How was hockey spread?

Answer 1

Short: A man called thomas Edwards travelled to India in the 19th century and introduced them to the sport.

Long:

Until the mid-1980s it was usually accepted that Ice Hockey was derived from English Field Hockey and Indian Lacrosse and was spread throughout Canada by British soldiers in the mid-1800s. Research then turned up a mention of a hockey very similar to hockey, played in the early 1800s in Nova Scotia by the Micmac Indians, it appeared to have been mainly influenced by the Irish game of hurling; it included the use of a "hurley" (stick) and a square wooden block instead of a ball.

It was most likely that this game then spread throughout Canada via Scottish and Irish immigrants and the British army. The players adopted elements of field hockey, such as the "bully" (later the face-off) and "shinning" (hitting your opponent on the shins with the stick or playing with the stick on one "shin" or side); this later evolved into an informal ice game later known as shinny or shinty. The name hockey-as the organized game came to be known-has been attributed to the French word hoquet (shepherd's stick).