The 96th Ice Hockey Varsity Match
Saturday 5th March 2016, 7:00pm Oxford Ice Rink, Oxpens Road, OX1
IT ALL STARTED IN 1885...
...when the first Ice Hockey Varsity Match was played on the frozen lakes of St. Moritz, Switzerland. According to records kept by Cambridge, Oxford won this inaugural game 6-0.
Since then, there have been 95 Varsity Matches between these two teams, of which Oxford have won 63 and Cambridge 30, with 2 ties. Through this annual game, and through the rosters recorded in the Varsity Match game programmes and other archival material, the Oxford and Cambridge Blues teams can trace their lineage back to this landmark game. With their long shared history, these teams jointly hold the honour of being the second oldest teams in existence, with only the McGill Redmen believed to be older.
After getting its start in Switzerland, hockey remained dormant in Europe until some ten to fifteen years later. On March 16th 1900, the Varsity Match was played in London, where according to historical records "It was played under the title of Mr. B.J.T. Bosanquet's Oxford Team v. Mr. J.J. Cawthra's team". Bernard "Bosey" Bosanquet went on to become one of England's greatest cricketers, inventing the "googly", whilst jack Cawthra was an all-rounder who excelled in athletics, lacrosse, skating, and ice hockey and went on to represent England internationally. Cawthra was credited by Major B.M. 'Peter' Patton, an early historian of hockey in England and the founder and first President of the British Ice Hockey Association, as being the founder of the current series of Varsity hockey matches.
In the 1920's and '30's both the Oxford and Cambridge Blues entered the Spengler Cup, now arguably the biggest annual international hockey tournament in Europe. Oxford won the inaugural Spengler Cup, the first of four that it would win over the next ten years (having won it four times, according to the tournament rules the Spengler Cup belonged to the Oxford Blues, although they re-dedicated it to the tournament). The Cambridge Blues also finished as runners up in 1928, and these two teams remain the only varsity teams ever to have entered the tournament.
By the 1930's, professionalism had entered the sport, and amateur university students were no longer among the leading practitioners of hockey. However, in 1936, the English national team won the gold medal in the Winter Olympics in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, and ice hockey reached its peak in the United Kingdom.
By 1939 well over 10,000 people were attending the annual Varsity Match when the Second World War interrupted hockey in England. Not until 1949 was another Varsity Ice Hockey Match scheduled, and the popularity of the sport in England never returned to its pre-war levels. After the Second World War, the relentless rise of professionalism in hockey had pushed the Oxford and Cambridge teams out of the limelight. Nonetheless the annual varsity match remains the focal point and highlight of both the Oxford and Cambridge Blues' seasons.
In 2016, for the 96th time since 1885, these two historic rival teams will once again do battle for the right to hoist the Patton Cup trophy, first presented at the 1927 game by Major B.M. 'Peter' Patton, on which only the year, the winning team and the score are engraved.