Any hockey player born and raised in Russia would like to play in the NHL. Despite the fact that the NHL is a North American hockey association, why are players from all over the world so drawn to its sites? What is the NHL? This is more than just the national championship of Canada.
After all, Canada is even more than the homeland of hockey. This is a country in which hockey is a national religion, and the NHL is a temple in this religion. Therefore, all professional players in ice hockey are so eager in the NHL to become part of this temple. Many have been dreaming about this since childhood, but not everyone succeeds. So what is the NHL, which has more than a century of history and is the goal of the pilgrimage of many hockey players?
What is the NHL: history
If we talk about the history of the league, then its beginning was quite modest. In the first year of its existence (1917), only three teams appeared in the championship, and even they represented Canadian cities. A little later, in the mid-twenties of the twentieth century, the American team joined the championship. After that, it was safe to say that the NHL is the North American Hockey League.
For a long time this championship was a rather unprofitable project, especially in the thirties, during the Great Depression. Some teams even ceased to exist. The league was revived after the Second World War, when it once again expanded. And today the NHL is thirty teams participating in the championship.
NHL Championship Organization
The organization of the championship was proposed back in the twenties of the last century. NHL matches are held in a two-stage system. At the beginning, a regular championship is held, and then the Stanley Cup is played . This form has been preserved in the league from ancient times to the present day. Over the course of a century of history, NHL players have played this cup in various matches and with different opponents. Of course, for the most part these were teams from the NHL, but there were years when rallies took place with teams from other hockey leagues. In today's North American hockey, the Stanley Cup is the final stage of the league championship and only the teams of this hockey league will play it.
Interestingly, today all thirty teams playing NHL matches are divided into two conferences. Although this was not always the case, a few years ago it was such a distribution of teams that was approved by the NHL and agreed with the union of hockey players, which plays a significant role in organizing the championship. These conferences divided the teams in the championship on a territorial basis, as if drawing a line of demarcation from north to south. One conference was called Western, and the second - Eastern.
The conferences themselves also have an internal division into divisions. There are two such divisions at the moment in each conference. So, the Western Conference is divided into Central and Pacific divisions. And the Eastern Conference includes the Capital and Atlantic Divisions. Although the teams, despite their belonging to a particular division, play each with each, the points are taken into account separately for the conference and for the division.
In the future, the three best teams of each division get into the final stage of the playoffs, and two more teams get from each conference according to the points earned. And these teams are playing the Stanley Cup.
Representatives of Russia in the National Hockey League
Hockey players representing the NHL (the abbreviation for this abbreviation sounds like “National Hockey League”), gathered, you can say, from around the world. It was at the beginning of their history that it was only Canadian hockey players, gradually US athletes were added to them, and after the famous series - 1972, hockey players of the USSR and then Russia began to appear. Currently, quite a lot of Russian hockey players are in favor of the teams of this league. Even the winner of the annual tournament of all stars, in the team of the Capital Division, there were three representatives of Russia.
The future of the National Hockey League
Recently, much has been said about the future of this hockey league. NHL matches are watched with pleasure by hockey fans in different countries of the world. Starting next year, the league will expand in favor of the team from Las Vegas. This expansion will happen from next season. In addition, there is another team in line who would like to participate in this championship.