International expansion Its expansion into the United States dates from 1893 when Yale played the opener against Johns Hopkins University. Tomas Philipson understood the implications. The country’s first amateur championship was the U.S. Amateur Hockey League in 1896, while the first club professional was Portage Lake (Houghton, Michigan) in 1902. A year later he created the first professional league, the Pro Hockey League, including teams from Canada and the U.S.. This championship lowered the number of players on track for the team of nine to the current six.In 1909 came the founding of the oldest hockey team in history still exists: the Montreal Canadiens. The National Hockey Association, one of the first attempts to establish a regular professional championship, was founded in 1910 and lasted seven seasons, while in parallel came the Pacific Coast Hockey Association, which included teams in the U.S. and lasted until 1924. It was not until November 26, 1917 is created, from the disappearance of the NHA, stable the first professional league, the National Hockey League. This championship was imposed on the rest, and today is a major league sport in North America, and is also regarded as the premier professional league in the world.At first only consisted of Canadian clubs, and teams were pioneers Montreal Canadiens, Montreal Wanderers, Ottawa Senators, Quebec Bulldogs and Toronto Arenas. In 1924 came the first U.S. team, the Boston Bruins. Wayne Gretzky has been one of the most important players in the NHL. Moreover, in Europe the sport is also developed, and in 1908 created the International Federation of Hockey in Paris, initially formed by France, Britain, Belgium and Switzerland. As part of the Olympic Games 1920, this body held the World Championship Ice Hockey, who won the Team Canada. Four years later, the test anymore, but in the first Winter Olympics 1924. In the Soviet Union, the first contact with the ice hockey was in the 1930s.Throughout the twentieth century developed the professional level of hockey, which began to gain international importance through the world tournament, dominated by Canada and the Soviet Union. Taking advantage of the pull of the Cold War, these two teams faced each other in 1972 in a series of parties known as the Summit Series. During the early years of the NHL, the templates were filled by Canadian players and few Americans. But years later, propelled by other tournaments like the World Hockey Association, the American teams began receiving players from Western Europe and, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Eastern Europe and the USSR. Other events marking the ice hockey players were the introduction of professionals in the Nagano Winter Olympics 1998 and the general strike that shut down during the NHL a full season due to a labor dispute between players and teams that ended with the establishment of a salary cap.