The Stanley Cup is a trophy awarded annually to the playoff champion club of the National Hockey League (NHL) hockey league. It had been donated by the Governor General of Canada Lord Stanley of Preston in 1892, and is the oldest professional sports trophy in North America. [1] Inscribed the Dominion Hockey Challenge Cup, the prize was awarded to Canada’s amateur ice hockey clubs who won the prize as the result of battle games and league playwith. Professional clubs came to dominate the competition in the first years of the twentieth century, and in 1913 the two major professional hockey organizations, the National Hockey Association (NHA) (forerunner of the NHL) and the Pacific Coast Hockey Association (PCHA), attained a gentlemen’s agreement where their individual winners will face each other at an yearly series for the Stanley Cup. Following a set of league mergers and folds, it became the de facto championship trophy of the NHL in 1926, although it was nominally still matter to external challenge. The Cup became the de jure NHL championship trophy.
\nFrom 1914 to the end of the 2019 year, the trophy has been won 101 times. 25 teams have won the cup, 20 of which are still active from the NHL. Prior to that, nine teams held the battle cup. The Montreal Canadiens have won the Stanley Cup 24 days and made the finals an additional ten times. There were just two years when the Stanley Cup was not given: 1919, because of the Spanish influenza epidemic, and 2005, because of the NHL lockout.The roots of this Challenge age come from the technique of drama of the Amateur Hockey Association of Canada prior to 1893. From 1887 to 1893, the team didn’t play with a round-robin format, but instead challenges involving teams of the institution that year, together with the winner of the series being the’interim’ champion, with the last challenge winner getting the league champion for the year. The Stanley Cup kept the tradition going, but extra league championships as another way a team will win the trophy. If a team in the same league as the current champion won the league championship, it might then inherit the Cup, without a challenge. The only time this rule was not followed was 1904, when the Ottawa Senators club withdrew out of its league, the CAHL. The trustees ruled the Cup stayed with Ottawa, rather than the CAHL league winner.
\nDuring the battle cup interval, not one of the leagues who played for the prize needed a formal playoff system to pick their respective champions; whichever group finished in first place after the regular season won the league name. [2] A playoff could just be performed if teams tied to first-place within their leagues in the conclusion of the regular season. Challenge matches have been played until 1912 at any time during baseball season by challenges approved or ordered from the Stanley Cup trustees. In 1912, Cup trustees declared that it was just to be defended at the end of the champion team’s regular season. [3]
\nIn 1908, the Allan Cup was introduced since the prize for Canada’s amateurs, as the Stanley Cup became a symbol of professional hockey supremacy. [4]
\nThis table lists the results of all Stanley Cup wins, including powerful successes and guards in challenges, and league championships for the challenge era.<\/p>\n