page_title: McGill University
section_title: Athletic history
hierarchical_section_title: McGill University / Student life / Athletics / Athletic history
caption_attribution_description: Hockey match at McGill University, Montreal, Canada.
context_page_description: McGill University is a public research university in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1821 by royal charter granted by King George IV, the university bears the name of James McGill, a Scottish merchant whose bequest in 1813 formed the university's precursor, University of McGill College; the name was officially changed to McGill University in 1885.
  McGill's main campus is on the slope of Mount Royal in downtown Montreal, with a second campus situated in Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, also on Montreal Island, 30 kilometres west of the main campus. The university is one of two universities outside the United States which are members of the Association of American Universities, alongside the University of Toronto, and it is the only Canadian member of the Global University Leaders Forum within the World Economic Forum.
  McGill offers degrees and diplomas in over 300 fields of study, with the highest average admission requirements of any Canadian university. Most students are enrolled in the five largest faculties, namely Arts, Science, Medicine, Engineering, and Management.
context_section_description: In 1868, the first recorded game of rugby in North America occurred in Montreal, between British army officers and McGill students, giving McGill the oldest university-affiliated rugby club in North America. Other McGill-originated sports evolved out of rugby rules: football, hockey, and basketball. The first game of North American football was played between McGill and Harvard on May 14, 1874, leading to the spread of American football throughout the Ivy League.
  On March 3, 1875, the first organized indoor hockey game was played at Montreal's Victoria Skating Rink between two nine-player teams, including James Creighton and several McGill University students. The McGill University Hockey Club, the first organized hockey club, was founded in 1877 and played its first game on January 31, 1877. Very soon thereafter, those McGill students wrote the first hockey rule book. A McGill team was one of four that competed in the Amateur Hockey Association of Canada, founded in 1886. AHAC teams competed for the first Stanley Cup in 1893; the AHAC became one of predecessor organizations of the National Hockey League. McGill alumnus James Naismith invented basketball in early December 1891. Norwegian Herman "Jackrabbit" Smith-Johannsen (later the coach of Canada's 1932 Olympic team) popularized cross-country skiing in North America from McGill's Gault Estate in Mont St. Hilaire.
  There has been a McGill alumnus or alumna competing at every Olympic Games since 1908. Swimmer George Hodgson won two gold medals at the 1912 Summer Olympics, ice hockey goaltender Kim St-Pierre won gold medals at the 2002 Winter Olympics and at the 2006 Winter Olympics. Other 2006 gold medalists are Jennifer Heil (women's freestyle mogul) and goaltender Charline Labonté (women's ice hockey).
  In 1996, the McGill Sports Hall of Fame was established to honour its best student athletes. Notable members of the Hall of Fame include James Naismith and Sydney Pierce.
  A 2005 hazing scandal forced the cancellation of the final two games in the McGill Redmen football season.
  In 2006, McGill's Senate approved a proposed anti-hazing policy to define forbidden initiation practices.
  In 2018, after a slew of protests—both online and on campus—an online vote revealed that 78.8 per cent of the McGill student population were in favour of changing the varsity teams' "Redmen" name, with 21 per cent against. The university's nickname emerged in the 1920s, and is thought to refer to the school's signature colour and Celtic roots. In the 1950s, both men's and women's teams came to be nicknamed the "Indians" and "Squaws", and some teams later adopted a logo of an Indigenous man wearing a headdress in the 1980s and '90s. In December 2018, McGill University released a working group report that revealed deep divisions between students and alumni who defend the nearly century-old name and those who feel it is derogatory to Indigenous students. In January 2019, it was announced that the principal Suzanne Fortier will decide whether or not to change the name by the end of the 2019 academic term.
  An announcement on 12 April 2019 confirmed that the Redmen name for its men's varsity sports teams was dropped, effective immediately. No new name was planned; the groups would be known as the McGill teams. The former name would remain in the McGill Sports Hall of Fame and on items such as existing plaques, trophies and championship photos.
caption: A hockey match at McGill in 1901
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