The Eastern Professional Hockey League (EPHL) was a minor professional ice hockey league that operated primarily in Ontario and Quebec from 1959 to 1963.
Ice hockey is a contact team sport played on ice, usually in a rink, in which two teams of skaters use their sticks to shoot a vulcanized rubber puck into their opponent's net to score points. The sport is known to be fast-paced and physical, with teams usually consisting of six players each: one goaltender, and five players who skate up and down the ice trying to take the puck and score a goal against the opposing team.
Ontario is one of the 13 provinces and territories of Canada and is located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province accounting for 38.3 percent of the country's population, and is the second-largest province in total area. Ontario is fourth-largest jurisdiction in total area when the territories of the Northwest Territories and Nunavut are included. It is home to the nation's capital city, Ottawa, and the nation's most populous city, Toronto, which is also Ontario's provincial capital.
Quebec is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is bordered to the west by the province of Ontario and the bodies of water James Bay and Hudson Bay; to the north by Hudson Strait and Ungava Bay; to the east by the Gulf of Saint Lawrence and the province of Newfoundland and Labrador; and to the south by the province of New Brunswick and the U.S. states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and New York. It also shares maritime borders with Nunavut, Prince Edward Island, and Nova Scotia. Quebec is Canada's largest province by area and its second-largest administrative division; only the territory of Nunavut is larger. It is historically and politically considered to be part of Central Canada.
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While the NHL had established working relationships with teams in leagues such as the AHL and WHL, these leagues and their teams were not fully under the control of the NHL, and in this era they operated more independently than is the case today. The Eastern Professional Hockey League was created in 1959 as the first farm league fully run and controlled by the NHL. While the league proved to be a success on the ice, it largely failed off the ice. Attendance in these smaller cities could not support professional hockey, and by 1962, the league was reduced to just four teams. While the intent was for the EPHL to be the primary development league for the NHL, the Detroit Red Wings did not participate until the final season, and the Toronto Maple Leafs never had an affiliate.
The American Hockey League (AHL) is a professional ice hockey league based in the United States and Canada that serves as the primary developmental league for the National Hockey League (NHL). Since the 2010–11 season, every team in the league has an affiliation agreement with one NHL team. When NHL teams do not have an AHL affiliate, players are assigned to AHL teams affiliated with other NHL teams. Twenty-seven AHL teams are located in the United States and the remaining four are in Canada. The league offices are located in Springfield, Massachusetts, and its current president is David Andrews.
In sports, a farm team, farm system, feeder team, practice squad, or nursery club, is generally a team or club whose role is to provide experience and training for young players, with an agreement that any successful players can move on to a higher level at a given point. This system can be implemented in many ways, both formally and informally.
The Detroit Red Wings are a professional ice hockey team based in Detroit. They are members of the Atlantic Division in the Eastern Conference of the National Hockey League (NHL) and are one of the Original Six teams of the league. Founded in 1926, the team was known as the Detroit Cougars from then until 1930. For the 1930–31 and 1931–32 seasons the team was called the Detroit Falcons, and in 1932 changed their name to the Red Wings.
During its final season the league played an interlocking schedule with the International Hockey League. Following the demise of the EPHL, the NHL created the new Central Hockey League of minor-pro farm teams in larger, midwestern U.S. cities. Four of the CHL's initial five franchises were relocations of the previous season's EPHL teams.
