The NHL's golden age, widely considered to be between 1942 and 1967, was spurred by several franchises folding.

Founded in 1917, the NHL started with four Canadian teams and now spans 32 franchises across North America. Its iconic Stanley Cup, first awarded in 1893, remains a unique prize, with winners' names hand-engraved each year. The league generates billions in annual revenue, aided by key expansions, lucrative TV deals, and global fan engagement. While player safety and labor disputes have posed challenges, the NHL remains a cornerstone of professional sports, offering an 82-game season culminating in the fiercely contested Stanley Cup Final.

Just two years after the National Hockey League was officially formed, its champion was playing the PCHA champion for the Stanley Cup. The series was tied, going into the deciding Game 5, when all but three NHL players fell ill with the Spanish flu. No champion was crowned that year.

Despite being a sport born on frozen ponds, modern professional hockey has held only a few exhibition and college games outside. In 2003, a game between the Edmonton Oilers and the Montreal Canadiens brought players and 57,000 fans together to endure sub-zero temperatures for a piece of history.

In its over 100 years as a league, the NHL has developed several heated rivalries, from the classic Canadian grudge matches between Toronto and Montreal to the Keystone State nemeses in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. This list ranks the best and most bitter matchups, often tracing their animosity back decades.

Until the 1970s, hockey goalies didn't wear masks to protect their faces with any regularity. Instead, they took pucks off their cheeks, foreheads, and mouths, resulting in serious scars. Any player who entered the league after June 1, 1979, was required to wear a helmet, but several players who'd started before then chose to continue playing without one.

The annual NHL All-Star Game is a joyous affair celebrating the best players each season. But its origins came from one of the most terrifying moments in hockey history. In a 1933 game, Maple Leafs wing Ace Bailey was nearly killed on the ice, and the NHL organized a benefit game to raise money for his family.

Founded in 1920 in Canton, Ohio, professional football has grown into the premiere sport in the US. Generating more than $20B annually, the NFL gained significant popularity after merging with the American Football League in 1970, a move which among other things established the Super Bowl.

From humble beginnings in 1891, basketball transformed into the global juggernaut we know today. The NBA, established in 1949 and later revitalized by Commissioner David Stern in the 1980s, became a model for sports branding, player marketing, and international expansion.

In the 1990s and early 2000s, NASCAR was one of the biggest sports in North America. It was racking up ratings and ticket sales on par with the NFL, and even beating the NBA Finals viewership. Ratings went down in 2007 and stayed there until 2018 due to a number of factors such as a changing media landscape, rule changes, and the retirement of popular drivers.

This time period spawned some of history’s most well-known ad campaigns, from "I Heart NY" to Nike’s “Just Do It” campaign. In this video from the 4As (the American Association of Advertising Agencies), advertising executive Jerry Della Femina reflects on the most creative ads of the era.

Click a team to see their current record and opponent for the day; read the latest news, including injuries; view the remaining schedule; scan where the team is in the divisional standings; review the current roster; skim all the player and team stats; and watch the latest video highlights.

The 1960s was a decade dominated by the Boston Celtics. They won nine championships in the decade and 11 titles in 13 seasons between 1957 and 1969, propelled by their coach and general manager "Red" Auerbach" and center Bill Russell.

HBO launched in 1972, with an initial focus on commercial-free movies and sports events. The network’s first-ever broadcast was an NHL game between the New York Rangers and the Vancouver Canucks, signaling its commitment to premium, live content.

Hollywood in the early to mid-20th century was largely controlled by the "Big Five" studios: Paramount, Warner Bros., Fox, MGM, and RKO. The studios were vertically integrated, overseeing every aspect of film production, distribution, and exhibition. During this era, actors like Cary Grant and Judy Garland were under contract with specific studios—typically for seven years. Garland signed with MGM at age 13, which counted on them to draw audiences.

Community sports leagues shifted from publicly supported entities to privatized ones in the 1990s, as tech advances streamlined registration processes. Millennial interest drove significant growth in social sports leagues for adults, growing much faster than other kinds of sports. A few industry leaders have benefited from this shift.

The NFL is the premier professional American football league, founded in 1920 in Canton, Ohio. It consists of 32 teams playing an 18-week regular season from September to January, culminating in the Super Bowl championship in February. The NFL has grown into the world's most valuable sports league, generating nearly $20B in revenue in 2023, and with teams valued at $163B combined. Learn its history here.

Competition between the American Football League and the National Football League led to a 1966 merger agreement, with the Super Bowl created as a championship game to determine league supremacy before the two leagues were fully integrated.

Black players were not permitted on the existing professional basketball teams, but Abe Saperstein—the team's original coach, owner, manager, and sometimes player—leaned into the team's all-Black roster, nodding to New York's historically Black neighborhood even though the team didn't play there until the late 1960s.

At the 1980 Winter Olympics, a team of American college players defeated the heavily favored Soviet hockey team—shocking the world. The victory became a defining moment of Cold War sports rivalry and American national pride.

"National Pastime" used the statistics of real Major League Baseball players to determine a winner, creating the template for the modern fantasy sports model.

For its over 100-year history, the names of every player, coach, and GM to win the Stanley Cup is etched into the silver rings. And despite technological advances, the Cup is still engraved by hand.

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In the mid-1970s, a group of investors attempted to compete with the dominant National Football League. This short video highlights the league's intriguing innovations and speedy downfall. The investors dubbed their project the World Football...

Modern American auto racing began in the 1920s with bootleggers modifying cars to outrun authorities. World War II innovations like better engines and surplus parts fueled post-war racing. By 1947, Bill France Sr. founded NASCAR, creating a unified league with consistent rules, transforming stock car racing into one of America’s favorite sports.

The NFL draft is a three-day spectacle with wall-to-wall media coverage and months of speculation about who will go to number one. But it wasn't always like that. The early days of the draft were done on a chalkboard and created a need for professional scouting departments.

There have been eight NFL commissioners in the league’s 100-plus year history, but none of them changed the league quite like Pete Rozelle. This 1984 New York Times Magazine profile looks back at the substantial changes Rozelle brought to the league since he took the job in 1960, as well as the challenges he faced while in office.

In this video, hockey legend Slava Fetisov reflects on the USSR’s powerhouse teams, his experience in the 1980 Olympic loss to the US, and his later move to the NHL—where Russian players became dominant forces.

Do you remember “The Catch”? What about the “Immaculate Reception”? Did you watch when Elway finally got his ring? Take a trip down memory lane with this Bleacher Report list of the 50 greatest games in NFL history. Explore classic NFL moments dating back to the NFL’s early days in the 1930s and '40s to the present day.

Detroit Red Wings fans have thrown octopuses on the ice since 1952, and fans of other teams have tried their own hand at tossing things in the rink ever since. It's now become a calling card for the Seattle Kraken, whose fans nod to the city's Pike Place Market by tossing salmon onto the ice.

The geopolitical rivalry between the United States and Soviet Union was considered “cold" because the two countries never directly engaged in military combat during the time period. This page from the Kennedy Presidential Library outlines the causes and major events of the early Cold War.

The Fantasy Football League began in 1980, before fantasy football was available online. The group, which began in Northern California, originally used a touchdown-only format because it was easier to score in the preinternet era.

Ice rinks are notoriously difficult to operate, due to the complex cooling systems required to maintain the ice itself, and have an average operating lifespan of 25 years. However, Black Bear Sports Group has made millions by buying up failing ice rinks and running robust youth sports programming.

The Greater Oakland Professional Pigskin Prognosticators League was a private league, but by the end of the ‘60s, a bar in Oakland opened the first public fantasy football league. Over the next few decades, the game grew more popular, as evidenced by this how-to article from a 1980 issue of “Inside Sports.”

This historical survey from The Beer Connoisseur explores the breweries that survived the government's ban on alcohol production. The common denominator? They all pivoted their business models.

Founded in 1923, the Spengler Cup is the world’s oldest international ice hockey tournament, held annually in Davos. Created to promote reconciliation after World War I, it remains one of the sport’s most prestigious invitational events.