Which sports originated in Canada and how

Sports history

Basketball is one of the few sports invented by an individual - in this case, Canadian physical education teacher Dr. James Naismith in 1891 in the USA. Naismith was looking for a way to challenge his football-obsessed students indoors even in the frosty winter. A new (ball) game had to be found that she really loved.

Initially, Naismith planned to simply place wooden boxes (it ended up being peach baskets since nothing else was at hand) at both ends of the hall to serve as a gate. But then he feared that there could be strong scuffles in front of the box. So he came up with the idea of ​​having the school janitor install the boxes at a height of 3.05 meters. The modern baskets are still hanging there today.

In less than an hour, Naismith wrote exactly 13 rules for the new game. The third and most important rule was the prohibition of running with the ball. The 'no traveling' is still one of the elementary rules today, but dribbling is allowed. When it was first born, basketball was still a pure passing and throwing game, in which the ball should be caught while standing and kept passing until a player is in a good throwing position for a 'goal'.
The first official basketball games took place in and around Springfield in 1892. In the early games only a single goal was usually scored. This had an advantage, because at the beginning the balls had to be fished out of the basket with a stick. It was not until 1906 that the well-known open-bottom network was introduced.

The new sport quickly caught on, especially at colleges and universities in the USA, and found more and more fans. At the beginning of the 20th century, the first famous teams such as the Buffalo Germans were formed. Her team also presented the basketball game for the first time at the 1904 Summer Olympics in St. Louis, but not yet in the official competition program. Basketball only became really professional with the establishment of the ABL, the American Basketball League, in 1925. It changed a few more rules and, among other things, officially introduced the backboard behind the baskets.

In Europe, too, basketball was becoming more and more popular. At the beginning of the 1930s, ball was actually included in the Olympic program. But first only for amateurs. It was not until 1992 that the professionals of the American NBA (National Basketball Association), founded in 1949, were allowed to take part in the Olympic Games, which gave basketball a further boost in popularity. This was followed by the start of a grandiose triumph of the American national team, the 'Dream Team'. They won 14 of 19 Olympic basketball competitions!

In Germany, the German Basketball Federation was founded in Düsseldorf in 1949. A Bundesliga has existed since the 1960s. Today more than 200,000 people in Germany play basketball in a club. Ascending trend! And school sport in Germany has also discovered basketball for itself. Basketball is an integral part of the curriculum in more and more schools.