The National Hockey League (NHL) ( French: Ligue nationale de hockey - LNH ) is an unincorporated not-for-profit association which operates a major professional ice hockey league as a joint venture for its self perpetuating membership of 30 franchised member clubs of which 24 are located in the United States and the other six in Canada. Headquartered in New York City, the NHL is widely considered to be the premier professional ice hockey league in the world, and one of the North American major professional sports leagues. The Stanley Cup, the oldest professional sports trophy in North America, is awarded annually to the league playoff champion at the end of each season.
The league was organized in 1917 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada after the suspension of operations of its predecessor organization, the National Hockey Association (NHA), which had been founded in 1909. It started with four teams and, through a series of expansions, contractions, and relocations, the league is now composed of 30 teams active franchises. After a labour dispute that led to the cancellation of the entire 2004–05 season, the league has staged a successful comeback, including revenue and profit growth. In 2009, the NHL enjoyed record-high sponsorships, crowds and television viewers.
The NHL draws many highly skilled players from all over the world and currently has players from about 20 different countries. Although Canadians have historically constituted the majority of the players in the NHL, over the past four plus decades the percentages of American and European trained players have increased both because of the NHL's continued expansion from six to thirty clubs since 1967, and the increased availability of highly skilled European players especially from former East Bloc countries.
History
Main article: History of the National Hockey LeagueAfter a series of disputes in the Canadian National Hockey Association (NHA) between Eddie Livingstone, owner of the Toronto Blueshirts, and other owners, the owners of the Montreal Canadiens, Montreal Wanderers, Ottawa Senators, and Quebec Bulldogs met at the Windsor Hotel in Montreal to talk about the NHA's future on November 22, 1917. Their discussions eventually led to the creation of the National Hockey League on November 26, 1917. Three former NHA franchises, the Canadiens, Wanderers and Senators were founding members of the NHL, along with Toronto under new management. Because of the dispute, the Toronto franchise was given temporarily to the Toronto Arena Co. to operate, and is often referred to as the Arenas, although they operated without a nickname until 1918.
Even though the league struggled to stay in business during its first decade, the NHL's teams were very successful on the ice; only once, in 1925, did a team from any other league win the Stanley Cup, and by 1926 the NHL was the only league that was competing for the Cup. The NHL then started a process of expansion: the Boston Bruins (the first U.S.-based NHL franchise) and Montreal Maroons entered the league in 1924–25; the New York Americans and the Pittsburgh Pirates entered in the 1925–26 season; and the New York Rangers, Chicago Black Hawks (now spelled Blackhawks), and Detroit Cougars (now known as the Red Wings) entered in the 1926–27 season, raising the number of teams in the NHL to ten. The Great Depression and the onset of World War II, took a toll on the league, and by 1942 the NHL was reduced to six teams. These six teams (the Montreal Canadiens, Toronto Maple Leafs, Detroit Red Wings, Chicago Black Hawks, Boston Bruins, and New York Rangers) are collectively known as the Original Six, and for the next quarter-century were the only teams in the National Hockey League. During this time the Norris family had influence over four of the teams as Detroit and Chicago were operated by members of the family, and Boston and New York had mortgages to the family. The media would nickname the league the "Norris House League."
On January 18, 1958, a milestone in the NHL's history occurred, as the first black Canadian person ever to play in the NHL stepped onto the ice for the Boston Bruins, Fredericton, New Brunswick-born left wing Willie O'Ree. He would play in 45 games for the Bruins, in the 1957-58 and 1960-61 seasons, scoring six goals and ten assists in his NHL career.
By the mid 1960s, the desire for a network television contract in the U.S., and concerns that the Western Hockey League was planning to declare itself a major league and challenge for the Stanley Cup, spurred the NHL to undertake its first expansion since the 1920s. Six new teams were added to the NHL roster in 1967, and were placed in their own newly-created division. Two teams each were added in California, Pennsylvania, and the Mississippi River valley. The teams were the Los Angeles Kings, Oakland Seals (later Cleveland Barons, then merged with Minnesota), Pittsburgh Penguins, Philadelphia Flyers, Minnesota North Stars (Dallas Stars since 1993), and St. Louis Blues. Three years later, the NHL added the Vancouver Canucks and Buffalo Sabres.
In 1972, the World Hockey Association (WHA) was formed, the first potential rival to the NHL in decades. Although it was at first publicly dismissed as a threat by the NHL owners, the NHL decided to rush its own expansion plans in 1972 by adding the New York Islanders and Atlanta Flames (which became the Calgary Flames in 1980) to forestall WHA franchises in newly constructed arenas in those markets, followed by the addition of the Kansas City Scouts (which became the Colorado Rockies in 1976 before becoming the New Jersey Devils in 1982) and Washington Capitals two years later. The two leagues fought for the rights of players and fans until the WHA folded in 1979 as part of an agreement whereby four of the remaining six WHA teams would enter the NHL as expansion teams: the Hartford Whalers (the Carolina Hurricanes since 1997), Quebec Nordiques (the Colorado Avalanche since 1995), Edmonton Oilers, and Winnipeg Jets (the Phoenix Coyotes since 1996).
With the expansion in 1974, the NHL was aligned into 2 conferences. These conferences, the Clarence Campbell (representing the west) and the Prince of Wales (representing the east) each had 2 divisions. The Campbell's divisions were the Lester Patrick and Conn Smythe; while the Wales' divisions were the Jack Adams and James Norris (The Norris and Patrick divisions switched conferences for the 1981-82 season). This changed in 1993 when the NHL was realigned into geographical conferences (East & West), divided into two divisions—three divisions since 1998-99. The Eastern Conference currently consists of the Atlantic, Southeast, and Northeast while the Western is made up of the Central, Northwest, and Pacific. Reasons for realignment include further expansion into the U.S. and efforts to expand the NHL's breadth of audience.
After a period of stability in the 1980s, the NHL further expanded with nine new franchises in ten years. The San Jose Sharks entered in 1991; a season later the Ottawa Senators would return to the NHL along with the addition of the Tampa Bay Lightning. In 1993, the league added two additional teams, the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim (now simply known as the Anaheim Ducks) and the Florida Panthers. Next came the Nashville Predators in 1998, the Atlanta Thrashers in 1999, and then the Minnesota Wild and the Columbus Blue Jackets in 2000, bringing the total to 30 teams.
Labour issues
There have been three league-wide work stoppages in NHL history, all happening between 1992 and 2005.
The first was a strike by the National Hockey League Players Association in April 1992 which lasted for 10 days, but the strike was settled quickly and all affected games were rescheduled. A lockout at the start of the 1994–95 season forced the league to reduce the schedule from 84 games to just 48, with the teams playing only intra-conference games during the reduced season. The resulting collective bargaining agreement was set for renegotiation in 1998 and extended to September 15, 2004.
With no new agreement in hand when the existing contract expired on September 15, 2004, league commissioner Gary Bettman announced a lockout of the players union and cessation of operations by the NHL head office. The lockout shut down the league for 310 days, the longest in sports history; the NHL was the first professional sports league to lose an entire season. The league vowed to install what it dubbed "cost certainty" for its teams, but the NHL Players Association countered that the move was little more than a euphemism for a salary cap, which the union initially said it would not accept. A new collective bargaining agreement was ratified in July 2005 with a term of six years with an option of extending the collective bargaining agreement for an additional year at the end of the term, allowing the NHL to resume as of the 2005–06 season.
On October 6, 2005, the first post-lockout NHL season took to the ice with 15 games, and consequently all 30 teams. Of those 15 games, 11 were in front of sell-out crowds. The NHL received record attendance in the 2005–06 season. 20,854,169 fans, an average of 16,955 per game, was a 1.2% increase over the previous mark held in the 2001–02 season. Also, the Montreal Canadiens, Calgary Flames, Colorado Avalanche, Minnesota Wild, and the Vancouver Canucks sold out all of their home games; all six Canadian teams played to 98% capacity or better at every home game. 24 of th
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