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About the League
The
National Hockey League (NHL) is a pro ice
hockey league composed of 30 franchises: 23 in the
United States and 7 in Canada. Headquartered in New
York City, the league is considered to be the
premier professional ice hockey league in the world,
and one of the four major pro leagues in North
America. The Stanley Cup, the oldest professional
sports trophy in North America, is awarded annually
to the league playoff champion at the end of each
season.
The NHL
was organized on November 26, 1917, in Montreal,
Quebec, after the suspension of operations of its
predecessor organization, the National Hockey
Association (NHA), which had been founded in 1909 in
Renfrew, Ontario. The NHL immediately took the NHA's
place as one of the leagues that contested for the
Stanley Cup in an annual inter-league competition
before a series of league mergers and folds left the
NHL as the only league left competing for the
Stanley Cup in 1926. At its inception, the NHL had
four teams—all in Canada, thus the adjective
"National" in the league's name. The league expanded
to the United States in 1924, when the Boston Bruins
joined, and has since consisted of American and
Canadian teams.
The league draws many highly skilled players from
all over the world and currently has players from
approximately 20 different countries. Canadians have
historically constituted the majority of the players
in the league, with an increasing percentage of
American and European players in recent seasons.
Each
National Hockey League regulation game is 60 minutes
long. The game is composed of three 20-minute
periods with an intermission between periods. At the
end of regulation time, the team with the most goals
wins the game. If a game is tied after regulation
time, overtime ensues. During the regular season,
overtime is a five-minute, three-on-three
sudden-death period, in which whoever scores a goal
first will win the game.
If the
game is still tied at the end of overtime, the game
enters a shootout. Three players for each team in
turn take a penalty shot. The team with the most
goals during the three-round shootout wins the game.
If the game is still tied after the three shootout
rounds, the shootout continues but becomes
sudden-death. Whichever team ultimately wins the
shootout is awarded a goal in the game score and
thus awarded two points in the standings.
The
losing team in overtime or shootout is awarded only
one. Shootout goals and saves are not tracked in
hockey statistics; shootout statistics are tracked
separately. There are no shootouts during the
Playoffs. Instead, multiple sudden-death, 20-minute
five-on-five periods are played until one team
scores (continuous OT). Two games have reached six
overtime periods, but none have gone beyond six.
During playoff overtime periods, the only break is
to clean the loose ice at the first stoppage after
the period is halfway finished. |
