National Hockey League

The National Hockey League was a North American ice hockey league which had teams playing in Canada and the United States. It was formed, November 16, 1917 in Montreal.

Beginnings
It was established in 1917 as a successor to the National Hockey Association and it began with four teams in 1917-18 with Montreal Canadiens, Toronto Hockey Club, Ottawa Senators, Montreal Wanderers. The first season saw the Montreal Canadiens stadium burned down which led to the withdrawal of the team as they never returned. In the first season, it was the Toronto Arenas taking the trophy. Ottawa Senators won the next three competitions after winning both halfs of the 1919-20 season and only just scraping the second half, the next year. The Stanley Cup though wasn't played during 1919 because of the Spanish Flu epidemic.

During the mid 20's the National Hockey League became the sole competition after the PCHA and the WCHL merged in 1924 but would soon only last two seasons before disbanding in 1926. The Hamilton Tigers came in the competition during the second season and in the 1924-25 as they took out the National Hockey League premiership before clinching the Stanley Cup. During that season, the NHL expanded to six teams with the Montreal Maroons and the Boston Bruins joining the league. For Boston they would struggle while Montreal Maroons, they would win the Stanley Cup in the second season which was the last before it became exclusively NHL. The Pittsburgh Pirates joined the league in 1926 but would only last two seasons as they struggled to gain attention and would drop out of the competition.

The Stanley Cup and the fall of the league
With only the National Hockey League the main ice hockey tournament in North America, the Stanley Cup for the first time was played between two teams of the same league. Three American teams joined the league in the 1926-27 season with the New York Rangers joining, Chicago Black Hawks and the Detroit Cougars joining the league. In the new nine team league, the Ottawa Senators took the Stanley Cup after they defeated the Chicago Black Hawks in the Stanley Cup final. In 1929, the first American team won the league with the Boston Bruins defeating the Ottawa Senators.

The Great Depression though stopped the progress with the Ottawa Senators and the Detroit Falcons both folding in the 1932 season which put the league under real stress with only seven teams entering the 1932-33 season. It soon became six when the Hamilton Tigers withdrew from the league. The National Hockey League was now on shaky ground with teams struggling with money issues. Another team fell in the 1935 season with the New York Rangers not being able to finish the season off. The league closing down on the April 6, 1935 with Montreal Maroons winning the final championship over the Montreal Wanderers.

Restart after World War II
After the Second World War, rumours were starting to circulate that the NHL was propsing to come back with a six-team league. The rumour would come to be true with the New York Rangers and the Detroit Red Wings (formely known as the Detroit Falcons) came back into the league at the expense of the Montreal Wanderers. The six-team started in 1947 with the Stanley Cup which hadn't been played for almost ten years being the big prize. The first season of the new NHL, it was the Montreal Maroons who would take out the title as they defeated the New York Rangers 4-1 with Canadian Bernard Mintz claiming the MVP for the new league. The following two seasons saw the much the same thing with Montreal taking out the next two Stanley Cups with their opponents both times being the Detroit Red Wings who were starting to rise after finishing fourth in 1948 before finishing second in 1950.

It was also during this season that the periods saw a massive shakeup with a second period being added into the game to make it two 25 minute periods instead of the one 30 minute that the first two seasons was played from, far cry from the international side which was still playing the three periods system. After the 1950-51 season saw Montreal claim their fourth Stanley Cup, talks started about lowering the amount of teams that made the play-offs from four down to only the top two teams. This proposal would be adopted in 1953 with the previous season seeing the league only having a top three instead of a top four.