# NHL History questions **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 17, 2005, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nhl-history-questions/290459 "2005-02-17T01:26:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Scruloose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e68b1a/32.png) [@Scruloose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scruloose)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2005, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nhl-history-questions/290459/1 "2005-02-17T01:26:59Z")
Inspired by [this thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=302711). One doper mentions that the “National” in NHL refers to Canada, vice the U.S., which was news to me. You always hear about the “original 6”: Chicago, Boston, New York, Detroit, Montreal and Toronto. So I always figured the league was a U.S. one that included Canada, not the other way around. So I looked at the history section of [NHL.com](http://NHL.com), and found the following: > [@](#): > > But after the war, the hockey powers that be decided to start a whole new organization that would be known as the National Hockey League (NHL). At its inception, the NHL boasted five franchises- the Montreal Canadiens, the Montreal Wanderers, the Ottawa Senators, the Quebec Bulldogs, and the Toronto Arenas. The league’s first game was held Dec. 19, 1917. The clubs played a 22-game schedule and, picking up on a rule change instituted by the old NHA, dropped the rover and employed only six players on a side. Toronto finished that first season on top, and in March 1918 met the Pacific Coast League champion Vancouver Millionaires for the Stanley Cup. Toronto won, three games to two. Eventually the PCL folded, and at the start of the 1926 season, the NHL, which at that point had ten teams, divided into two divisions and took control of the Stanley Cup. [http://nhl.com/hockeyu/history/evolution.html](http://nhl.com/hockeyu/history/evolution.html) OK - so why do you always hear of the “Original 6”? Where’d that come from? Also, from that site: > [@](#): > > Most historians place the roots of hockey in the chilly climes of northern Europe, specifically Great Britain and France, where field hockey was a popular summer sport more than 500 years ago. When the ponds and lakes froze in winter, it was not unusual for the athletes who fancied that sport to play a version of it on ice. > > An ice game known as kolven was popular in Holland in the 17th century, and later on the game really took hold in England. And… > [@](#): > > Not surprisingly, the earliest North American games were played in Canada. British soldiers stationed in Halifax, Nova Scotia, were reported to have organized contests on frozen ponds in and around that city in the 1870s, and about that same time in Montreal students from McGill University began facing off against each other in a downtown ice rink. This is something I’ve wondered for several years now - do the Brits even play organized hockey? You never really hear anything about them with regards to hockey, either in the NHL or during Olympic play. Why is that? Did the game just fade away for the Brits over time? ---
**Author:** ![RumMunkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b19c9b/32.png) [@RumMunkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RumMunkey)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2005, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nhl-history-questions/290459/2 "2005-02-17T01:48:37Z")
> [@](#): > > OK - so why do you always hear of the “Original 6”? Where’d that come from? That probably comes from the first 6 teams that were established, big-time drawing franchises, not necessarily the first 6 teams in the league. Plus, the term “original six” is a hindsight term, because those 6 teams are still around today we refer to them as “the original 6”… more correctly it should be “the 6 originals” I guess though. > [@](#): > > do the Brits even play organized hockey? Yes. They have a (relatively) [successful league](http://www.eliteleague.co.uk/index.php) in play right now as a matter of fact that features many former NHLers. Their national teams, are, well… not so good. [Steve Thomas](http://msn.foxsports.com/nhl/player/66421) was the first English born player to play in the NHL. ---
**Author:** ![BobT](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8e8cbc/32.png) [@BobT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobT)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2005, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nhl-history-questions/290459/3 "2005-02-17T02:26:22Z")
A friend of mine who is a hockey history researcher winces at the phrase “Original Six”. It’s wrong on both levels. ---
**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2005, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nhl-history-questions/290459/4 "2005-02-17T03:56:38Z")
> [@Scruloose](#): > > OK - so why do you always hear of the “Original 6”? Where’d that come from?. The same six teams formed the entire membership of the league for 40 years, from 1926 through 1966. After 1966 the league expanded repeatedly, and some franchises relocated, so that in the memory of older fans the pre-1966 years represented an era of unusual stability and small league size. The six teams may not have been _entirely_ original, but they were so much more original than the many expansion teams, and the disorganized formative years of the league were so thoroughly forgotten, that fans began calling them the “Original Six” and the name stuck. > [@](#): > > This is something I’ve wondered for several years now - do the Brits even play organized hockey? You never really hear anything about them with regards to hockey, either in the NHL or during Olympic play. Ah, but at one time you _did_ hear about the British in Olympic play. They [won the gold medal in 1936](http://www.icehockeyhistory.co.uk/), becoming the first nation other than Canada to do so! The win wasn’t so much a tribute to British hockey, however, as a result of their being savvy enough to field a team of British-born players who had emigrated to Canada as children. ---
**Author:** ![OldGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/3bc359/32.png) [@OldGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldGuy)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2005, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nhl-history-questions/290459/5 "2005-02-17T05:44:45Z")
> [@Freddy the Pig](#): > > The same six teams formed the entire membership of the league for 40 years, from 1926 through 1966. After 1966 the league expanded repeatedly, and some franchises relocated, so that in the memory of older fans the pre-1966 years represented an era of unusual stability and small league size. The six teams may not have been _entirely_ original, but they were so much more original than the many expansion teams, and the disorganized formative years of the league were so thoroughly forgotten, that fans began calling them the “Original Six” and the name stuck. Not at all true. The “original six” were the six teams in the league only from sometime in the 40’s to 1966. I’d have to look up the exact dates and details, but in the late forties there were 10 teams in the league in a 5 team American division and a 5 team Canadian division. The American division was the four Am. teams plus Philadelphia. The Canadian division was Mont. Toronto, (and I think) Quebec and Ottawa. The last team was a second NY team called the Americans. ---
**Author:** ![RumMunkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b19c9b/32.png) [@RumMunkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RumMunkey)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2005, 11:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nhl-history-questions/290459/6 "2005-02-17T11:59:08Z")
> [@OldGuy](#): > > Not at all true. The “original six” were the six teams in the league only from sometime in the 40’s to 1966. I’d have to look up the exact dates and details, but in the late forties there were 10 teams in the league in a 5 team American division and a 5 team Canadian division. The American division was the four Am. teams plus Philadelphia. The Canadian division was Mont. Toronto, (and I think) Quebec and Ottawa. The last team was a second NY team called the Americans. The [**Philadelphia Quakers**](http://sportsecyclopedia.com/nhl/phlpit/quakers.html) played in the NHL in 1930/31 and then went into suspension because of financial problems until the franchise was defunct in 1936. Any way you slice it, the term “Original Six” is just wrong, and little more than a marketing ploy that I think started to show up on merchandise around the league’s 75th anniversary. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2005, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nhl-history-questions/290459/7 "2005-02-17T13:36:33Z")
“Original Six” is perfectly accurate. It refers to the six franchises that were currently in existance prior to expansion in 1967. When the NHL expanded, they added six teams to double the size of the league, and people needed a way to indicate the non-expansion teams, so they used “original six” to indicate the teams that were in existance at the time of expansion. It was thus the expansion teams, and the original six teams. The “original six” were the entire NHL starting in 1942-43, after the 7th team, the Brooklyn Americans (originally the NY Americans) disbanded. In addition the six teams were all in the league in starting in 1926-27 (Detroit went through a couple of nickname changes before becoming the Red Wings in 1932). So objecting to the term is pointlessly splitting hairs. Finally, “Original six” collectively refers to the New York Rangers, Boston Bruins, Chicago Black Hawks, Detroit Red Wings, Montreal Canadians, and Toronto Maple Leafs. It is absolutely accurate in that respect. ---
**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2005, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nhl-history-questions/290459/8 "2005-02-17T14:54:53Z")
My mistake, the League still had [10 teams](http://www.azhockey.com/leagues/leaguesNHL1926.html) in 1926-27 and didn’t trim down to eight until 1931, to seven in 1938, and to six in 1942 before expanding to 12 in 1967. Still, 25 years is a long time, and all of the earlier teams went belly-up, so the six survivors are far more original than anybody else.