Ice Hockey

Ice hockey (frequently simply called hockey) is a team sport played on ice, that originated in Canada around 1800. It is a fast-paced and physical sport. Ice hockey is most popular in areas that are sufficiently cold for natural reliable seasonal ice cover such as Canada, the northern United States, Scandinavia and Russia. With the advent of indoor artificial ice rinks, however, it has become a year-round pastime at the amateur level in major metropolitan areas such as cities that host a National Hockey League (NHL) or other professional-league team. It is one of the four major North American professional sports, where the NHL is at the highest level for men, and the Canadian Women's Hockey League (CWHL) and the Western Women's Hockey League (WWHL) are at the highest level of women's ice hockey in the world. It is the official national winter sport of Canada, where the game enjoys immense popularity. Only six of the thirty NHL franchises are based in Canada, but Canadians make up a slight majority of the league's players.While there are 66 total members of the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF), Canada, the Czech Republic, Finland, Russia, Slovakia, Sweden and the United States have finished in most of the coveted 1st, 2nd and 3rd places at IIHF World Championships. Of the 63 medals awarded in men's competition at the Olympic level from 1920 on, only six did not go to the one of those countries, or a former entity thereof, such as Czechoslovakia or the Soviet Union....

Professional Ice Hockey

Professional ice hockey has existed since after World War I. From the first professional ice hockey league based out of Michigan in the United States, it quickly grew into Canada and to many other countries, as diverse as Switzerland, Ukraine, Great Britain or Austria.CanadaProfessional leagues emerged from amateur leagues. In 1904, the U.S.-based International Professional Hockey League(IPHL) was formed, and had the first Canadian professional team, the Canadian Soo. The league hired many amateur players away from Canada, causing the amateur leagues to convert to all-out professionalism or allow professional players in order to compete for the top players. The first Canadian professional league was the Manitoba Professional Hockey League (MPHL), formed in 1905 from member teams of the amateur Manitoba Hockey Association. The Eastern Canada Amateur Hockey Association(ECAHA), formed from prior amateur hockey leagues, emerged in 1906. The ECAHA allowed teams to have professional players from the start. In 1907, the Ontario Professional Hockey League was formed. The competition for players increased salaries, a factor in the demise of the IPHL in 1907. In 1908, the ECAHA became fully professional, as the ECAHA's amateur teams separated from the league and competed for the new Allan Cup, a new challenge cup instituted for amateur teams. The ECAHA, now fully professional, renamed itself the ECHA. The MPHL folded in 1909, the OPHL in 1908, leaving the ECHA as the only 'elite'...

Sport

Sport is an activity that is governed by a set of rules or customs and often engaged in competitively. Sports commonly refer to activities where the physical capabilities of the competitor are the sole or primary determinant of the outcome (winning or losing), but the term is also used to include activities such as mind sports (a common name for some card games and board games with little to no element of chance) and motor sports where mental acuity or equipment quality are major factors. Sport is commonly defined as an organized, competitive and skillful physical activity requiring commitment and fair play. Some view sports as differing from games based on the fact that there are usually higher levels of organization and profit (not always monetary) involved in sports. Accurate records are kept and updated for most sports at the highest levels, while failures and accomplishments are widely announced in sport news.The term sports is sometimes extended to encompass all competitive activities in which offense and defense are played, regardless of the level of physical activity. Both games of skill and motor sport exhibit many of the characteristics of physical sports, such as skill, sportsmanship, and at the highest levels, even professional sponsorship associated with physical sports.Sports that are subjectively judged are distinct from other judged activities such as beauty pageants and bodybuilding shows, because in the former the activity performed is the primary focus of...