
hockey, ice
Sport developed in
Canada
during the nineteenth century The name of its most
prestigious prize, the Stanley Cup, derives from the governor-general who donated the
owl to the hockey league. Hockey spread below the border in the early twentieth
century; the National Hockey League, built primarily around Canadian teams, was
formed in 1917. Interest in the United States grew with the bringing of franchises to
Boston, MA,
New York
City,
Chicago, IL, Detroit and
Pittsburgh,
and then in the
1970s to
Philadelphia, PA
and Hartford among other cities.
Since 1980, the sport’s base has shifted to the United States, a development
symbolized in the trading of Wayne Gretzky, “the Great One,” from the Edmonton Oilers
to the
Los Angeles, CA
Kings in 1988. Two years later the NHL created its first
expansion team in
Florida
. Once dominated by Canadian teams, at the end of the 1996–7
season the NHL had twenty-six teams, only six of which were in Canada.
Part of this growth in the US has been owing to the sport’s profitability (until recent
fears that it may have overextended itself). As in other sports, hockey teams are owned
by corporate giants such as
Disney
and by major
mass media
and cable companies.
These teams hold cities to ransom, bargaining for new leases on their arenas or for more
funding from taxpayer dollars, threatening to move if their demands are not met. They are
able to do so because city
mayors
and
governors
are constantly battling to win
expansion teams or attract a team willing to relocate. Hockey, associated with white
suburbanites who flock to the city for every game, brings in revenue. The game has never
attempted to appeal to
inner-city
populations. There have been almost no
African
Americans
in the league, and there are very few black and minority fans in the bleachers.
Another significant development of recent years has been the internationalization o
NHL players. The game had long been an
Olympic
sport and northern European teams
did very well (the Olympics were one reason for hockey’s hold in colleges, since until the
1990s American Olympians were generally drawn from college ranks). Some of these
athletes, beginning with the Swedes in the 1970s, came to the United States drawn by the
high salaries. With the end of the
Cold War,
a large number of Russians and Czechs
made use of their new freedom to emigrate. During the 1995–6 season, of the 640 players
in the league, 389 were Canadian, only 108 were American, while there were 42
Russians, 34 Swedes and 26 Czechs.
This has resulted in a change in the way the game is played. The Canadian game was
noted for its extremely physical aspect, Gretzky’s agility and grace being the exception.
Players wear padding and helmets, not only to protect themselves from the inevitable
contact (particularly since the game is played with a stick, and the hard rubber puck can
travel at high speeds), but also because the game is marked by brawling, believed to
Entries A-Z 545