Evolution of Hockey Positions

If you're reading this blog, chances are that you know what rovers, points and cover-points are. Or were. They're part of the history of the game; before defencemen we had points and cover-points (or simply covers), the former playing close to the goalkeeper, and the latter being a conduit between the defence and the forwards. The rover was phased out of eastern hockey around 1911/12, while the point/cover positions morphed into side-by-side defenders soon thereafter.

But that's not all there is to the story of positional changes in hockey. If you go far back enough, specifically to 1875 when the first organized, indoor games between two opposing clubs took place in Montreal, there were typically nine men on the ice for either side, rather than the seven we're used to dealing with in early hockey history. They played four forwards as we're used to from the rover era, but had two extra men on defence. Not only that, but the defensive positions were not yet called point and cover, they were back and half-back, a clear indication of the fact that the rules of the game were adapted from football.

I can't be 100% of how the players typically lined up, but I think the following makes sense. The goalkeeper is marked with GK, the backs with B, the half-backs with HB, and the forwards with F.

The first big change in hockey positions came around 1880, when two men were dropped from the standard lineup. I'm not sure of the impetus for this change. The number nine had basically been chosen to fit the practical limits of the Victoria Skating Rink (which bequeathed its 200' by 85' rink size to North American hockey); when played outdoors hockey was played with more men than that. At some point they may have simply decided that 18 men on the ice made it a bit too crowded, and reduced it to 7-on-7.

However, they did not immediately adopt the seven-with-a-rover lineup. They dropped a back and a forward, still playing with two half-backs, thusly:

This standard seems to have lasted about a decade, after which one of the half-backs transmogrified into a fourth forward (the rover), and the other became the cover-point (CP), while the back was now called the point (P). This change from four defenders and three forwards to three defenders and four forwards probably had some effect on goal-scoring, which did uptick at this time, as we'll be looking at in the near future.

This was the standard in eastern hockey for about 20 years, when the decision was made, at least at the game's highest level, to eliminate the rover (as discussed here). That opened the ice up a bit, and brings us close to the setup we're used to today:

It took only another season or so before the point/cover-point setup gave way to the modern lineup, which we still have today...

...which, I think it's safe to say, is not going to change any time soon. It's worked well for almost a century now.

The usual caveats for this sort of general discussion apply, of course. The years mentioned may not be entirely precise, and it's unlikely that every team adopted the same lineup at the same time. Each change would have taken a bit of time to become standard.

Eagle-Eye Cameron

To complete the Montreal AAA's defensive triumvirate, we have Allan "Eagle Eye" Cameron, the famous cover-point:

Of all the great Winged Wheelers, Cameron was the most celebrated player. He ability on offence, on defence and as a team leader were often noted in the game reports of the time:

McQuisten got it and tried to carry it past Cameron, who was a strong tower in himself, and sent it back again. (Montreal Gazette, 14 Jan 1888)

Kinghorn ran it well up, but Cameron came to the rescue and relieved the pressure. Kinghorn again got it, but his career was short as Cameron stopped him. (Montreal Gazette, 4 Feb 1888)

Cameron was feeding his forwards grandly. (Montreal Gazette, 4 Feb 1888)

Play had hardly commenced when the two cover point men [Cameron and the Vics' Jack Campbell] began the magnificent work that characterized their play all through the match. (Montreal Gazette, 28 Feb 1888)

Allan Cameron, of the M.A.A.A. team, had his eye closed in the fourth game, but pluckily went on for the fifth. (Montreal Herald, 4 Feb 1889)

Cameron, by a pretty shot, added another point for the M.A.A.A. team. (Montreal Herald, 18 Jan 1890)

The spectators were very often raised to a high pitch of enthusiasm through the dashing play of Campbell, who certainly played a magnificent game. Cameron, somehow or other, managed to get in his road and interrupt him when he appeared to be dangerous. (Montreal Herald, 20 Feb 1890)

Paton had many stops to make, nevertheless, but they were of the free and easy order and he cleverly drove the puck out of his territory. Stewart and Cameron swooped around after the puck in admirable style. (Montreal Gazette, 8 Mar 1892)

Cameron played a beautiful game and owing in great part to the lack of combination among his opponents, scarcely one of them ever got past him. If they did they were almost sure to be stopped by Paton. (Montreal Gazette, 30 Jan 1893)

At last the puck was raised up the rink by Watson, but Stewart and Cameron were hard men to pass. (Montreal Gazette, 11 Feb 1893)

The cover-point position was made for dynamic, all-around players. It involved not only being the first line of defence against the opponent's rushes, but also being an important part of the transition between defence and offence. Hugh Baird, a later Montreal AAA cover-point, described the position thusly in Art Farrell's Hockey: Canada's Royal Winter Game (1899):

The cover-point is a combination of a defence man and a forward, and is allowed, in virtue of the fact, more latitude with respect to leaving his position, than any man on the team, except the rover.

In his capacity of a defence player he should linger around his goals as long as the puck is near, and be very careful when he secures it in front of the poles. When the play is at the other end of the rink, the cover-point should advance to about the middle, so that when the puck is lifted down, he may return it without loss of time, in order to keep the game centered around his opponents' goals, and to save his forwards the trouble of skating up to him so that they may again ''get into play." It is by playing far up under these circumstances that a clever cover-point can shine to the advantage of his team. If he has a good opening he should shoot well for the goals, but if he has not, he should, as I have said, return the puck instantaneously.

When in this position, far from his goals, a cover-point is suddenly confronted by an opposing forward who rushes down the ice, he should skate towards his defence, watching that man and gradually closing in upon him.

I am an advocate of legitimate body-checking. and consider that the most successful way of stopping a man who approaches alone, is by blocking him, obstructing his course in any way that does not violate section 8. It requires less effort and is less dangerous to block an opponent than to "body" him.

By its very nature, the cover-point position lent itself to well-rounded players, with both offensive and defensive ability. And since he was generally in position to see more of the ice that the other skaters, the role of team captain also suited the position well. Judging by the game reports, Allan Cameron was very effective with the puck, but also without, and had a talent for "challenging" opposing puck carriers and removing the puck from their possession. Rather than simply obstructing the opponents' course, as Baird suggests above, it seems Cameron preferred to go after them aggressively, and was very effective at doing so. We'll discuss this tendency, how effective it could be given the rules of the time, and how it reflects the AAA's defence as a whole in a future post.

The Fine Art of Lifting

One of the barriers to entry, so to speak, of interest in early hockey is some of the terminology in use during the early years of the game's development. Some of these are the result in simple changes in terminology (such as "bully" for faceoff, or "game" for goal), but some instead have to do with changes in the strategy and tactics used on the ice. Plays and tactics no longer relevant to the modern game result in archaic terminology that is unfamiliar to current fans of the game. If you're reading a game report from the 1890s, for example, you'll probably come across some terms you've not seen before.

Some of these differences you might already be aware of, such as the names for the positions. Rather than two defencemen, there was a point and a cover-point, and there was a fourth forward called a rover. This is pretty simple stuff, and doesn't by itself shed much light on how the game was played.

One of the most important archaic term in this respect is probably the "lift". When you read about a game featuring the Montreal or Winnipeg Victorias (basically every city had a club with that moniker, as a tribute to the Queen), you'll see references to players, typically the defence, lifting the puck down the ice. The meaning of this phrase is fairly self-evident: it is quite literally a player using wrist action to flip the puck high up into the air, and down into the opponent's end. What is not immediately obvious is the tactical implications of this maneuver.

Lifting the puck was not simply a matter of clearing the puck out of your end, though it was certainly used for that purpose. More important, however, was the interaction of this tactic with the rules of the day, specifically the offside rule. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, there was no forward passing allowed in hockey. Passes were often made laterally, as in rugby. You could pass the puck forward to an extent, as long as the recipient of the pass was not ahead of you when the pass was made. You could not simply pass the puck ahead to a waiting teammate to clear your end. If you weren't able to carry the puck out, you had to clear it in another manner. But if you simply shot the puck down the ice, it was an easy matter for the opponents to corral the puck and begin another attack.

Lifting the puck, however, provided several advantages. It took longer for the puck to travel down the ice, giving your side more time to regroup. More importantly, the hard rubber puck bounced when it hit the ice, making it more difficult for the opponents to predict where it would go and organize their counterattack. Indeed, sometimes the bounce was so unpredictable that a long lift could result in a goal being scored, if the rubber skipped past the goalkeeper. This unpredictability, in fact, allowed the lift to be used offensively as well as defensively. Think of an onside kick in American football - the opponents would often have difficulty in gaining possession of the puck, allowing a teammate to rush in and take the rubber away and begin an attack of his own.

This is why the lift was so important, tactically. In some sense it was a pseudo-forward pass in a game that did not allow forward passing. It was useful both for offence and defence, and the points and cover-points of the day were expected to be able to execute the maneuver well, both to fulfill their duties on defence and to move the play ahead to their forwards. Sometimes matches would have periods referred to as "lifting battles", where the teams exchanged lifts back and forth for a time. Although this does not sound exciting, and was certainly criticized as such at the time, it does illustrate that the play was seen as an effective one, if teams were willing to indulge in it with such aplomb.