to start (depending on one’s musical tastes). Our book’s main ideas summarized in a few pages. This essay, A Brief History of Early Ice Hockey – The Lineal Origins of the Modern Game, highlights ‘must-know’ information about the history of ‘lineal‘ Ice Hockey. These and other concepts are explored in greater detail in our free pdf book:
3 of 5 – Our FREE book: The True Story of Early Ice Hockey ‘Encore Edition’ of the Online Book ‘The Four Stars of Early Ice Hockey’ by Mark Grant – Sep 19 2025
From Ice Hockey’s literal Eden to 1926, the story of how the foundation of modern Ice Hockey was established. This new version contains the Four Stars book in an expanded “Encore” edition that preserves essential primary source documents for easy reference.
4 of 5 – ‘Lineal’ Hockey History on One Page TIMELINE of the history of early Ice Hockey in an expandable flow chart. From birth to conquest: the life path of a single stick game that conquered all others.
5 of 5 – The Birth of Montreal hockey Arguably, the most important, least discussed episode in 19th century ice hockey. How it resolves many of the so-called “mysteries” of Ice Hockey’s origins.
The Four Stars of Early Ice Hockey 