Picture this: it’s Saturday night, and the Vancouver Canucks are taking on the Edmonton Oilers in the opening weekend of 2025-26 season.

Quinn Hughes collects the puck behind Thatcher Demko’s net, surveys the ice, and threads a crisp forward pass to Elias Pettersson, who glides through the neutral zone before flicking a backhand to Brock Boeser on the wing.

The play unfolds in seconds, fluid, instinctive, and familiar.

But rewind nearly a century, and that same pass would have been illegal.

Before 1928, hockey was a puck-carrying game, more like rugby on ice. You could pass backward or sideways, but never forward. There were no blue lines, no penalty shots, and no numbers on jerseys. Goalies couldn’t drop to their knees. Line changes didn’t exist. The team that finished first in the st

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