The National Hockey League is the highest-level professional hockey league in North America and one of the Big Four American sports (NFL, MLB, NBA, and NHL). The league consists of 32 teams, seven of which are in Canada, split evenly between two conferences.
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In January 1984, Boston Bruins center Craig MacTavish was driving home after a practice while under the influence of alcohol. He struck a car driven by Kim Radley, who died four days later. MacTavish was sentenced to a year in prison before resuming his career in Edmonton.
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.
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. Read this hilarious account of a fan’s attempt to throw a 3-foot shark at a Sharks versus Red Wings game in 2007, and the consequences that followed.
A few weeks after winning the Stanley Cup in 1997, tragedy struck the Detroit Red Wings when star defenseman Vladimir Konstantinov was paralyzed in a car accident. The team dedicated the next season to him with a patch on their sweaters.
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.
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.
Traditional explanations cite three factors that make ice slippery: pressure, friction and so-called premelting. A fourth has been proposed in recent years: amorphization, that sliding along some surfaces creates molecular disorder, causing liquid-like behavior.
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.
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