Canadian museum buys world's oldest known hockey stick

An expression of joy beams from Mark Presley's face as he imagines William Moffatt playing hockey on a small Cape Breton lake almost 200 years ago.

Young Moffatt, nicknamed "Dilly" and born in 1829, is believed to have been the original owner of what the Canadian Museum of History says is the world's oldest known hockey stick.

The son of Loyalist shipbuilders who settled on the shores of Pottle Lake, Dilly would have been less than 10 years old when the hockey stick was fashioned for him from a single tree branch.

He took ownership of the short-handled puck slapper by carving his initials into its long blade.

Now, the stick sits in a protective case, awaiting its public unveiling when the Canadian Museum of Civilization is officially re-opened as the Museum of History on Canada Day, 2017.

Presley was fascinated by the stick when he found it in a North Sydney barber shop in 2008 — so much so that he paid $1,000 for it.

"In terms of historical significance, it's just scintillating stuff," Presley said as he and the museum showed off the artifact on Friday.

"It's really exciting."

Over time, with the help of experts at Mount Allison University in Sackville, N.B., it was determined the tree branch was cut in Cape Breton in the mid-to-late 1830s.

Through its donor-supported National Collection Fund, the museum recently purchased the stick from Presley for $300,000.

Worth every penny, said Mark O'Neill, museum president and CEO.

"Hockey is Canada's game," said O'Neill.

"We developed it and we cherish it like no other country in the world."

The Moffatt family held onto the stick until it was given to the barber shop in the early 1980s, where it sat on display until Presley bought it.

Presley then went on a quest, passionately researching the stick's history, its age and the multi-generational story behind it.

Charlie Moffatt, then 92 years old, told Presley how his grandfather played hockey on Pottle Lake as a boy.

Over the last few years, the stick has undergone numerous scientific analyses, said museum historian Jennifer Anderson.

"It is the earliest known hockey stick, or hurley stick, that we have yet to identify," she said.

But young Dilly wasn't playing hockey alone, she added.

"So we may yet come across others," she said.

"(But) this is the oldest one known to anyone . . . by about 25 or 30 years."

Until the age of the Moffatt stick was determined, the oldest-known was the so-called Rutherford hockey stick.

Shaped by Alexander Rutherford around 1852, it sold on eBay in 2001 for $2.2 million.