Ice hockey

A cover from USA 🇺🇸 with ice hockey stamps 

Ice hockey is a contact team sport played on ice, usually in a rink, in which two teams of skaters use their sticks to shoot a vulcanizedrubber puck into their opponent's net to score points. The sport is known to be fast-paced and physical, with teams usually consisting of six players each: one goaltender, and five players who skate up and down the ice trying to take the puck and score a goal against the opposing team.

Ice hockey is most popular in Canada, central and eastern Europe, the Nordic countries, Russia and the United States. Ice hockey is the official national winter sport of Canada.^[1] In addition, ice hockey is the most popular winter sport in Belarus, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Finland, Latvia, Russia, Slovakia, Sweden, and Switzerland.

Ice hockey is believed to have evolved from simple stick and ball games played in the 18th and 19th century United Kingdom and elsewhere. These games were brought to North America and several similar winter games using informal rules as they were developed, such as "shinny" and "ice polo". The contemporary sport of ice hockey was developed in Canada, most notably in Montreal, where the first indoor hockey game was played on March 3, 1875. 

The stamps are a Joint Issue between USA and Canada. The stamps picture a vintage player representing the game’s past set against a snowy background. One player is wearing a contemporary uniform and using modern equipment, and the other is wearing vintage garb and using old-fashioned equipment. The two vertically stacked stamps in the souvenir sheet, which are arranged to mirror each other, are identical to those sold also as a pane of 20. “The History of Hockey” appears in the bottom left corner of the sheet under the flags of the United States and Canada.

The other stamp is the USA forever stamp for Diwali !