A recent BBC Radio 4 story saw hockey feature in a highly unusual way. Mathematician Hannah Fry hosts the series Uncharted, which explores the mystery, drama and intrigue behind numbers and graphs. The episode in question is titled “The Hockey Stick”, the name given to the revelatory graph created in the 1990s to evidence humanity’s impact on global temperature.

The episode looks at the human stories behind the scientific research and data collation that created the graph and initiated global action to tackle climate change. Upon publication, its plot points swiftly became likened to the shape of an ice hockey stick – the sharp bend where the shaft meets the head occurs with the start of the Industrial Revolution.

The hockey stick graph (global temperature). CC BY-SA 4.0

Victorian hockey on the River Thames. Hand-coloured print: The Thames frozen over at Richmond published by the Illustrated London News, 1855. From THM collection.

However, we think that it much more closely resembles an ‘English-head’ hockey stick (in use 1870s-1950s) – the blade of an ice hockey stick is considerably wider that the shaft, whereas the head of an ‘English-head’ (field) hockey stick is much more consistent. These sticks were used in Victorian Britain around the time of the graph’s upward trajectory, as well as in early Victorian ice hockey games, which were actually (field) hockey played on ice with a ball not a puck – see the print above. Given all this *ahem* evidence, we think we can safely claim back this climate change graph for hockey!

An ‘English-head’ hockey stick from THM collection.

A modern ice hockey stick.

Uncharted: “The Hockey Stick” episode.

The Uncharted series is only available to UK listeners. You will need a BBC account.