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The National Hockey League or NHL, is the highest-level ice hockey league in the world. It has 32 teams - 7 from Canada and 25 from the United States. The championship trophy is the Stanley Cup.
Current season, competition or edition: 2024–25 NHL season | |
| Sport | Ice hockey |
|---|---|
| Founded | November 26, 1917, Montreal, Quebec, Canada[1] |
| Inaugural season | 1917–18 |
| Commissioner | Gary Bettman |
| No. of teams | 32 |
| Countries | Canada (7 teams) United States (25 teams) |
| Headquarters | 1185 6th Ave New York, NY 10036. |
| Most recent champion(s) | Florida Panthers (1st title) |
| Most titles | Montreal Canadiens (25 titles)[nb 1] |
| TV partner(s) | |
| Official website | NHL.com |
The NHL were founded in 1917. There were five original teams in 1917:
- Montreal Canadiens
- Montreal Wanderers
- Ottawa Senators (later St. Louis Eagles; not related to the current Ottawa Senators)
- Quebec Bulldogs (later Hamilton Tigers)
- Toronto Arenas (later St. Patricks, then Maple Leafs)
They played 22 games a year. The Wanderers had to stop playing in the first year because their arena burned down. Over the years some teams died out, and others were created: the Boston Bruins, New York Americans, Montreal Maroons, Pittsburgh Pirates (later Philadelphia Quakers), New York Rangers, Chicago Black Hawks and Detroit Cougars (later Falcons, then Red Wings).
Some teams folded during the Great Depression, so by 1942 there were only six teams:
- Boston Bruins
- Chicago Blackhawks
- Detroit Red Wings
- Montreal Canadiens
- New York Rangers
- Toronto Maple Leafs
There were only these six teams for 25 years, so they became known as the "Original Six".
By the 1940s, they were playing 50 games a year, but this increased slowly to 80 games by the 1970s. In 1967, the league increased to 12 teams. By 1979 it had 21 teams, and today it has 32. Some of the teams that no longer exist are the Oakland Seals, Minnesota North Stars (now the Dallas Stars), Winnipeg Jets (now the dormant Arizona Coyotes), Kansas City Scouts (which became the Colorado Rockies and are now the New Jersey Devils), Hartford Whalers (now the Carolina Hurricanes), Quebec Nordiques (now the Colorado Avalanche) and Atlanta Thrashers (now the current Winnipeg Jets).
Today they play 82 games a year, plus four rounds of playoffs. The players make a lot of money (many make over a million dollars a year). Because they could make so much money, many Europeans came over to North America to play in the NHL. Today almost all the world's best hockey players are in the NHL.
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- An asterisk (*) denotes a franchise move. See the respective team articles for more information.
- The Edmonton Oilers, Hartford Whalers (now Carolina Hurricanes), Quebec Nordiques (now Colorado Avalanche), and original Winnipeg Jets (now Arizona Coyotes) all joined the NHL in 1979 as part of the NHL–WHA merger.
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- While the Montreal Canadiens have won 24 Stanley Cups, this does not equal its number of NHL championships, as the Stanley Cup predates the NHL and was an inter-league championship prior to 1926. The Canadiens won a Stanley Cup championship in 1916 as a member of the National Hockey Association, and 23 as a member of the NHL. Montreal also won the NHL championship twice without winning the Stanley Cup: in 1918–19 when the Spanish flu cancelled the Stanley Cup finals against the Seattle Metropolitans of Pacific Coast Hockey Association and in 1924–25 when they lost in the Stanley Cup finals to the Western Canada Hockey League's Victoria Cougars.
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