Ice hockey began in 19th-century Canada, growing out of stick-and-ball games and Mi’kmaq traditions. The first indoor match took place in Montreal on March 3, 1875 using a flat wooden puck. Rules soon standardized six-player teams, rinks with blue lines, and protective gear, and the sport spread internationally, leading to the NHL’s founding in 1917.
The Story
How It Started
Lord Stanley
The Stanley Cup started in 1892 when Lord Stanley of Preston, then Governor General of Canada, donated a silver bowl to crown the nation’s best hockey team. First awarded in 1893 to the Montreal Hockey Club, it grew from a challenge trophy into the official championship prize of the NHL by 1926.
Expansion
The NHL began in 1917 with four Canadian teams and gradually expanded, eventually settling into the Original Six era from 1942 to 1967. After those years of stability, the league made a major leap in 1967 when it doubled in size and then kept adding teams in stages over the following decades. Today it stands at 32 franchises, with 24 in the United States and 7 in Canada.
Hockey Is the Most Difficult Sport
Brian Burke once explained “The beauty of kids playing hockey is it’s the world’s hardest sport to play. And someone will say, oh, what about this sport and that sport? That’s garbage. The hardest sport in the world to play is hockey .. Why? .. Oh, because the athletic ability that you need to play .. So take a football player, baseball player, basketball player, everything they do, they hold the object of the game in their hand and they’re doing it in their shoes. We remove the object of the game with a stick and we put skates on. You can win a gold medal in the Olympics in two disciplines for skating alone. And we expect our players to do it as a matter of course. And then you make it full contact. So, you can’t just be good at it. You gotta be fearless too. It’s the hardest sport in the world to play.
The Drought
Since Canada’s last Stanley Cup win in 1993, the Conn Smythe Trophy for playoff MVP has gone to Canadians about 21 times, while American players have won roughly 4, Swedes 2, and Russians 2.
The Cup Is Everything
The Stanley Cup is revered because it’s the oldest and most storied trophy in North American professional sports, first awarded in 1893 and carrying the names of every winning player, coach, and staff member engraved on its silver bands. Unlike many trophies that are remade each year, the same Cup is passed from champion to champion, creating a living history of every triumph. Its demanding path—four grueling playoff rounds requiring 16 wins—adds to its mystique, and traditions like each player’s day with the Cup deepen its status as hockey’s ultimate symbol of sacrifice, endurance, and glory.
Olympic Gold
The 2026 Winter Olympics will be held February 6–22 in Milan-Cortina, Italy, and the top contenders for men’s ice hockey gold are Canada, the United States, Sweden, Finland, Czechia, and Russia, all of which consistently field deep NHL-level talent and have strong international records that make them perennial medal threats.
