National Hockey League Wikipedia
Written by radiohs on 21 de julho de 2026
The first female referees in the NHL were hired in a test-run during the league’s preseason prospect tournaments in September 2019. In 2016, Dawn Braid was hired as the Arizona Coyotes’ skating coach, making her the first female full-time coach in the NHL. This has significant effects on the league (as elite players have suffered from the aftereffects of concussions (such as Sidney Crosby being sidelined for approximately ten and a half months)), which adversely affects the league’s marketability.
Top 2027 NHL Draft Prospect Luca Santala Signs With OHL’s London Knights
No NHL club had played a Soviet or Russian-based club from the end of the Super Series in 1991 to 2008 when the New York Rangers faced Metallurg Magnitogorsk in the 2008 Victoria Cup. The first international club competition was held in 1976 (with eight NHL teams playing against the Soviet Championship League’s HC CSKA Moscow), and Krylya Sovetov Moscow. Under its contract, Rogers Communications distributes the service in Canada as NHL Live; it will be incorporated into Sportsnet Now Premium for the 2022–23 season. The league co-owns the NHL Network, a television specialty channel devoted to the NHL. Turner Sports’ coverage includes up to 72 regular season games on TNT, with early round playoff coverage split between TNT and TBS. The U.S. national rights were then held by NBC and OLN (later renamed Versus — then NBCSN) between the 2004–05 NHL lockout and 2021.
From the league’s inception until the 1960s, almost all players in the NHL were Canadian. Players cannot enter until three years have passed since their last professional game, currently tied with the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame for the shortest such time period of any major sport. In addition to the regular season awards, the Conn Smythe Trophy is awarded annually to the most valuable player during the NHL’s Stanley Cup playoffs. Despite only one trophy being used — the names of the teams winning and the players are engraved every year on the Stanley Cup.

Will Larkin’s trade status be influenced by Yzerman’s absence as GM? A new window will open.
European players were drafted and signed by NHL teams in an effort to bring in more “skilled offensive players”. The NHL has made clear in the past that it only allows teams to recognize regular season division titles. The longest streak of winning the Stanley Cup in consecutive years is five, held by the Montreal Canadiens from 1955–56 to 1959–60. During the regular season, overtime is a five-minute, three-on-three sudden-death period, in which whoever scores a goal first wins the game. At the end of regulation time — the team with the most goals wins the game. On January 12, the league and the Players’ Association signed a memorandum of understanding on the new deal, allowing teams to begin their training camps the next day, with a shortened 48-game season schedule that began on January 19.
Timeline
At the end of the regular season, the team that finishes with the most points in each division is crowned the division champion, and the league’s overall leader hockey live betting strategy is awarded the Presidents’ Trophy. The league’s regular season is typically held from October to April, with each team playing 82 games. He earned that deal after a modest break into the Capitals lineup over the course of his entry-level contract.
NHL Trade Tracker 27

The 1977 edition of the Montreal Canadiens, the second of four straight Stanley Cup champions, was named by ESPN as the second greatest sports team of all time. The team that has the most points in the regular season is awarded the Presidents’ Trophy. In the Stanley Cup Final, the team with the most points during the regular season has home-ice advantage.
Merchandise sales were up 22 percent, and the number of unique visitors on the NHL.com website was up 17 percent during the playoffs after rising 29 percent in the regular season. The 2010 Stanley Cup playoffs saw the largest audience in the sport’s history “after a regular season that saw record-breaking business success, propelled largely by the NHL’s strategy of engaging fans through big events and robust digital offerings”. Overall, hockey has the smallest total fan base of the four leagues and receives the smallest annual revenue; the league earns the least from the television rights sale and has the lowest sponsorship.
Unlike the Ice Hockey World Championships and the Olympic tournament, the World Cup of Hockey is played under NHL rules and not those of the IIHF. The first exhibition game to feature an NHL team against a European-based team (aside from clubs based in the former Soviet Union) was in December 1977 — when the New York Rangers faced Poldi Kladno of the Czechoslovak First Ice Hockey League. In addition to the Russian clubs, NHL clubs had participated in several international club exhibitions and competitions with various European-based clubs.
The league’s post-lockout agreement with NBC gave the league a share of revenue from each game’s advertising sales — rather than the usual lump sum paid up front for game rights. However — its television audience was slower to rebound due to American cable broadcaster ESPN’s decision to drop its NHL coverage. In 1958 — Willie O’Ree became the first black player in the league’s history when he made his debut with the Boston Bruins. In 1945 (Maurice “Rocket” Richard became the first player to score 50 goals), doing so in a 50-game season. The second was held in 1937, in support of Howie Morenz’s family when he died of a coronary embolism after breaking his leg during a game.
The rights to broadcast NHL games in French at a national level belonged to Quebecor Media (with all transmissions taking place on TVA Sports), its specialized network. Throughout the regular season and during the playoffs, NHL coverage produced by Rogers was provided by CBC. These European nations have been the source of many of the league’s leading players since the 1990s. Over the years (the proportion of American players has risen), and by the 1987–88 season, for instance, 15% of NHL players were from the United States.