NHL Info

The National Hockey League (NHL) is a professional sports organization composed of ice hockey teams in North America. Its French name is Ligue Nationale de Hockey (LNH). It is the premier professional ice hockey league in the world,[1] and one of the North American major professional sports leagues. The league’s teams are divided into two conferences, each comprising three divisions.

The league was founded in 1917 in Montreal, Quebec with five teams, and through a series of expansions, reductions and relocations is now composed of 30 teams, 24 of which are based in the United States and six in Canada. After a labour dispute that led to the cancellation of the complete 2004–05 season, the league has staged a successful 2005–06 regular season and 2006 Stanley Cup Playoffs.

Historically, due to its origin in Canada, a large majority of players in the National Hockey League were Canadians. Over the past 25 years, due to the NHL’s expansion into the United States, its high standard of play compared to other leagues, and the availability of highly skilled European players from Eastern Europe after the fall of communism, there has been an increasing presence of American and European players. Nevertheless, more than half of the league’s players on the 2005–06 roster were born in Canada.