Canada accepted professional hockey in 1908 when the Ontario Professional Hockey League was formed. In 1904 Gibson formed the first acknowledged professional league, the International Pro Hockey League. The team, the Portage Lakers, was owned by a dentist named J.L. The first acknowledged professional hockey team in the world was formed in the United States, in 1903, in Houghton, Michigan.

All hockey in Canada at the time was “amateur,” since it was considered “ungentlemanly” to being paid for athletics.

In 1899 the Canadian Amateur Hockey League was formed. The sport migrated south to the United States during the 1890s, and games are known to have taken place there between Johns Hopkins and Yale Universities in 1895. Since 1927 the cup has gone to the winner of the National Hockey League playoffs. The three-foot-high silver cup became known as the Stanley Cup and was first awarded in 1892–93. In 1893 national attention was focused on the game when the Canadian governor-general, Frederick Arthur, Lord Stanley of Preston, donated a cup to be given annually to the top Canadian team. The first national hockey organization, the Amateur Hockey Association (AHA) of Canada, was formed in Montreal in 1885, and the first league was formed during the same year, with four teams: the Kingston Hockey Club, Queen’s University, the Kingston Athletics, and the Royal Military College. Some characteristics and rules used in that game, such as the length of the ice rink and the use of a puck, have been retained to this day.īy the late 1800s ice hockey began to rival lacrosse in popularity in Canada. The more modernized version of the sport that is played today was developed in eastern Canada, notably in Montreal, where the first indoor hockey game was played on Mabetween two teams of McGill University students. Around 1860, a puck was substituted for a ball. The sport of ice hockey originated in parts of Canada in the early 19th century, it is believed to have evolved from simple stick and ball games played in Europe.

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