Rubber discs hit with sticks in ice hockey, or small mischievous spirits in folklore.
The hockey puck (1880s) comes from the shape's resemblance to the mischievous creature (Puck) from English folklore, known from Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. The mythological puck derives from Old English pocc (goblin).
Ice hockey players named the puck after the fairy because it moves so unpredictably around the ice—calling an object after a trickster spirit is actually a perfect description of something nobody can fully control.
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