Students started a knockabout game which, because it was played in a confined area, required a softer ball than the hard one used for rackets. It was from this ball that could be ‘squashed’ in the hand, that the name derived.
The first squash courts in Canada, built in the early 1900’s, were privately owned and probably made of wood. Today the courts are of prefabricated space-age materials with wooden floors and special kinds of plaster on the walls to ensure a smooth, hard, non-sweating surface.