Ice hockey is a contact winter team sport played on ice skates, usually on an ice skating rink with lines and markings specific to the sport. It is one of the fastest team sports on ice belonging to a small group of four ice-skating team sports, irrespective of their associated variants, which now include bandy, ringette, and rinkball. In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice hockey sticks to control, advance and shoot a closed, vulcanized, rubber disc called a "puck" into the other team's goal. Each goal is worth one point. The team which scores the most goals is declared the winner. In a formal game, each team has six skaters on the ice at a time, barring any penalties, one of whom is the goaltender.
The National Hockey League is a professional ice hockey league in North America comprising 32 teams—25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. It is considered to be the premier professional ice hockey league in the world, and is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada. 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 is the fifth-wealthiest professional sport league in the world by revenue, after the National Football League (NFL), Major League Baseball (MLB), the National Basketball Association (NBA), and the English Premier League (EPL).
The Canadian Hockey League is an umbrella organization that represents the three Canada-based major junior ice hockey leagues. The CHL was founded in 1975 as the Canadian Major Junior Hockey League, and is composed of its three member leagues, the Western Hockey League, Ontario Hockey League, and Quebec Major Junior Hockey League. For the 2021–22 season, its three leagues and 60 teams represent nine Canadian provinces as well as four American states.
The ECHL is a mid-level professional ice hockey league based in Shrewsbury, New Jersey, with teams scattered across the United States and Canada. It is a tier below the American Hockey League (AHL).
The SM-liiga, colloquially called the Finnish Elite League in English, is the top professional ice hockey league in Finland. It is one of the six founding leagues of the Champions Hockey League and currently allocated five spots - the maximum number - based on success in previous editions. It was created in 1975 to replace the SM-sarja, which was fundamentally an amateur league. The SM-liiga is not directly overseen by the Finnish Ice Hockey Association, but the league and association have an agreement of cooperation. SM is a common abbreviation for Suomen mestaruus, "Finnish championship".
Minor leagues are professional sports leagues which are not regarded as the premier leagues in those sports. Minor league teams tend to play in smaller, less elaborate venues, often competing in smaller cities/markets. This term is used in North America with regard to several organizations competing in various sports. They generally have lesser fan bases, much smaller revenues and salaries, and are used to develop players for bigger leagues.
The Southern Professional Hockey League (SPHL) is a professional ice hockey league based in Huntersville, North Carolina, with teams located primarily in the southeastern United States as well as Illinois and Indiana in the midwestern United States.
Junior hockey is a level of competitive ice hockey generally for players between 16 and 21 years of age. Junior hockey leagues in the United States and Canada are considered amateur and operate within regions of each country.
Frölunda Hockey Club, previously known as the Frölunda Indians, is a Swedish professional ice hockey club based in Gothenburg. They currently play in the highest Swedish league, the Swedish Hockey League (SHL), formerly the Elitserien, where they have played for most of the club's existence. They last played in the lower division, the Allsvenskan, in 1995. Frölunda have won the national championship title five times: in 1965, 2003, 2005, 2016 and 2019.
The New Haven Nighthawks were a professional ice hockey team that played in the American Hockey League from 1972 to 1992. They had affiliations with the Minnesota North Stars (1972–1977), New York Islanders (1972–1973), New York Rangers, and Los Angeles Kings (1981–1991). The team played their home games at New Haven Coliseum.
The International Professional Hockey League (IPHL) was the first fully professional Ice hockey league, operating from 1904 to 1907. It was formed by Jack 'Doc' Gibson, a dentist who played hockey throughout Ontario before settling in Houghton, Michigan. The IPHL was a five team circuit which included Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, Calumet, Michigan and Houghton. The IPHL was instrumental in changing the nature of top-level senior men's ice hockey from amateur to professional.
The Western Pennsylvania Hockey League (WPHL), was a semi-professional ice hockey league founded in 1896 and existing through the 1910s. Based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the league was the pre-eminent ice hockey league at the time in the United States. It was the first league to openly hire and trade players.
The Kontinental Hockey League is an international professional ice hockey league founded in 2008. It comprises member clubs based in Belarus (1), China (1), Finland (1), Latvia (1), Kazakhstan (1), and Russia (19) for a total of 24. It is widely considered to be the premier professional ice hockey league in Europe and Asia, and the second strongest in the world behind North America's National Hockey League. The KHL has the third-highest average attendance in Europe with 6,121 spectators per game in the regular season, and the highest total attendance in Europe with 5.32 million spectators in the regular season.
Baron Frederick von Geisler is a Filipino actor, businessman, occasional model, resource speaker, amateur artist, and aspiring poet of German-American descent.
The Pittsburgh Victorias were one of the earliest professional ice hockey teams. The club was based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and were members of the Western Pennsylvania Hockey League, the first league to openly hire hockey players, from 1902–1904. The team folded in 1904, when the WPHL disbanded its teams to form the Pittsburgh Professionals and compete in the International Professional Hockey League.
The Pittsburgh Lyceum Club, or Pittsburgh Lyceum, were a professional ice hockey team based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The team was a member of the Western Pennsylvania Hockey League from 1907 to 1908, and played all of their games at the Duquesne Gardens.
The Minnesota Duluth Bulldogs men's ice hockey team is an NCAA Division I college ice hockey program that represents the University of Minnesota Duluth. The Bulldogs are a member of the National Collegiate Hockey Conference (NCHC). The team plays home games at the 6,800-seat AMSOIL Arena at the Duluth Entertainment Convention Center.
Travis Geisler is an American professional stock car racing team executive, crew chief, and former driver. He is currently the competition director for Team Penske. He previously was a crew chief for Penske on their No. 77 Dodge driven by Sam Hornish Jr. from partway through 2008 to 2010. Prior to that, he was a driver, competing in the NASCAR Busch Series in 2004 for the No. 36 DCT Motorsports team.
