 Shinty was once a popular game in lowland Scotland, as shown by its name Shintie, a term which took that form around 1700, displacing the earlier Shinnie - of which there is a written record about 100 years earlier.Shinnie may also derive from "shin" in English, with the affix "ie", a common termination to the name of many games in Scotland.The objective of the game is to play a small ball into a goal, or "hail", erected at the ends of a by pitch.