Gatineau Olympiques
The Gatineau Olympiques are a major junior ice hockey team based in Gatineau, Canada, that plays in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League. The Olympiques play home games at the Robert Guertin Centre; the club known as the Hull Festivals, was granted membership in the QMJHL in 1973. The Olympiques have appeared in the Memorial Cup seven times, winning once in 1997. Over eighty former players and coaches have gone on to play or coach in the National Hockey League, including Martin Biron, Aleš Hemský, Luc Robitaille, Jeremy Roenick, Michael Ryder, Maxime Talbot, José Théodore, Colin White, Claude Giroux, David Krejčí, Jack Adams-winning head coaches Alain Vigneault and Pat Burns and 2011 Stanley Cup-winning coach Claude Julien. Before joining the QMJHL, the team was a member of the Central Junior A Hockey League, known as Les Éperviers de Hull but as Les Castors de Hull and Hull-Volant Junior A. Hull and the CJHL were eligible to compete for the Memorial Cup, the Major Junior crown, but were relegated to Tier II Junior "A" in 1970.
The season before joining the QMJHL in 1973 they became the Hull Festivals, in 1976, they became the Hull Olympiques. The Olympiques share a junior hockey market across the Ottawa River. Pre-season games between the two teams were a regular occurrence from 1975 to 1986; the teams have played interleague regular-season home and home games in the 1999–2000, 2000–01, 2001–02, 2002–03 and 2009–10 seasons since. The Olympiques have won the President's Cup seven times, most in 2007–08; the team has been to four Memorial Cup finals, losing three and winning the 1997 Memorial Cup, which they hosted. From 1985 until 1992, the Olympiques were owned by Wayne Gretzky. On May 31, 2010, it was announced that former Olympiques coach Benoit Groulx, who had left the organization to coach the Rochester Americans would be returning to be the general manager and head coach. For the 2011–12 season, the Olympiques returned to the colours of black and white following an eight-year absence. In 2016, coach Groulx left the Olympiques again to become the head coach of the Syracuse Crunch.
He was replaced by Mario Duhamel. Duhamel was replaced by assistant coach Éric Landry. Jean Rougeau Trophy – Regular season champions 1985–86, 1987–88, 1996–97, 2003–04Division titles – Regular season champions 1985–86, 1987–88, 1996–97, 1999–2000, 2001–02, 2003–04 Hull Hawks Hull Festivals Hull Olympiques Gatineau Olympiques Complete results before 1969 unavailable. OL = Overtime loss, SL = Shootout loss, Pct = Winning percentage Lists of National Hockey League alumni. No player from the "Hull Hawks" went on the play in the NHL. Hull Castors Billy SmithHull Festivals Hull Olympiques Gatineau Olympiques Ten Olympiques players have had their numbers retired by the team. Former coach Pat Burns has been honoured. # 10 Jean Poulin # 15 Luc Robitaille # 16 Sam Lang # 20 Martin Gelinas # 24 Colin White # 25 Maxime Talbot # 28 Claude Giroux # 32 Marc Saumier # 33 José Théodore # 77 Guy Rouleau Official web site
Los Angeles Kings
The Los Angeles Kings are a professional ice hockey team based in Los Angeles. They are members of the Pacific Division of the Western Conference of the National Hockey League; the team was founded on June 5, 1967, after Jack Kent Cooke was awarded an NHL expansion franchise for Los Angeles on February 9, 1966, becoming one of the six teams that began play as part of the 1967 NHL expansion. The Kings played their home games at The Forum in Inglewood, California, a suburb of Los Angeles, for thirty-two years, until they moved to the Staples Center in Downtown Los Angeles at the start of the 1999–2000 season. During the 1970s and early 1980s, the Kings had many years marked by impressive play in the regular season only to be washed out by early playoff exits, their highlights in those years included the strong goaltending of Rogie Vachon, the "Triple Crown Line" of Charlie Simmer, Dave Taylor and Hall of Fame player Marcel Dionne, who had a famous upset of the uprising Edmonton Oilers in a 1982 playoff game known as the Miracle on Manchester.
In 1988, the Kings traded with the Oilers to get their captain Wayne Gretzky, leading to a successful phase of the franchise that raised hockey's popularity in Los Angeles, helped raise the sport's profile in the American Sun Belt region. Gretzky, fellow Hall of Famer Luc Robitaille and defenseman Rob Blake led the Kings to the franchise's sole division title in 1990–91, the Kings' first Stanley Cup Final appearance in 1993. After the 1993 Finals, the Kings entered financial problems, with a bankruptcy in 1995, which led to the franchise being acquired by Philip Anschutz and Edward P. Roski. A period of mediocrity ensued, with the Kings only resurging as they broke a six-year playoff drought in the 2009–10 season, with a team that included goaltender Jonathan Quick, defenseman Drew Doughty, forwards Dustin Brown, Anze Kopitar and Justin Williams. Under coach Darryl Sutter, hired early in the 2011–12 season, the Kings won two Stanley Cups in three years: 2012, over the New Jersey Devils, 2014, against the New York Rangers while Quick and Williams won the Conn Smythe Trophy.
When the NHL decided to expand for the 1967–68 season amid rumblings that the Western Hockey League was proposing to turn itself into a major league and compete for the Stanley Cup, Canadian entrepreneur Jack Kent Cooke paid the NHL $2 million to place one of the six expansion teams in Los Angeles. Following a fan contest to name the team, Cooke chose the name Kings because he wanted his club to take on "an air of royalty," and picked the original team colors of purple and gold because they were colors traditionally associated with royalty; the same color scheme was worn by the Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Association, which Cooke owned. Cooke wanted his new NHL team to play in the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena, home of the Lakers, but the Los Angeles Coliseum Commission, which manages the Sports Arena and the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum to the present day, had entered into an agreement with the WHL's Los Angeles Blades to play their games at the Sports Arena. Frustrated by his dealings with the Coliseum Commission, Cooke said, "I am going to build my own arena...
I've had enough of this balderdash."Construction on Cooke's new arena, the Forum, was not yet complete when the 1967–68 season began, so the Kings opened their first season at the Long Beach Arena in the neighboring city of Long Beach on October 14, 1967, defeating another expansion team, the Philadelphia Flyers, 4–2. The "Fabulous Forum" opened its doors on December 30, 1967, with the Kings being shut out by the Flyers, 2–0. While the first two seasons had the Kings qualifying for the playoffs, afterwards poor management led the Kings into hard times; the general managers established a history of trading away first-round draft picks for veteran players, attendance suffered during this time. The Kings made a few key acquisitions to resurge as a contender. By acquiring Toronto Maple Leafs winger Bob Pulford, who would become the Kings' head coach, in 1970, Finnish center Juha Widing in a trade from the New York Rangers, Montreal Canadiens goaltender Rogie Vachon in 1971, the Kings went from being one of the worst defensive teams in the league to one of the best, in 1974 they returned to the playoffs.
After being eliminated in the first round of the playoffs in both 1973–74 and 1974–75, the Kings moved to upgrade their offensive firepower when they acquired center Marcel Dionne from the Detroit Red Wings. Behind Dionne's offensive prowess, the strong goaltending of Rogie Vachon, the speed and scoring touch of forward Butch Goring, the Kings played two of their most thrilling seasons yet, with playoff match ups against the then-Atlanta Flames in the first round, the Boston Bruins in the second round, both times being eliminated by Boston. Bob Pulford left the Kings after the 1976–77 season after constant feuding with owner Jack Kent Cooke, General Manager Jake Milford decided to leave as well; this led to struggles in the 1977–78 season, where the Kings finished below.500 and were swept out of the first round by the Maple Leafs. Afterwards Vachon would sign with the Detroit Red Wings; the following season, Kings coach Bob Berry tried juggling line combinations, Dionne found himself on a new line with two young unknown players: second-year right winger Dave Taylor and left winger Charlie Simmer, a career minor-leaguer.
Each player benefited from each other, with Simmer being the gritty player who battled
Winnipeg Jets (1972–96)
The Winnipeg Jets were a professional ice hockey team based in Winnipeg, Canada. They began play in the World Hockey Association in 1972; the club joined the National Hockey League in 1979 after the NHL merged with the WHA. Due to mounting financial troubles, in 1996 the franchise moved to Phoenix and became the Phoenix Coyotes. In 2011 the Atlanta Thrashers franchise relocated to Winnipeg and restored the Jets name, although the prior Jets club history is retained by the Arizona club; the NHL had expanded to 16 teams, adding franchises in many hockey-hungry cities, but in Atlanta and Los Angeles. The WHA brought major professional hockey to Ottawa, Quebec City, Winnipeg and Calgary. On December 27, 1971, Winnipeg was granted one of the founding franchises in the WHA, to Ben Hatskin, a local figure who made his wealth in cardboard shipping containers; the team took their name from the Winnipeg Jets of the Western Canada Hockey League. The Jets' first signing was Norm Beaudin and the first major signing was Bobby Hull.
Hull's acquisition financed by the rest of the WHA's teams, gave the league instant credibility and paved the way for other NHL stars to bolt to the upstart league. The Jets were further noteworthy in hockey history for being the first North American club to explore Europe as a source of hockey talent. Winnipeg's fortunes were bolstered by acquisitions such as Swedish forwards Anders Hedberg and Ulf Nilsson, who starred with Hull on the WHA's most famous and successful forward line, defenceman Lars-Erik Sjoberg, who would serve as the team's captain and win accolades as the WHA's best defenceman. Behind these players and other European stars such as Willy Lindstrom, Kent Nilsson, Veli-Pekka Ketola, leavened by players such as Peter Sullivan, Norm Beaudin and goaltender Joe Daley, the Jets were the most successful team in the short-lived WHA; the team won the Avco World Trophy three times, including in the league's final season against Wayne Gretzky and the Edmonton Oilers. The Jets made the finals five of the WHA's seven seasons.
Another notable accomplishment was the Jets' 5–3 victory over the Soviet National team on January 5, 1978. In the WHA's last season, Kent Nilsson had 107 points, while Morris Lukowich had 65 goals, Peter Sullivan had 46 goals and 86 points; the Jets made it to the Avco Cup and Gary Smith gave up the last goal in WHA history to Dave Semenko in a 7–3 Jets win. Games: Bobby Hull, 411 Goals: Bobby Hull, 303 Assists: Ulf Nilsson, 344 Points: Bobby Hull, 638 Penalty Minutes: Kim Clackson, 413 Goaltending Wins: Joe Daley, 167 Shutouts: Joe Daley, 12The 1976, 1978 and 1979 Avco Cup winning Winnipeg Jets were inducted into the Manitoba Hockey Hall of Fame in the team category. By 1979, the vast majority of the WHA's teams had folded. After the season, the Jets were absorbed into the NHL along with the Nordiques and Hartford Whalers. While the results of pre-merger inter-league exhibitions had established the 1978-79 WHA Jets as being at least the competitive equal of all except the best NHL teams such as the three-time defending Stanley Cup champion Montreal Canadiens and the rising New York Islanders, the Jets had to pay a high price for a berth in the more established league.
They had to give up three of their top six scorers – the core of the last WHA champion – in a reclamation draft. They were forced to draft 18th out of 21 teams. In the draft, they opted to protect defenceman Scott Campbell, who had shown a good deal of promise in the last WHA season. However, Campbell suffered from chronic asthma, only exacerbated by Winnipeg's frigid weather; the asthma drove him out of the league by 1982. Upon entering the NHL, the Jets were based in the Smythe Division of the Campbell Conference. However, with a decimated roster, the Jets finished dead last in the league for their first two seasons in the NHL, including a horrendous nine-win season in 1980–81 that still ranks as the worst in Jets/Coyotes history; this stands in marked contrast to the other 1979 Avco Cup finalist, the Oilers, who became one of the most successful teams during the 1980s. The Jets' first two wretched NHL seasons did net them high draft picks; the team developed a solid core of players by the mid-1980s, with Hawerchuk, Thomas Steen, Paul MacLean, Randy Carlyle, Laurie Boschman, Doug Smail, David Ellett providing a strong nucleus.
In 1981, a league-wide realignment placed the Jets with the league's other Central Time Zone teams in the Norris Division, which over the course of the decade would become the weakest division in the league. Led by Hawerchuk, Steen and Carlyle, the Jets returned to respectability quickly, made the playoffs 11 times in the next 15 years. However, regular-season success did not transfer over into the playoffs; this was because after just one season in the Norris, the relocation of the Colorado Rockies to New Jersey compelled Winnipeg to re-align to the far more competitive Smythe Division along with the Oilers and Calgary Flames – by some accounts, the two best teams in the league during the second half of the 1980s. Due to the way the playoffs were structured at the time, whenever the Jets made the playoffs, they faced the near-certainty of having to beat either the Oilers or the Flames to get to the Campbell Conference Finals. At the time, the top four teams in each division made the playoffs, with the regular-season divisi
Quebec Nordiques
The Quebec Nordiques were a professional ice hockey team based in Quebec City, Quebec. The Nordiques played in the National Hockey League; the franchise was renamed the Colorado Avalanche. The Nordiques hold the distinction of being the only major professional sports team to have been based in Quebec City in the modern era, one of only two ever; the Quebec Nordiques formed as one of the original World Hockey Association teams in 1972. The franchise was not one of the eight original teams established when the league was announced on November 1, 1971; the franchise was awarded to a group in San Francisco, as the San Francisco Sharks. However, the San Francisco group's funding collapsed prior to the start of the first season, the WHA, in haste, sold the organization to a group of six Quebec City-based businessmen who owned the profitable Quebec Remparts junior team, they were named the Nordiques because they were one of the northernmost teams in professional sports in North America. Quebec City is located at 46 degrees north latitude.
The only WHA teams located farther north were the Alberta Oilers, Calgary Cowboys, Vancouver Blazers and Winnipeg Jets. The Nordiques' first head coach was the legendary Maurice "Rocket" Richard but he lasted two games, a 2–0 loss to the Cleveland Crusaders, a 6–0 win against the Alberta Oilers; the "Rocket" stepped down. The Nordiques' first star was two-way defenceman J. C. Tremblay, who led the WHA in assists in the league's first season and would be named a league All-Star for his first four years in Quebec; the next season Serge Bernier and Rejean Houle joined the Nordiques. In 1974–75 season, they made the playoffs with the help of the high-scoring Marc Tardif, they beat the Phoenix Roadrunners and the Minnesota Fighting Saints to reach the finals, where they were swept in four games by the Gordie Howe-led Houston Aeros. The next season saw the squad become a high-flying offensive juggernaut, becoming the only team in major professional history to have five players break 100 points, a mark which still stands as of 2017.
The season ended in disappointment as the Nordiques lost to the Calgary Cowboys in the first round of the playoffs, after losing Marc Tardif to injury after a controversial hit by the Cowboys' Rick Jodzio. Despite injuries to Tardif and an aging Tremblay, the Nordiques captured the Avco World Trophy in 1976–77 as they took out the New England Whalers and the Indianapolis Racers in five games before beating the Winnipeg Jets in seven, behind Bernier's record 36 points in 17 playoff games, they represented Canada at the Izvestia Hockey Tournament in Moscow, finishing last with an 0–3–1 record. By 1978, the WHA was in crisis, Marcel Aubut, by the team's president under ownership of the Carling-O'Keefe Brewery, began checking on interest in the NHL; the Nordiques fell in the playoffs to the New England Whalers. The 1978–79 season would be the final one for the WHA and for J. C. Tremblay, who retired at the end of the season and had his #3 jersey retired; as part of the NHL–WHA merger, the WHA insisted on including all of its surviving Canadian teams, including the Nordiques, among the teams taken into the NHL at the end of the 1978–79 season.
As a result, the Nordiques entered the NHL along with the Whalers and Jets. Forced to let all but three players go in a dispersal draft, the Nordiques sank to the bottom of the standings, they finished the 1979–80 NHL season last in their division despite the play of promising rookie left winger Michel Goulet. An early highlight to the otherwise dreary season came when Real Cloutier became the second NHL player, following Alex Smart to score a hat trick in his first NHL game. In August 1980 the Nordiques announced that they signed newly defected brothers Peter and Anton Stastny, members of the Czechoslovak national team, since they drafted Anton in the 1979 amateur draft, their brother, would follow and sign with Quebec in the summer of 1981. The following season, led by Peter Stastny's 109-point Calder Memorial Trophy-winning performance, the Nordiques made the NHL playoffs for the first time, but fell in the best-of-five opening round in five games to the Philadelphia Flyers. Led by Goulet and Peter Stastny, the Nordiques made the playoffs seven years in a row.
However, due to the playoff structure during most of the 1980s, the Nordiques faced the near-certainty of having to get past either the Montreal Canadiens or Boston Bruins to make it to the conference finals. In 1981–82, despite notching only 82 points in the regular season, they defeated the Canadiens and Bruins, both in winner-take-all games on the road, their Cinderella run ended when they were swept by the defending champion New York Islanders in the conference finals. The intraprovincial rivalry with the Canadiens intensified during the 1983–84 NHL season culminating in the infamous "Vendredi Saint" brawl, otherwise known as the Good Friday Massacre, during the 1984 playoffs; the Habs scored five unanswered goals in the third period of Game 6 at the Montreal Forum to eliminate the Nordiques. Th
Kingston Frontenacs
The Kingston Frontenacs are a junior ice hockey team in the Ontario Hockey League, based in Kingston, Canada. The team is coached by Kurtis Foster and the general manager is Darren Keily; the Frontenacs play home games at the Leon's Centre, which opened in 2008. Team history predates the OHA, back to 1945, to a team known as the Kingston Victorias; this franchise was founded in the OHA in 1973–74 known as the Kingston Canadians until 1987–88. The team was known as the Kingston Raiders in 1988–89, as the Frontenacs since; the original Kingston Frontenacs were founded in 1897, named after Louis de Buade de Frontenac, governor of New France, who established Fort Frontenac on the site of present-day Kingston. From 1959 to 1963, there was a Kingston Frontenacs team in the Eastern Professional Hockey League; the city had a team in the Ontario Hockey Association Jr. league in the 1910s. NHL Alumni from this team are Bill Cook, Allan Davidson and Flat Walsh. An Ontario Hockey Association Sr. League team existed from the 1910s to 1940s.
NHL Alumni from this team are Mickey Blake, Glen Brydson, Bill Cook, Gus Giesebrecht, Doug Stevenson, Charles Stewart, Carl Voss and Flat Walsh. Some members of this team formed an entry in the Ontario Veteran's Hockey League during World War II. NHL Alumni from this team are Gus Marker, Walt McCartney and Ed Nicholson. In 1952, the Kingston Victoria were renamed the Kingston Frontenacs; this team played at the Junior B level later at the Junior A level. This Frontenacs team lost in the 1963 Sutherland Cup final to the St. Marys Lincolns, 4 games to 1; the Kingston Canadians arrival in the Ontario Hockey Association for the 1973–74 season, was a result of the Montreal Junior Canadiens switch to the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League in 1972. During the summer of 1972, the QMJHL had threatened a lawsuit against the OHA to force the Junior Canadiens to return to the Quebec-based league. To solve the problem, the OHA granted the Junior Canadiens franchise a "one-year suspension" of operations, while team ownership transferred the team and players into the QMJHL, renaming themselves the Montreal Bleu Blanc Rouge in the process.
After a one-year hiatus, the OHA reactivated the suspended franchise under new ownership and with new players, calling the team the Kingston Canadians. The new Kingston team was an expansion franchise promoted from the OHA's Tier II league, that had only common name to share with the old Junior Canadiens; the Tier II Frontenacs originated in the Eastern Junior B Hockey League and date back to at least the early 1940s as the Kingston Victorias. However, in some OHA histories the Kingston team is still shown as the legitimate successors of the Junior Canadiens' legacy. Following a change in ownership the club was renamed Kingston Raiders for one season in 1988–89. Due to ownership problems, the team was sold again following that season. In 1989, the new ownership, including Wren Blair, Don Anderson and Bob Attersley, renamed the team Kingston Frontenacs after the Eastern Professional Hockey League team; the Boston Bruins-style uniforms and logos were revived from the old franchise. The city welcomed the new ownership.
Wren Blair and Bob Attersley were both hockey legends in their own right. In 1997 Wren Blair would be honoured with the Bill Long Award for distinguished service in the OHL; the club was sold to the Springer family of Kingston in June 1998, with Doug Springer becoming the owner and governor. The Frontenacs franchise has the second-longest championship drought in the OHL, the fourth-longest in the Canadian Hockey League; the Frontenacs won the Leyden Trophy as the OHL's East Division champions in the 1994–95 and 2015–16. In the 1992–93 season, the Frontenacs reached the Eastern Conference Final but lost to the Peterborough Petes. During the inaugural season of the Kingston Canadians in 1973–74, Jack Bownass was awarded the Matt Leyden Trophy as OHA Coach of the Year. Former NHL defenceman Jim Morrison coached the team from 1975 to 1982, the longest stint a coach had when the club was known as the Canadians. Larry Mavety coached the Frontenacs for much of the teams history, he coached the team in 1988–89, when they were still known as the Kingston Raiders.
In 1989–90, the first season the franchise was known as the Frontenacs, he won the Matt Leyden Trophy as the OHL Coach of the Year. Mavety returned to Kingston in 1997 to become the head coach once again, stayed in that position until midway through the 2002–03 season when he stepped down to focus on his general manager duties. After a slow start in the 2007–08 season, Mavety once again found himself coaching the Frontenacs until November 2008. Mavety remained as the general manager until the end of the 2010–11 season; the Frontenacs had head coaches that were head coaches in the National Hockey League, including Dave Allison, Gary Agnew, Bruce Cassidy. Paul Coffey is the only former member of the Kingston franchise to be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame, getting the honour in 2004. In 1977–78, Coffey played for the Kingston Canadians, as a late season addition from the North York Rangers, he played eight regular season games and five playoff games with the Canadians. Seven numbers have been "honoured" from the Kingston Canadians/Frontenacs.
They remain in use. The Kingston franchise has had several players selected in the first round of the NHL draft. Alex Forsyth – 18th overall, Washington Capitals
Hockey Hall of Fame
The Hockey Hall of Fame is an ice hockey museum located in Toronto, Canada. Dedicated to the history of ice hockey, it is a hall of fame, it holds exhibits about players, National Hockey League records, memorabilia and NHL trophies, including the Stanley Cup. Founded in Kingston, the Hockey Hall of Fame was established in 1943 under the leadership of James T. Sutherland; the first class of honoured members was inducted in 1945, before the Hall of Fame had a permanent location. It moved to Toronto in 1958 after the NHL withdrew its support for the International Hockey Hall of Fame in Kingston, Ontario, its first permanent building opened at Exhibition Place in 1961. The hall was relocated in 1993, is now in downtown Toronto, inside Brookfield Place, a historic Bank of Montreal building. An 18-person committee of players and others meets annually in June to select new honourees, who are inducted as players, builders or on-ice officials. In 2010, a subcategory was established for female players; the builders' category includes coaches, general managers, team owners and others who have helped build the game.
Honoured members are inducted into the Hall of Fame in an annual ceremony held at the Hall of Fame building in November, followed by a special "Hockey Hall of Fame Game" between the Toronto Maple Leafs and a visiting team. As of 2018, 280 players, 109 builders and 16 on-ice officials have been inducted into the Hall of Fame; the Hall of Fame has been criticized for focusing on players from the National Hockey League and ignoring players from other North American and international leagues. The Hockey Hall of Fame was established through the efforts of James T. Sutherland, a former President of the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association. Sutherland sought to establish it in Kingston, Ontario as he believed that the city was the birthplace of hockey. In 1943, the NHL and CAHA reached an agreement. Called the "International Hockey Hall of Fame", its mandate was to honour great hockey players and to raise funds for a permanent location; the first nine "honoured members" were inducted on April 30, 1945, although the Hall of Fame still did not have a permanent home.
The first board of governors consisted of Red Dutton, Art Ross, Frank Sargent, Lester Patrick, Abbie E. H. Coo, Wes McKnight, Basil E. O'Meara, J. P. Fitzgerald and W. A. Hewitt. Kingston lost its most influential advocate as permanent site of the Hockey Hall of Fame when Sutherland died in 1955. By 1958, the Hockey Hall of Fame had still not raised sufficient funds to construct a permanent building in Kingston. Clarence Campbell President of the NHL, grew tired of waiting for the construction to begin and withdrew the NHL's support to situate the hall in Kingston. In the same year, the NHL and the Canadian National Exhibition reached an agreement to establish a new Hall of Fame building in Toronto, in the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame located at Exhibition Place; the temporary Hockey Hall of Fame opened as an exhibit within the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame in August 1958, 350,000 people visited it during the 1958 CNE fair. Due to the success of the exhibit, NHL and CNE decided that a permanent home in the Exhibition Place was needed.
The NHL agreed to fund the building of the new facility on the grounds of Exhibition Place, construction began in 1960. The first permanent Hockey Hall of Fame, which shared a building with the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame, was opened on August 26, 1961, by Canadian Prime Minister John Diefenbaker. Over 750,000 people visited the Hall in its inaugural year. Admission to the Hockey Hall of Fame was free until 1980, when the Hockey Hall of Fame facilities underwent expansion. By 1986, the Hall of Fame was running out of room in its existing facilities and the Board of Directors decided that a new home was needed; the Hall vacated the Exhibition Place building in 1992, its half was taken over by the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame. (The building was demolished. Development of the new location in the BCE Place complex, featuring the former Bank of Montreal at the corner of Yonge and Front Streets in Toronto, began soon after; the design was by S. George Curry; the new Hockey Hall of Fame opened on June 18, 1993.
The new location has 4,700 m2 of exhibition space, seven times larger. The Hockey Hall of Fame now hosts more than 300,000 visitors each year; the first curator of the new Hall of Fame was Bobby Hewitson. Following Hewitson's retirement in 1967, Lefty Reid was appointed to the position. Reid was curator of the Hockey Hall of Fame for the next 25 years, retiring in 1992. Following Reid's retirement, former NHL referee-in-chief Scotty Morrison, the president of the Hockey Hall of Fame since 1986, was appointed curator. Morrison supervised the relocation of the Hall of its exhibits; the current curator is Phil Pritchard. The Hockey Hall of Fame is led by Lanny McDonald, Chairman of the Board, Chief Executive Officer, Jeff Denommé, it is operated as a non-profit business called the "Hockey Hall of Fame and Museum", independent of the National Hockey League. The Hall of Fame was sponsored by the NHL and Hockey Canada and revenue is generated through admissions; the Hockey Hall of Fame has 15 exhibit areas covering 60,000 square feet.
Visitors can view tr
NHL Entry Draft
The NHL Entry Draft is an annual meeting in which every franchise of the National Hockey League systematically select the rights to available ice hockey players who meet draft eligibility requirements. The NHL Entry Draft is held once every year within two to three months after the conclusion of the previous season. During the draft, teams take turns selecting amateur players from junior or collegiate leagues and professional players from European leagues; the first draft was held in 1963, has been held every year since. The NHL Entry Draft was known as the NHL Amateur Draft until 1979; the entry draft has only been a public event since 1980, a televised event since 1984. Up to 1994, the order was determined by the standings at the end of the regular season. In 1995, the NHL Draft Lottery was introduced where only teams who had missed the playoffs could participate; the one lottery winner would move up the draft order a maximum of four places, meaning only the top five-placed teams could pick first in the draft, no team in the non-playoff group could move down more than one place.
The chances of winning the lottery were weighted towards the teams at the bottom of the regular season standings. Beginning in 2013, the limit of moving up a maximum of four places in the draft order was eliminated, so the lottery winner would automatically receive the first overall pick, any teams above it in the draft order would still move down one spot; the first NHL Entry Draft was held on June 5, 1963 at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Quebec. Any amateur player under the age of 20 was eligible to be drafted. In 1979, the rules were changed allowing players who had played professionally to be drafted; this rule change was made to facilitate the absorption of players from the defunct World Hockey Association. The name of the draft was changed from "NHL Amateur Draft" to "NHL Entry Draft". Beginning in 1980, any player, between the ages of 18 and 20 is eligible to be drafted. In addition, any non-North American player over the age of 20 can be selected. From 1987 through 1991, 18 and 19-year-old players could only be drafted in the first three rounds unless they met another criterion of experience which required them to have played in major junior, U.
S. college and high school, or European hockey. In 1980, the Entry Draft became a public event, was held at the Montreal Forum. Prior to that year the Entry Draft was conducted in Montreal hotels or league offices and was closed to the general public; the first draft outside of Montreal was held at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre in Toronto, Ontario, in 1985. Live television coverage of the draft began in 1984 when the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation covered the event in both English and French for Canadian audiences; the 1987 Entry Draft, held at Joe Louis Arena in Detroit, was the first NHL Draft to be held in the United States. SportsChannel America began covering the event in the United States in 1989. Prior to the development of the Draft, NHL teams sponsored junior teams, signed prospects in their teens to the junior teams. Players were signed to one of three forms: the "A" form; the "C" form could only be signed by the player at age eighteen or by the player's parents in exchange for some signing bonus.
The first drafts were held to assign players who had not signed with an NHL organization before the sponsorship of junior teams was discontinued after 1968. The selection order in the NHL Entry Draft is determined by a combination of lottery, regular season standing, playoff results. While teams are permitted to trade draft picks both during the draft and prior to it, in all cases, the selection order of the draft picks is based on the original holder of the pick, not a team which may have acquired the pick via a trade or other means; the order of picks discussed in this section always references the original team. The basic order of the NHL Entry Draft is determined based on the standings of the teams in the previous season; as with the other major sports leagues, the basic draft order is intended to favour the teams with the weakest performance who need the most improvement in their roster to compete with the other teams. Subject to the results of the NHL Draft Lottery, the teams pick in the same order each round, with each team getting one pick per round.
The basic order of the picks is determined as follows: The teams that did not qualify for the playoffs the previous season The teams that made the playoffs in the previous season but did not win either their division in the regular season or play in the Conference Finals The teams that won their divisions in the previous season but did not play in the Conference Finals The teams that lose in Conference Finals The team, the runner-up in the Stanley Cup Finals The team that won the Stanley Cup in the previous season The number of teams in the second and third group depends on whether the Conference finalists won their division. The teams in each group are ordered within that group based on their point totals in the preceding regular season. Tie-breakers are governed by the same rule
Mike Modano
Canada
Sweden
Finland
Czechoslovakia
Soviet Union
West Germany