Hockey arrived in Lewiston on March 4, 1884, a Tuesday night, when the Portland Polo Club came to town to take on the newly organized Lewiston club at City Hall as part of a Polo League tournament that also involved teams from Saco, Bath, Biddeford and Brunswick.
The Lewiston Evening Journal explained to readers that the game they played was hockey or shinny, not the sport of polo involving horses and mallets.
“It is closely allied to the old-fashioned sport of ‘purring,’” the paper said.
Hockey, which made its debut in Montreal in 1875, spread through Quebec and into New England in the years that followed.
The Journal said the sport required “coolness and calculation,” and that the Lewiston club could use some practice.
“It is to be presumed that the boys have the stuff, and that with practice, will develop their game,” the paper said.
The Journal said that “well-aimed hits for the goal were noticeably lacking in the play of the Lewiston club.
Portland wound up winning 3-0 and that “everybody liked the conduct of both clubs during the game.”
“It was very interesting, at times intensely so,” the paper said, adding that “a trifle more success on the part of the Lewiston club would have added zest to the game.”
“It is fun to look at,” the reporter noted.
The story said Lewiston had a fine goaltender, Archie Wakefield, and its captain, a fellow named Carvis, “played an excellent game.”
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