Ice hockey in North America

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Flag of Canada.svg Ice hockey in Canada
Association: Logo Hockey Canada.svg Hockey Canada
Founding: 1994 (merger of the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association, founded in 1914, with the Canadian Hockey Association )
Medals won:
Men : World Championships: 18 × gold, 11 × silver, 8 × bronze
Olympic Games: 8 × gold, 4 × silver, 2 × bronze
Women :

World Championships: 9 × gold, 2 × silver

Olympic Games: 3 × gold, 1 × silver
Flag of the United States.svg Ice hockey in the United States
Association: Logo USA Hockey.svg USA hockey
Founding: 1920
IIHF member since: 1930
Medals won:
Men : World Championships: 1 × gold, 4 × silver, 4 × bronze
Olympic Games: 2 × gold, 8 × silver, 1 × bronze
Women :

World Championships: 9 × silver

Olympic Games: 2 × gold, 2 × silver, 1 × bronze

Ice hockey is one of the four most popular team sports in Canada and the United States , where it is mostly referred to as hockey, which also includes American football , baseball and basketball . With the National Hockey League (NHL) for men and the National Women's Hockey League (NWHL) for women, the divisions in the world that are regarded as the best ice hockey leagues can also be found on North American soil.

North American ice hockey became popular in Europe primarily through NHL greats like Wayne Gretzky , as well as through the many European legionnaires in recent years, who managed to give the National Hockey League greater importance overseas.

Ice hockey in Canada

In Canada, ice hockey has the status of a national sport, as the rules for this sport were laid down for the first time there and no other team sport in the country has achieved comparable importance to this day. The high level of play underpins the claim to be the motherland of ice hockey.

Under the motto "back to the roots" ( back to basics ) was so in November 2003, also the first NHL Heritage Classic instead, an outdoor hockey game of the NHL, that between the Edmonton Oilers and Montreal Canadiens at Commonwealth Stadium in Edmonton was carried out. These ice hockey games, which are closer to the games from the early days of ice hockey, also have a larger number of fans in college sports.

Seven of the 30 National Hockey League franchises are located in Canadian cities. The number of Canadian professional players who earn their money in the National Hockey League is around four times as high as the proportion of US players. In addition, with the Canadiens de Montréal, a Canadian team won the most Stanley Cups of all North American teams.

Canadian ice hockey is organized by the umbrella organization Hockey Canada . In addition to the numerous professional leagues, since the merger with the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association in 1994 , the Canadian Association has also managed amateur ice hockey, which is widespread in Canada, whose teams are divided into different categories, the so-called levels . The highest category here is the level AAA , Ü21 and therefore senior teams that have this status are entitled to take part in the Allan Cup , the most important competition in Canadian amateur hockey, and to play the country's official amateur champion. Up until 1984 every amateur team was allowed to qualify for this competition, since then participation has only been open to the AAA teams.

Ice hockey on the Rideau Canal, Canada (1901)

The Canadian national ice hockey team is one of the most successful national teams both among men, where the team was considered the dominant team until the Soviet Union took part in international tournaments, and among women, who with one exception have won every world championship and every Olympic ice hockey tournament . The men's team won the gold medal in the first four Olympic ice hockey tournaments, and it wasn't until 1936 that the team was beaten for the first time, as the victorious British ran almost exclusively with Canadian immigrants.

Overall, the ice hockey men of Hockey Canada won nine Olympic golds, most recently in 2014 , and 18 world championship titles. Major international tournaments such as the 1988 Olympic Games and the Canada Cup and its successor, the World Cup of Hockey , which the team has won once so far, also took place on Canadian soil.

In 2008 , for the first time in its history, a world championship took place in the "motherland" of ice hockey, after the competition had previously been held on US soil. The venues for the 2008 World Cup, which took place in the year of the 100th anniversary of the IIHF, were Halifax and Québec . The 2010 Winter Olympics were awarded to the Canadian city of Vancouver and the ice hockey games were held at General Motors Place , the home of the Vancouver Canucks of the NHL, and at the UBC Winter Sports Center on the campus of the University of British Columbia .

The Canadiens de Montréal (1942)

Particular attention was paid to the Summit Series held in the 1970s , in which the Soviet Union and Canada, the two best national teams with professional players, competed against each other in a series of games. This was a peculiarity because at that time only amateur players were allowed to compete in the Olympic Games. Four of the eight games took place on Canadian ice, the other four in Moscow . In 1972 the Canadians won the series with four wins versus three losses and one draw, in 1974 , however, only one game in the series was won.

In 2011, the Winnipeg Jets returned to the NHL after 15 years as the Atlanta Thrashers franchise was athletically and financially unsuccessful and moved to Winnipeg. This means that seven Canadian teams will play in the NHL in the 2011/12 season. This means that Canada has almost four times as many franchises in relation to the number of inhabitants as there are in the USA.

Ice hockey in the United States

Settlements of the NHL teams from the Original Six (1942) to the present day

Ice hockey is only the fourth most popular sport in the United States , but the sport is concentrated in isolated areas, including the Northeast, the Midwest, and Alaska. In these metropolitan areas, however, the sport mostly enjoys the same or greater popularity than the other three national sports of the Americans. Major cities in US ice hockey include Buffalo , Detroit , Pittsburgh , Minneapolis , Chicago , Boston , New York City , Philadelphia , Tampa, and Denver .

In the 1990s, the management of the National Hockey League endeavored to make the sport known also in the southern states, which are therefore atypical for ice hockey. This was mainly due to the expansion of the NHL between 1991 and 2000 , which mainly took teams from the southern regions into the league. Franchises that moved to these areas or were newly founded during this time included the San Jose Sharks from San José , California , the Florida Panthers from Sunrise , Florida , or the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim from Anaheim , California. Nowadays, the NHL has managed to have ice hockey teams in almost every region of the country, spreading the sport across the country.

Scene from an NHL game between the Atlanta Thrashers and the Florida Panthers

The US hockey association USA Hockey is the only association besides Hockey Canada that has its own rule book. In addition to the numerous professional leagues, this association also organizes American amateur and amateur ice hockey, which, in contrast to neighboring Canada, is practiced by significantly fewer athletes, but which is still widespread throughout the United States. In addition to the numerous youth leagues for men and women, there are a total of ten other national competitions from senior to 50-year-olds.

The US national ice hockey team has won Olympic ice hockey gold twice, each time on its own soil ( 1960 in Squaw Valley , 1980 in Lake Placid ), eight times silver and one bronze. In the history of the association, the US team became world champions in 1933 . The greatest American success in women's ice hockey was winning the first women's Olympic tournament in 1998 , at world championships the team has so far won nine silver medals as a permanent subscriber to second place behind the Canadians, and the team won the world championship twice ( 2005 and 2008 ).

In addition to the two Olympic tournaments won in 1960 and 1980, the 2002 Winter Games and the 1962 World Cup also took place on US soil.

organization

In contrast to most club sports in Europe, US professional sports generally have no promotion or relegation, that is, the leagues are self-contained and can only be achieved by the teams meeting certain criteria.

OHL game between the Saginaw Spirit and the Plymouth Whalers

The team structure in North America is also different from what is usually the case in Europe. The teams, the so-called franchises , can thus be viewed as commercial enterprises that change their owners or, in some cases, their location without major problems. The franchises mostly enter into cooperation with lower-class professional teams , the so-called farm teams , in which mainly young players are prepared for the NHL and talents are promoted. Future NHL players are mostly not trained directly by the NHL teams, so these talents are promoted in Canada in the widespread youth leagues, whose teams operate exclusively in the age group 16 to 21 years and thus provide the youngsters for the NHL. The three top junior leagues of the Canadian Hockey League , the LHJMQ ( Ligue de hockey junior majeur du Québec ), the OHL ( Ontario Hockey League ) and the WHL ( Western Hockey League ), which have professional status, are particularly popular .

Like the NBA and NFL teams, the franchises also draw their US offspring from colleges whose teams compete in the various divisions of the National Collegiate Athletic Association . If these college players make up the majority of the rookies in the other main sports, however , ice hockey junior leagues are more widespread in the USA, with the primary aim of building the strong base of the US junior national teams .

Due to the popularity of the sport, the "substructure" of the NHL, the so-called minor leagues, began to be professionalized and expanded in the 1940s . Today, the lower-class professional leagues are classified into different categories depending on their strength, ranging from high to mid and low level to semi-professional leagues. Today, for example, the American Hockey League (AHL) is an elite minor league in which the top farm teams of the NHL franchises play. Among them there is the ECHL and until 2014 the Central Hockey League (CHL). The low-level leagues include the All American Hockey League (AAHL), Federal Hockey League (FHL), Ligue Nord-Américaine de Hockey (LNAH) and the Southern Professional Hockey League (SPHL).

In the 1990s, the economic importance of hockey rose radically in North America. The NHL franchises paid excessive salaries. The negotiation of a new NHL Collective Bargaining Agreement for the 2004/05 season ended in a player strike and lockout , so that the season was not played. After more than a year of negotiations, a salary cap was decided to make the league more balanced.

Control deviations and other special features

A specialty in North American professional sport is the entry draft , which is also carried out in ice hockey. In the annual NHL Entry Draft , the NHL teams secure the rights to talented junior players, but this does not mean that these players will ever have to be used by the teams in the NHL.

There are also differences between North American and European ice hockey in the normal range. The playing field in the NHL, for example, usually deviates from international requirements. It is usually only approx. 26 m wide and 56 m long and has a different distribution of the playing field zones. Thus, the game in North America is usually a bit faster and more aggressive than in Europe.

Fights break out between the Ottawa Senators and the Tampa Bay Lightning

Also, some rules in North America differ from those of the IIHF , so there is the "touch in the NHL Icing ", ie unauthorized wide shots from his own half, the game, as opposed to in Europe widespread "no-touch Icing ”, only interrupted when a player from the defending team has touched the puck, if a player from the attacking team reaches the puck first, the game continues without interruption.

Fist fights during the game are usually much more important in North American countries than in Europe, so there are detailed fight statistics, for which the Ligue Nord-Américaine de Hockey , which is considered to be the most brutal ice hockey league in the world, is known has been. Another example of this popularity is the Gordie Howe hat-trick , a combination of a goal, an assist and a fight that receives at least a five-minute time penalty achieved in a game.

Women ice hockey

Canadian internationals at the 2007 World Cup

In Canada , ice hockey is one of the most popular sports among large parts of the female population, not least because of the numerous successes of the Canadian women's national team. An amateur championship for women has been held since 1982, the Esso Women's Nationals and, since 2009, the Esso Cup .

The highest North American women's division is the National Women's Hockey League , a league that has existed since 1999 and is considered the NHL of women's ice hockey and thus the best division in the world. However, the NWHL has only consisted of Canadian teams since it was founded, this is not least due to the rather backward development of women's ice hockey in the neighboring country USA. There the popularity of women's ice hockey is growing slowly but steadily. So far, there are around 52,500 American women players who play in various regional and national leagues.

In contrast to their male colleagues, most women ice hockey players are not professionals, this also applies to all leagues in Canada and the USA. Even if the NWHL tries to work as professionally as possible, this league is still an amateur league to this day. With Manon Rhéaume played 1992 the first woman for an NHL team, when she came on September 23 in a preparation game of the Tampa Bay Lightning used. Before that, she was also the first woman to play a game for the Draveurs de Trois-Rivières in the highest Canadian junior league LHJMQ .

Refereeing

American Hockey League referee

There are also clear differences between the North American refereeing and officials in Europe. For years, professional referees have been employed in the National Hockey League, who are also organized in their own interest group, the "National Hockey League Officials' Association". This is easily possible due to the economic situation of the league, while the uniform introduction of professional referees in Europe repeatedly failed due to the higher costs and the lower number of game days compared to the NHL, so that most ice hockey referees are amateur Arbitrator acts and only a few exceptional arbitrators get a professional contract. This system corresponds more to that of the lower-class North American professional leagues from the AHL downwards, in which, however, most of the referees are now also active as fully professional referees.

Another specialty is the fact that in the North American professional leagues, especially in the NHL and AHL, the game is usually played with four referees, two of whom act as main referees and two as linesmen, while the game is played internationally with three game officials (one main referee, two linesmen) is common.

Famous North American Players

The early days of professional ice hockey in North America were mainly shaped by Canadian players such as Howie Morenz , Georges Vézina and Eddie Shore , who led their teams to several Stanley Cup victories. In the 1940s the great time of Maurice "Rocket" Richard began , who went down as one of the best scorer in the history of ice hockey and dominated the NHL with his Montréal Canadiens in the 1950s. The team produced other great ice hockey players during the period, such as Jean Béliveau , Doug Harvey and goalkeeper Jacques Plante, as well as Maurice Richard's younger brother Henri Richard , who has won more championships in the NHL than anyone with eleven Stanley Cup wins.

Terry Sawchuk was also a fixture among the goalkeepers of the NHL from 1950 and went down in ice hockey history books with 103 shutouts . This record was set by Martin Brodeur in December 2009 and exceeded a short time later. Bobby Orr began his career in 1966, was awarded the Hart Memorial Trophy for the NHL Most Valuable Player and became one of the best defenders in ice hockey history. Phil Esposito , one of the leading strikers of the sixties and seventies, played at his side . At the end of the seventies, Guy Lafleur , a player from the Montréal Canadiens, moved into the limelight of the NHL and with Marcel Dionne another French-Canadian was one of the stars. In addition, in 1980 with Gordie Howe , “Mr. Hockey ", one of the most important ice hockey players at the age of 52 his career. He made his debut in the NHL in 1946 and retired from professional ice hockey in 1971, only two years later to make his comeback in the WHA and return to the NHL in 1979.

With the merger between the NHL and WHA in 1979, a new era began, from which Wayne Gretzky and Mark Messier emerged . Gretzky dominated ice hockey for the next 20 years, set 61 records by the end of his career and is considered one of the best ice hockey players of all time. Mark Messier became one of the best leaders in NHL history and together with Gretzky he enjoyed great success with the Edmonton Oilers in the 1980s . Mike Bossy was only the second player to reach 50 goals in 50 games in 1981 and won the Stanley Cup four times with the New York Islanders . With Ray Bourque and Paul Coffey, two young defenders entered the ice hockey stage and shaped the following two decades. Patrick Roy began his career in Montreal in 1985 and has received several awards throughout his career. He is now considered one of the best goalkeepers in NHL history. While the Americans were long in the shadow of the Canadians, they emerged in the form of goalkeeper Mike Richter , Chris Chelios , Joe Mullen , Pat LaFontaine and Phil Housley . Housley was never named the best defender despite great performances. He is the most-staked player who never won the Stanley Cup with 1,495 regular-season games.

In the nineties, Mario Lemieux led the Pittsburgh Penguins to two Stanley Cup successes and failed in the 1988/89 season by just barely reaching 200 points in the regular season. Brett Hull succeeded his father Bobby and was one of the top scorers of the decade. Luc Robitaille became one of the best wingers of all time and in Detroit celebrated Steve Yzerman and Nicklas Lidstrom great success. Yzerman went down in NHL history in 2006 when he retired from his career as team captain at 20 years of age . Joe Sakic had a decisive influence on both the nineties and the first decade of the new millennium, as did the American Mike Modano from the Dallas Stars . This team provided Derian Hatcher, the first US team captain to win the Stanley Cup. With Ed Belfour a Canadian goalkeeper ran again to top performances and Martin Brodeur led the New Jersey Devils to three Stanley Cup victories and is considered the legitimate successor to Patrick Roy. In 2004, Ron Francis ended his career, which earned him the reputation of one of the best and fairest defensive strikers. Today's stars include defenders Zdeno Chára and Erik Karlsson ; Among the active strikers, players like the Canadians Sidney Crosby and Steven Stamkos , the Czech Jaromír Jágr , the Finn Teemu Selänne and the Russians Alexander Ovetschkin and Yevgeny Malkin enjoy great popularity. Among the goalkeepers, next to Martin Brodeur, Roberto Luongo , Pekka Rinne and the Stanley Cup winner Jonathan Quick , the most important current goalkeepers.

Ryan Smyth could not yet set any milestones in the league, but internationally he made a name for himself as "Captain Canada", as he led the team five times as captain at world championships and won two world championships and the Olympic gold medal.

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ nhl.com, Special on the Heritage Classic ( Memento from May 16, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
  2. ↑ olympic.org, overview of the 1936 Winter Olympics
  3. ↑ collectionscanada.ca, International Hockey: Essay by Denis Gibbons ( Memento from February 13, 2006 in the Internet Archive )
  4. ↑ hockeygoalies.org, Biography Manon Rheaume
  5. ↑ whockey.com, Manon Rheaume in whockey.com
  6. ↑ hockeydb.com, career statistics of Manon Rheaume

literature

Web links

This version was added to the list of articles worth reading on May 29, 2007 .