Origins and Rules of Culdesac Hockey

Culdesac Hockey

Nicknames	Hiblundiiun Hockey
Characteristics
Team members	3 offense, 4 defense, 1 keeper (each side)
Mixed gender	No
Equipment	hockey stick, raised hockey puck
Venue	Culdesac Half (Explained later on- can be indoors or outdoors)

Culdesac Hockey was first created in mid 1960s in Trinalxii, Hiblund. It was originally created by highschoolers playing floor hockey in their nearby culdesac, which was then implemented into a real game later on after these same highschoolers got their degrees. The sport was held to colleges for three years, then the Hiblundiiun Culdesac Hockey Association was formed in 1971. Despite the doubts that it would ever transform into a major sport anywhere, it surpassed many once top-level sports, even the original form of hockey. Today the sport is recognized as the second most respected and viewed sport in Hiblund. Unfortunately though, its sucess in Hiblund never carried over to other athletic countries, nor even neighboring nations. The only other presence it has is in Frarstizk, and its league is rarely ever mentioned there.

History

Origins

In the spring of 1962, a group of highschoolers from Ferniuswe Hir were lounging around, bored of what to do. Most of these enjoyed hockey, but hated having to arrange everything with the nearby rink, and didn't prefer floor hockey because of its lack of places to functionally play it. So, they improvised and played in one of the group member's culdesacs, and played floor hockey there.

They quickly found out, however, that the shape of using half of a culdesac and some additional rule changes has the potential to become an entirely new sport. They edited the players a team and formatting of who could be where to make the game more interesting, lower scoring, and more tactical than the somewhat luck-based ice hockey. When they added a new member to the group of friends and introduced him to the improvisation of floor hockey, he said something along the lines of, "There are a lot of contrasts between this and hockey. Honestly though, if one evaluated this and hockey without any knowledge of when they were created, he/she wouldn't be able to tell which one came first". Immediately after this was said, two of the group members thought the exact same idea.

These two took the names of Fraetlei Lellic and Elzxair Vovliksir. Even after the group had split up and gone to college, these two stayed in contact and continued to polish up the rules of the game, having mildly serious intention to actually make it a thing. Both friends majored and graduated in a business degree at Trinalxii Srevat Ulnricht, trying to eventually gather enough money from strong holds in investments as well as working at a 9-5 job to make their dream come true. After an immensely successful investment in the company LSYT, the duo began to consider their dream as an actual idea.

Founding of HCHA

The duo finished their final touches on the rules in 1967, only a few weeks after their investment success. They knew that there were plenty of hoops to go through in order to get this going. After months of arousing hype of the sport, debating the worth with sponsors and broadcasters, and building both indoor and outdoor arenas, the Hiblundiiun Culdesac Hockey Association was formed and put into full force on the 1st of May, 1971.

Due to the major doubt in the sport being creative enough to actually support a separate audience from the ice hockey fans, they were only allowed to broadcast two games the first entire regulular season, and all bets were off for the postseason. Lellic and Vovliksir decided to broadcast the debut of the games in both locations; indoor (debut of the entire league) and outdoor (debut of the second half). These games gathered much attention, as those who looked past the similarities between this and ice hockey truly enjoyed it. These ratings were varied, but the more haters began to think, the more they decided that this was in fact different than ice hockey, thus, raising the ratings.

Present day

Today, the reach of the HCHA has established itself as one of the most prominent sports leagues throughout the land, ranking second in combined viewership across all sports, even surpassing ice hockey itself by a large margin. Real-life culdesacs, and not just the ones used for the game, have seen a slight incline in popularity due to the playing of kids in the neighborhoods wanting something similar to a culdesac arena. Unlike older arenas that could hold a capacity of about 1,000 people, they have drastically upgraded into an average capacity of 20,000 which is the third-highest for professional Hiblundiiun sports.

The HCHA is accompanied with plenty of non-overlapping minor leagues as well as the youth leagues in order to keep the sport eligible to many and to keep competition of systems relatively low.

Unfortunately, ice hockey and skating have taken the beating of this exchange, as their expected growth was stunted after the surge in culdesac hockey. Although ice hockey might have been given pros and cons from the switch (still mainly cons), skating has only seen cons. The even practice of skating is not encouraged very much by Hiblundiiun culture to begin with, and the double-pros of doing amateur ice hockey and skating sports have diminished, as it's more of just for skating sports at this point.