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It is accepted that the game of hockey in Canada started at Windsor, Nova Scotia around 1800 when the game was called 'hurley.'

What is little known, is that 22 years before formation of the National Hockey League, the Coloured Hockey League of the Maritimes was formed, headquartered in Halifax.

Players in the league came up with a number of innovations, including the slap shot and goalies dropping to their knees to stop a puck.

There were more than 400 players in a dozen teams from Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island, somewhat weakening the stereotype that Blacks had weak ankles and so couldn't skate, or couldn't endure the cold.

Some of the teams were the Halifax Eurekas, the AfricVille Brown Bombers, Truro Sheiks and Dartmouth Jubilees.

The Coloured Hockey League was prominent until the mid-1920s when the effects of the First World War, racism and changes in the Nova Scotia economy brought it to a close. Despite the league's many contributions to hockey, there are no monuments or plaques acknowledging its existence in any of the three provinces that fielded teams.

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A Ugandan doctor with massive scientific credits is operating a company in Windsor which will bring medical relief to millions of people in poor nations.

Dr. 'Abbey' Kirumira (1956-), who answers to 'Dr. K,' has been recognized as Bioscience Innovator of the Year by The Economist, and Technology Pioneer for 2009 by the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

He has received numerous awards and scientific accolades. The former chemistry professor at Wolfville University is the founder and CEO of BioMedica Diagnostics Inc., a medical device company.

From first-hand experience he is driven to make medicine accessible and affordable to developing nations. This led him to the creation of 'lab in a box,' a complete lab consisting of all equipment with a menu of 90 tests that can easily be performed without the use of medical facilities.

His kit, for example, requires only three minutes to perform testing for HIV/AIDS. During his 15 years of research Kirumira learned that doctors in developing nations are 40-50% wrong in their disease diagnoses because they lack basic laboratory support.

Forty to 50 percent of malaria diagnoses in children is for other serious diseases that remain undetected and 25-30% of diabetic patients are not aware of their disease until the onset of blindness.

One of Biomedica's kits costs $30,000 US, far more affordable for poor nations than current laboratory technologies that cost about $2 million to install.

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Gerald Augustine Regan

Retired premier lives under a cloud

Lawyer Gerald Augustine Regan (1928-) was elected to the House of Commons in 1963, but resigned in 1965 when he was named leader of the Nova Scotia Liberal Party.

Two years later he was elected to the Nova Scotia House of Assembly, elected premier in 1970 and was reelected to that position until 1978.

In 1980 he returned to the federal House of Commons and held two portfolios in the Trudeau government until it was defeated in 1984.

In 1995 he was charged with 16 counts of sexual offences, including rape of young women, that allegedly occurred in 1956 and 1969.

He was acquitted of those charges but every time he publicly protested his innocence, more women came forward to testify against him, and he faced more charges in 1999.

Eventually Toronto lawyer Eddie Greenspan won him an acquittal in all but the court of public opinion.

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Cross Burning Nets Jail Terms

Two Windsor brothers who burned a cross on the lawn of a bi-racial couple in 2011 were given jail terms in 2012 in a case the Crown prosecutor said was the first involving a cross burning in Canada.

Nathan Rehberg, 21, was sentenced to four months for inciting hatred and six months for criminal harassment, both sentences to be served concurrently.

Justin Rehberg, 20, was given two months for inciting hatred and two months for criminal harassment, both sentences to be served concurrently.

The brothers were also given 30 months of probation and 50 hours of community service.

Both were ordered to have no contact with the family of Shayne Howe and Michelle Lyon, the couple who awoke on Feb. 21 of 2011 to find a two-metre (six-foot) wooden cross burning on their lawn.

Justice Claudine MacDonald said as a result of the cross burning, Shayne Howe lost his job and Lyon's daughter had to drop out of school for a while and suffered nightmares.

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Massive Fire Almost Wiped Out Windsor

Fire fanned by a violent gale wiped out most of Windsor in October of 1897.

The conflagration of unknown origin started about 3 a.m. and, although only a half dozen buildings remained standing, there were no fatalities.

All but a very few of the 3,500 residents lost their homes and were taken in by residents of surrounding communities, moved to Halifax or housed in army tents erected by a detachment of the Royal Berkshire Regiment and Royal Engineers.

Everything within a square mile area was destroyed. The only buildings saved were the Windsor Cotton Factory, King's College, the Anglican Church, Edgehill School for Girls and the Dufferin Hotel.

A year after the fire the streets had been relined and 150 new buildings had been added.

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Thomas Chandler Haliburton

Satiric writer broadened the English language Thomas Chandler Haliburton (1796-1865) was a lawyer, politician and judge born in Windsor.

But he is best remembered as a writer and creator of the literary character Sam Slick.

He began his law practice at Annapolis Royal in 1821 and sat in the Legislative Assembly from 1826-29. In 1841 he was appointed a judge of the Nova Scotia Supreme Court.

In 1929 his History of Nova Scotia was published and in the mid-1830s he wrote satiric sketches for The Novascotian, which were collected into a book, The Clockmaker.

He had two sons and five daughters but none of them had children. In 1856 he moved permanently to Great Britain, sat in the British Parliament and continued writing a number of Sam Slick books.

Some expressions from those books have become a part of our language: 'raining cats and dogs': 'honesty is the best policy: 'the early bird catches the worm': 'an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure'; jack of all trades and master of none.'

Haliburton House Museum

at 414 Clifton Ave. in Windsor was the elegant wooden villa of Judge Thomas Chandler Haliburton, lawyer, historian and author of the famous Sam Slick stories.

Furnished with Victorian furniture and some of Haliburton's possessions.


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Windsor Hockey Heritage Centre

at 128 Gerrish St., Windsor displays handmade one-piece hockey sticks, Wooden pucks and other antique memorabilia from the early days of hockey here.

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The Fort Edward National Historic Site

Windsor's Fort Edward is the oldest standing blockhouse of the 200 that were built in Canada and is the oldest surviving in North America.

It was built in 1750 to secure the overland route between Annapolis Royal, the old capital of Nov Scotia, and the new capital at Halifax, founded in 1749.

In 1755 Fort Edward served as the centre for the deportation of approximately 1,200 Acadians from the villages of the Pisquid area.

The establishment had a hospital, cattle stables, vegetable gardens, huts for the soldiers, a forge and 'truckhouse,' a government sanctioned trading post set up to facilitate trade with the Mi'kmaq.

Grounds open year-round.

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Howard William Dill

World pumpkin champ; hockey afficionado

Giant pumpkin growers around the world know his name and so do hockey officionados.

Howard William Dill (1934–2008) of Windsor sent the pumpkingrowing world into a tizzy in 1979 when he won the International Pumpkin Association weigh-off with a 438-pound (199-kilo) giant.

But he wasn't content to stop there. He kept growing bigger and bigger pumpkins and winning more titles.

He also started selling seeds from his giants and eventually the great great-grandchildren of his own pumpkins defeated him in world competition.

In 2012 the world pumpkin record was 2,009 lbs (911.27 kilos); the record squash was 1,264 pounds (573 kilos).

Outside of pumpkin-growing season, Dill was a major hockey enthusiast, perhaps understandably since he was able to prove that the first game had been played on a pond on the family farm.

The 2012 Windsor Hockey Heritage Society President Paula Lunn credits Dill with the hours of research time he invested in order to substantiate that claim.

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George Elliot Clarke

Many honours awarded to 'Africadian' poet George Elliot Clarke (1960-) describes himself as an Africadian, a term he coined to describe the descendants of black United Empire Loyalists who came to the Maritime provinces in the late 1700s.

He was born near Windsor Plains and grew up in Halifax.

After earning degrees at Waterloo, Queens and Dalhousie universities he taught at Duke and McGill Universities before becoming the first E. J. Pratt professor of English literature at University of Toronto.

The prolific poet, author and librettist has won a Governor General's Literary Award, the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Achievement Award and the prestigious $150,000 Pierre Elliott Trudeau Fellowship Prize.

He has a number of honourary doctorates and has received the Order of Nova Scotia.

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Howard Dill Enterprises

Howard Dill Enterprises and Long Pond Hockey Enterprises both at 400 College Road near Windsor.

Howard Dill (1934-2008) was four-time world champion pumpkin grower before being beaten out by “grandchildren" of his own pumpkin seeds.

A pond on his farm is recognized as site of the earliest recorded game of hockey. Both sites are open year-round.