The National Hockey League was established in 1917 after several other hockey leagues had been started and closed. When the NHL initially started there were only four teams and not six teams like most people believe. For the first decade of the NHL the league struggle to gain much attention, but it was clearly the most professional hockey league out there as teams from the NHL won the Stanley Cup every year except one during the first ten years of the league.
After the first ten years the league began to expand and had reached 10 teams at one point and was running steadily. World War II and the Great Depression had a huge impact on the NHL though, and the 10 team league was shrunk to a mere 6 teams. The 6 teams that were left in the league were the teams that we now know as the original six. The original six teams were the Toronto Maple Leafs, Boston Bruins, Montreal Canadiens, Detroit Red Wings, Chicago Blackhawks and the New York Rangers. These 6 teams remained the only teams in the NHL for the next 25 odd years.
In 1967 the league was forced to expand due to pressure from other leagues potentially starting up. There were 6 teams added to the list of teams in 67 which brought the total number of teams up to 12. Teams have been continuing to sprout up in the NHL since 67 and there are now a total of 30 teams in the NHL. In 74 the NHL split the league into two conferences known as the Eastern and Western Conference. Initially there were only two divisions in each conference, but since expanding there are now three divisions in each conference.
The NHL continued growing throughout the 90’s with a lot more teams being added to the league. The two most recent teams to be added to the NHL are the Minnesota Wild and Columbus Blue Jackets in 2000. Since the year 2000 there haven’t been any other new teams added to the league.
Over the past decade and a half there have been more and more problems arising from the game of the NHL. With players now being paid millions there is more greed then ever in the sport and this has caused two severe lockouts. The first lockout was during the 94-95 season which caused the league to be cut down from the normal 82 game season to only 48 games. In 04 the league had another lockout which caused the league to miss an entire season and was the longest lockout in professional sports history.
When the NHL first started almost every hockey betting player was from Canada, but as the league expanded and started to grow players started coming from a lot of different countries. The NHL is now represented by players in roughly 20 countries with more and more superstars coming to the NHL from Europe and Russia. The NHL has a long history where the league has had to fight through many battles, but it has always made it through any problems that have arisen.
