The NHL's first regular season outdoor game was in 2003

National Hockey League, explained

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.

NHL players used to not wear helmets or masks

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 greatest NHL rivalries

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.

The first Winter X Games launched in 1997 at Big Bear Lake

The inaugural Winter X Games in 1997 introduced snowboarding, skiing, and snowmobile events—helping boost winter action sports’ popularity and paving the way for snowboarding’s inclusion in the 1998 Winter Olympics.

A tragic injury led to the original NHL All-Star Game

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.

The network’s early days were focused on movies and sports

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.

One NHL team tosses salmon to its fans

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 sports competition developed on the Alaskan tundra

Alaska's NYO Games invite high school athletes from the state's over 270 indigenous tribes to compete in numerous events based on survival tactics developed by their ancestors. This short documentary from Great Big Story walks through some of the more grueling events and speaks with the Games' coaches and young athletes about how the event preserves their shared culture.

The US Olympic hockey team upset the USSR in 1980—later dubbed the 'Miracle on Ice'

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.

Fenway Park is the oldest professional baseball stadium in use

The legendary park was built in 1912 and is considered hallowed ground for baseball fans, along with iconic venues like Yankee Stadium in the Bronx and Wrigley Field in Chicago.

Hockey romance novels have become an unexpected sensation

The combination was not an obvious hit, but books like "Hockey With Benefits," "Body Check," and "Puck and Prejudice" (a Jane Austen fan fiction) have grown popular thanks to a romance novel boom and an interest on TikTok. Now, HBO and Amazon are taking note with streaming adaptations. (Some readers may experience a paywall.)

Davos hosts the world’s oldest international invitational ice hockey tournament: the Spengler Cup

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.

The 1968 'Game of the Century' turned college sports into prime-time TV

The 1968 NCAA men's championship was the first game broadcast live in prime time. It met the moment, offering a legendary rematch between UCLA (led by a young Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) and Houston (led by standout center Elvin Hayes). This retrospective breaks down what made the game such a successful spectacle and how it transformed the market for all college athletics.

The Harlem Globetrotters played their first game in 1927

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.

By the 1980s, fantasy football was a national activity

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.”

The Ohio State–Michigan rivalry has roots in a 19th-century border dispute

Known simply as "The Game," Ohio State and Michigan first played in 1897. The fiercest rivalry in sports has its roots in a 19th-century border dispute—the 1835–36 Toledo War—which stoked state pride long before football intensified the feud.

Niagara’s frozen river once hosted winter carnivals

Before a 1912 collapse, winter ice bridges across the river were so thick that entrepreneurs built bars, photo studios, and entire carnival midways on the frozen surface.

The first cast members were relatively unknown 'enlightened amateurs'

“SNL” producers aimed to cast relative newcomers for the show’s first season, convinced that amateurs would infuse the show with the countercultural spirit Lorne Michaels envisioned.

FIFA was formed in 1904 and held its first tournament in 1930

In 1930, the first World Cup was held in Uruguay after the Olympics refused to allow professional soccer players to play in the 1932 games. The host country made it to the final of the 13-team event, playing against Argentina. Watch this remastered film of the 1930 match with Uruguay defeating Argentina 4-2 in front of 68,000 screaming fans at the newly opened Estadio Centenario.

Canada Goose jackets can cost upward of $1K

Canada Goose winter jackets have become status symbols of sorts in chilly cities all over the United States. But the brand wasn’t always considered luxury. Originally, Canada Goose was a little-known manufacturer of utilitarian outerwear. This video shows how the retailer went from selling coats for the working class to selling coats to the 1%.

Peter Brueghel's 'Hunters in the Snow' depicts winter beauty and hardship

The Dutch painter and printmaker is known for centering ordinary subjects at a time when protestant iconoclasts protested religious images and reduced the Church's role as an arts patron. The famous painting is often viewed as a cozy winter scene, but reveals the difficulties of harsh winters during the Little Ice Age in Europe.

17 cities have hosted a Super Bowl, with Miami and New Orleans tied for the most

The resource details where each Super Bowl has been played, listing every host city alongside its stadium, and shows how a small group of warm-weather and domed locations came to dominate hosting duties over time.

Instant replay was unofficially introduced in baseball in 1999

During a game between the St. Louis Cardinals and the Florida Marlins, home plate umpire Frank Pulli used video replay to determine whether a hit was a home run or a double. The action was controversial and Pulli claimed he didn't want it to become the norm for the league, though it did: In 2008, video replay was officially used to judge home run calls and has since become a regular part of the game.

Long before Major League Baseball began allowing instant replay for balls and strikes, an umpire reluctantly used the technology to determine whether a hit was a home run, a move that inadvertently ushered in a new era for the sport.

In the '90s, country aimed for stadiums

While the early 1900s built the template for country music as a genre, the 1990s pushed the music into the mainstream, setting the course for country’s modern ubiquity. Artists like Garth Brooks and Shania Twain pushed against the genre’s orthodoxy, turning the music into blockbuster entertainment with a pop sheen.

Who discovered the North Pole?

In 1909, papers reported two separate expeditions had become the first to reach the North Pole. This podcast explores the fascinating and terrifying attempts to reach the remote marker, and the contentious race to become the first person to plant...

The US first hosted the World Cup in 1994, a tournament that lives in soccer infamy for its poor planning and the murder of Colombian player Andres Escobar, who'd accidentally scored on his own net.

The 1987 Nintendo video game 'Stadium Events' isn't known for being particularly fun, but its scarcity has made it a highly sought-after item that has sold for up to $35K at auction.

While the first exchange-traded fund (a 'basket' of different assets that can be bought and sold on a stock exchange) in the US only launched in 1993, the global ETF market has grown to more than $10T in the short time since.

Scientists can determine Earth's past climate conditions by analyzing air trapped in microscopic bubbles within ice cores—columns of compressed snow layers that build up over hundreds of thousands of years.

Exploring the Larry Bird punch that almost changed March Madness

See how Budweiser's famous Clydesdales spend their days at Warm Springs Ranch, where roughly 70 to 80 of the beer brand's giant horses can be found at any given time.

For centuries, Niagara Falls has been a magnet for daredevils seeking to conquer one of nature's most powerful wonders, with its 200-foot drop and water rushing at 32 feet per second with 280 tons of force.

The 19th-century painters of the Hudson River School were among the first American romantics, with portraits that displayed the natural beauty of the young country.

See the 25 of the best photos of auroras from around the world.

Human-to-human transmission of hantavirus remains extremely rare, so the 2026 hantavirus cruise ship outbreak doesn't mean we're facing a COVID-style pandemic risk.

The history of many kitchen appliances involves unexpected discoveries and applications, including wartime radar turned hamster defroster and replacing an 'ice king' with heat-stealing boxes.

'Shogun,' a 1980s TV series, helped popularize sushi in the US by stimulating an American interest in Japanese culture.

Comedy legend Catherine O'Hara, star of 'Schitt's Creek' and 'Home Alone,' quit 'Saturday Night Live' after just one week to return to her old job.

The first horror movie is believed to be George Méliès' 1986 short 'The Haunted Castle,' which pioneered the use of special effects

Between 10 million and 50 million people in the US develop rashes from poison ivy, poison sumac, and poison oak each year.

When a Paris department store hesitated to sell Estée Lauder's perfume, she 'accidentally' broke a bottle, causing the smell to spread throughout the store and shoppers to start asking to buy the scent.

Hear about the 250-year history of the United States Postal Service, complete with some of its strangest deliveries, important innovations, and the figures that made it an American institution.

Before humans, the Soviet Union and the United States sent animals—including apes, dogs, and cats—to space during the Space Race.

In preparation for this weekend's Eurovision finale, which is something like the World Cup of pop music, here's a young Céline Dion performing (for Switzerland?) at the 1988 competition.

Elk Cloner, the first computer virus to spread in public, was written as a practical joke by Richard Skrenta, a Pittsburgh high school student.

Take a 3D tour of the Hajj, Islam's annual pilgrimage to Mecca, undertaken by over 1.5 million Muslims.

'Silent' fireworks have gained more interest in recent years as a quieter celebratory option.

The Great Salt Lake's distinct dual coloration results from high-salinity organisms that only live in the northern portion and produce a purple protein.

About 2,000 US babies are born annually without some portion of their limbs, potentially leading to a lifetime of pricey prosthetics.