hockey tournament

Adjusted summary of articles by Peter Ruoomsdillon and Julia Stevens

ice hockey

The National Hockey League was established in 1917 and since then there have been four major eras of the NHL; the Founding, the Original Six, the Expansion Era and the Modern Era.

The tournament was founded when its predecessor, the National Hockey Association was disbanded. The six teams that remained adopted a new moniker and the second era of the NHL began.

In 1967, with the world economy and political climate more stable than in decades prior, six additional expansion teams joined the National Hockey League, bringing the team total up to twelve and ushering in an era for the NHL known as the Expansion Era.

The Expansion Era of the NHL lasted from the beginning of season 1967 until the end of the season in 1992. The fourth era of the NHL is the Modern Era. The Canada Cup was transformed into World Cup Hockey in 1996, NHL players first started playing in the Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan in 1998. The NHL has grown from twenty two teams to the thirty teams playing currently.

Yes, hockey is a full contact sport. With hockey, there are no power hitters to hit homeruns. Does hockey and the NHL need something like this to happen to get the sport to obtain new fans? Is hockey’s popularity dead?