Did slaves who escaped to Canada invent ice hockey? Unpacking the real history

Throughout 2026, a rumor circulated online that Black American slaves who escaped to Canada invented ice hockey. Numerous social media users posted the claim alongside a blurry black-and-white photo of 11 Black men wearing hockey uniforms and holding hockey sticks.

For example, on May 18, one X user wrote (archived), "Slaves Ran Away to Canada and Invented Ice Hockey, But Y'all Think It's a White Man's Sport."

(X user @rirokpik)

Other examples of the rumor were shared elsewhere on X, as well as on Threads and Facebook (archived), where one popular post (archived) also featured the above image.

In short, the claim that runaway slaves in Canada invented ice hockey is false. The sport developed over hundreds of years and Black Canadians did play hockey as it progressed into what is recognized today. Though no singular group is credited with "inventing" ice hockey, Black Canadians, many of whom were from a community that runaway slaves created, played in early organized hockey leagues and developed techniques commonplace in the modern game.

Separately, while some people online questioned the legitimacy of the black-and-white picture shared alongside posts featuring the rumor, it is a real photo of a team from the Colored Hockey League of the Maritimes.

Ice hockey's formation

According to The Canadian Encyclopedia, ice hockey's origins can be traced back to stick-and-ball games from the British Isles — bandy (in England), shinty (in Scotland) and hurling (in Ireland) have been documented back to the 1300s. People were likely playing the sports on ice by the mid-1700s, the encyclopedia wrote.

English newspapers reported bandy match results as early as 1831 and listed the names of players as early as 1857. As the game developed in England, it was also being played in Canada throughout the 1800s, according to The Canadian Encyclopedia. The International Ice Hockey Federation recognizes an 1875 game in Montreal as the first organized ice hockey game.

Neither the Canadian Encyclopedia, the Canadian Museum of History, the Windsor Hockey Heritage Society nor any other sources Snopes could find highlighted any particular influence that Black people (or escaped slaves) specifically had on the development of hockey to that point in history. 

However, Jean-Patrice Martel, a past president for the Society for International Hockey Research and co-author of "On the Origin of Hockey," said via phone call that a lieutenant in the English military wrote about an unorganized hockey game played in Niagara Falls, Canada, in 1839. The game, according to the lieutenant, included a Black military corps. The following passage can be found on Page 587 of the Internet Archive's version of the lieutenant's book, "Echoes from the Backwoods; or Sketches of Transatlantic Life":

During the winter, the skating on the Chippewa Creek was excellent, and added not a little to our amusement. Large parties contested games of hockey on the ice, some forty or fifty being ranged on each side.

A ludicrous scene, too, was afforded by the instruction of a black corps in skating: from the peculiar formation of a negro's foot, and the length of his heel, they were constantly falling forward; it was impossible to keep them on their skates, and down they came by whole sections.

They might have done admirably on snow-shoes, but it was lamentable to witness the dreadful 'headers' they suffered from the skates.

While there isn't a way to verify the quality of that particular group's play, there was a Black population in Canada, that originated from formerly enslaved African Americans, that did go on to develop some of the techniques commonplace in hockey today.

Black pioneers in early ice hockey

In 2021, the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture wrote that roughly 30,000 formerly enslaved African Americans sailed to Canada after fighting alongside British troops in the American Revolution and the War of 1812. Descendants of these formerly enslaved people, the Smithsonian wrote, founded the Colored Hockey League of the Maritimes in 1895.

The Colored Hockey League, also shortened to CHLM, was necessary for Black Canadians interested in playing ice hockey because the white hockey teams did not allow Black players at the time, according to the Windsor Hockey Heritage Society.

Multiple sources, such as the Canadian Museum of History and The Canadian Encyclopedia, described the play in the CHLM as fast, physical and innovative. The Canadian Encyclopedia wrote that the championship games of the CHLM "were on par with the best of the white teams." CHLM games "often out-drew those of white counterparts," with one championship game reaching an attendance as high as 1,200 spectators. The Windsor Hockey Heritage Society compared this to regular games between white teams, which typically drew crowds of 200 to 300 fans.

Multiple sources highlighted two significant innovations to the game first used by players in the CHLM before later being widely adopted across the sport. 

One CHLM player, Henry "Braces" Franklyn, is credited with developing the technique where a goalkeeper drops their knees to the ice to block the puck. That technique, called "the butterfly," was not allowed in games elsewhere until the formation of the NHL in 1917. (In 2017, The New York Times called goalkeeper Glenn Hall, whose NHL career spanned nearly 20 years from 1952 to 1971, "the pioneer" of the move, despite Franklyn being credited with developing it.) The butterfly is so common among professional hockey players today that NHL teams have started to monitor how often their goalkeepers drop to the ice so they can potentially prevent hip injuries.

Eddie Martin, another CHLM player, may have developed an early form of the slapshot, perhaps the most well-known type of shot in hockey today.

Black-and-white image of Black hockey team

In a reply to the May 2026 X post, one user claimed the photo of the Black hockey team was generated using artificial intelligence software and presented what they said was the "original" picture: a similar image of a white hockey team.

(X user @realchadmorgan)

However, the photo of the Black hockey team is real. It shows a team from the Colored League of the Maritimes. In fact, the image of the white hockey team appeared to be an edit — possibly generated using artificial intelligence tools — of the photo of the Black hockey team.

There are numerous indicators that the image of the white hockey team was generated using an AI tool. For example, the thumb of the far-right player's top-most hand appears to be floating on its own, missing a connection with the rest of his hand. Similarly, the top-most hand of the player at the bottom of the image appears to be missing a finger between his middle finger and his thumb. Other hands and fingers in the image also appear to be disfigured or inconsistent with reality.

The authentic photo can be found on NovaMuse, which acts as an archive of the collections in museums across the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, which is where the CHLM was concentrated. NovaMuse says the picture is from the collection of the Nova Scotia Sport Hall of Fame.

NovaMuse's description says it shows a monochrome photograph of the 1921 Africville Sea-Sides hockey team, but that it could also be the Africville Brown Bombers from 1931. Either way, the photo shows a CHLM team from Africville (a largely Black community in Halifax, Nova Scotia) in the early 1900s.

The photo also features on the Canadian Museum of History's website.