The NHL
History
The National Hockey League was founded in 1917. It started in Montreal and Quebec in Canada. There are thirty teams from the USA and Canada. Although the teams are based in Canada and the United States the players come from about twenty different countries from across the world.
In the first decade of the NHL was competing with different leagues for the Stanley cup. The NHL had almost no competition winning the Stanley Cup. Only once did a non-NHL team win the Stanley Cup in 1925. The next year (1926) the NHL was the only league competing for the Stanley cup.
The NHL later started to expand. They added the Boston Bruins. The Bruins were the first NHL team based in the United States. Six other teams later entered. The were the Maroons, the New York Americans, the Pittsburgh Pirates, the New York Rangers, the Chicago Black Hawks, and the Detroit Cougars. There were now ten teams in the NHL. Then the Great Depression happened.
The great depression had a huge effect on the NHL. After the depression (1942) there were only six teams remaining in the league. These six teams are known as the Original Six. They consist of the Montreal Canadiens, Toronto Maple Leafs, Detroit Red Wings, Chicago Black Hawks, Boston Bruins, and New York Rangers. The Original Six were the only six teams in the NHL for the next five years.
On January 18, 1958 a huge milestone occurred in the NHL. The first black player joined the NHL. His name was Willie O’Ree. He joined the Boston Bruins. He was a left wing and played for six years. He played 45 games and scored a total of six goals.
The Western Hockey League was a big factor for the NHL. They were considering competing for the Stanley Cup. This made the NHL react quickly. The NHL dec...
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...a shootout (minimum three rounds).
There are no shootouts in the playoffs. Instead the play a five on five twenty minute period. The first goal wins. If the game is tied after the first overtime it continues to a second overtime. It will keep continuing until a goal is scored.
In the NHL there are eight teams from each conference that make the playoffs. The three division winners automatically take the top three spots in the division. The other five are for the teams are the ones who have the most points. You earn two points for every win and one point for every overtime loss.
When the playoffs start the top seed in the conference will play the lowest seed. Then the second seed will play the seventh seed. The two winners in each conference will face off in the Stanley Cup game. A best of seven series and whoever wins four of the seven games wins the Stanley Cup.
... milestone game in 1980, hockey in the United States has grown significantly at the professional and amateur levels. (USA Hockey, N.d.)
If a team scores a touchdown in overtime, they automatically win the game in sudden death. But, if a team kicks a field goal on their first possession, the other team has one possession to win the game with a touchdown or tie the game with a field goal. If both teams kick a field goal, or if neither teams score on their first possession, the next team to score any points will win the game. If both teams are tied at the end of overtime, during a regular season game, the game will end in a tie. During the playoffs, there would be a second overtime and the game wouldn’t be determined until a team won.
The Chicago Blackhawks were founded in 1926 as one of the original six of the National Hockey League Teams (NHL). Over the decades the NHL has forced to compete with the growing popularity of basketball and football in the United States, but luckily for hockey fans everywhere the Chicago Blackhawks would save and bring the sport to the national spotlight.
Shortly after he retired, he was named the Executive Director for Canada’s Men’s Olympic Hockey team. Gretzky used his great leadership skills to help guide the team to winning Gold Medals in 2002 after a 50 year drought. It is easy to see that Gretzky’s presence helped end the streak and earn Canada a medal. While Gretzky had acquired his position with the Canadian team, he also took a position for the N.H.L.’s Phoenix Coyotes. He first bought part of the Coyotes before eventually becoming the team’s head coach in 2005.
The history of the Lincoln Ice Hockey Association and how it was formed is an interesting story. A series of coincidences started the ball rolling. The Ice Hockey Association was ironically started in 1970 when two different people, on the same day, about two hours apart, went to the senior head of the university’s Recreation Department with the same idea of starting the Lincoln Ice Hockey Association. Funnily enough, even their first names were the same. The head of the department gave each man their contact information.
Thomas Raddall, a Canadian historical analyst, once said, “When the soldiers were transferred to military posts along the Saint Lawrence and Great Lakes, they took the game with them; and for some time afterwards continued to send to Dartmouth Indians for the necessary sticks.” This quote goes to show that the game’s reputation took off, even during undesirable times such as during a war. Up to this point in time, the sport was primarily played by masculine males and not women. Skip ahead 75 years from the birth of the sport, in 1875 James Creighton, a native Canadian, devised the modern rules of the game. He strategically thought of all possibilities the game could ensue, and devised a set of rules in Montreal. A group of nine players, including Creighton, tried out his guidelines at the Victoria Skating Rink located at McGill University. They all agreed upon the fairness and rationality of the principles he set forth for the game. Instead of using a ball like they formerly did, they switched the ball out for a wooden puck; similar to today’s rubber puck. As the game’s organization progressed, seven years later, the first club ice hockey team was formed: McGill University Hockey Club. By 1880, there were enough club teams to start a tournament division that each team played against one
Before the 1980 Winter Olympics began, the US Olympic hockey team was not expected to do as well as they did. They had many powerhouse teams to beat and the team was just a bunch of college kids who wanted to play hockey. In the end, they had performed one of the greatest upsets in the history of hockey by defeating the USSR, the whom many thought of as the greatest hockey team in the world.
A match is won by the first side winning two games. The first two games of a match are played to 15 points. If each side wins one game, a tiebreaker game is played to 11 points.
Over the course of the 1944-1945 NHL season, Maurice "Rocket" Richard of the Montreal Canadiens made history, becoming the first player in NHL history to score 50 goals. Even more impressive, was that he scored his 50th in the 50th and final game of the season, which created the bench mark “50 goals in 50 games.” Richard’s record of 50 goals stood for 16 years before being broken by Bobby Hull, who managed to score 54. However, due to the NHL increasing the length of the season, Hull had 70 games to do what Richard did and thus did not complete the “50 goals in 50 games” achievement.
After comparing and contrasting the National Hockey League rules and USA Hockey league rules, I think I prefer USA Hockey rules because the game focuses more on the development part of the game where NHL games focus more on pleasing the crowd, and politics are not involved in USA Hockey...to a point. Hockey is a great game that can be played almost anywhere there is ice, and it gives people many lessons in life. So next time you watch a NHL game, think about how it is only to please the crowd and a USA game is to have fun and learn the game more thoroughly.
It first originated from ball and stick games played in Greece in 400 BCE. With the spread of civilization came the spread of the ideas and characteristics as well. Although there is archaeological evidence of people playing some kind of field hockey it was not played in an organized setting until the 1800’s. In 1872, a man from Nova Scotia by the name of James Creighton moved to Montreal bringing the sport of hockey with him. He brought his sticks and skates and sparked interest from those around him. He first begin to play with others indoor but because the sport was first played with a ball they eventually moved outdoors due to the danger of the ball flying all over indoors. It wasn’t long until Creighton designed a “flat circular piece of wood” later known as the puck that made it possible to play indoors again. Montreal became the hearth or node of Ice
The following year marked the formation of the National League of Professional Baseball Players, which was soon shortened to the National League (Ibid). In 1884, the rival American League was founded and the era of modern professional baseball began.... ... middle of paper ... ...
As population continually increases in the Southern states, the NHL is moving teams into large Southern cities. In an effort to increase profits and popularity, the NHL has increased the number of teams in the league and moved into Southern cities that have never had hockey teams before. The problem is that hockey is not as popular in the South as it is in the North. This expansion in the South has lead to huge monetary losses to Southern teams and very low attendance numbers. The NHL should not have expanded the league into Southern cities and should keep NHL teams farther North.
In 1990 women’s hockey had its first World Championship. Team Canada was made to wear pink jerseys as described in Hockey: A People’s History which showed a clear difference in the opinions of men playing versus women, as the women did not get to wear the red and white that the men wore to represent their country. However, this was still an important step. Men’s hockey was introduced to the Olympic Games in 1920. Women’s hockey was not included until 1998. It took 78 years for female hockey players to get to the same level on an international scale that men had been welcomed to. Olympic competition is arguably the best of the best; as countries send their most successful athletes to compete against the best from countries that they may not have the opportunity to play against in regular competition. While it may have taken many years, the introduction of women’s hockey into the Olympics was a clear display of the legitimization of the game. Thanks to the addition, many girls in Canada and around the world have had more exposure to women playing hockey. Especially for Canadian’s, seeing Team Canada dominate so frequently on the world stage has helped the growth of the game for women and has helped with the acceptance of female
To begin with, Henderson’s game-winning goal shaped modern hockey. Specifically, Canada was under the assumption that they were going to beat the USSR easily, but that all changed when they realized the Soviets could actually play well. It brought both teams together and the Russian influence on the NHL began with that series (Recsey). As a result of how...