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American Hockey League history
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The Buffalo Bisons last only 11 games before withdrawing from the league in December of 1936, citing financial hardships due to having to play their home games in Niagara Falls, Ont.
Two of these, the Canadian-American (Can-Am) league, and the Canadian Professional (Can-Pro) loop combined to form one league, the International-American Hockey League, in 1936-37.
The Hershey Bears play their final game at historic Hersheypark Arena, which first opened its doors in 1936.
Despite winning a Stanley cup, the Montreal Maroons withdrew from the NHL following the 1937-38 season.
Since 1937, teams in the AHL have competed in the playoff championships for the Calder Cup, named for the first president of the league, Frank Calder.
On June 28, 1938, the two founding leagues officially dissolve and the merger is completed, with Podoloff being elected the first President of the IAHL and Chick being named vice president.
The Cleveland Barons win the Calder Cup in 1938-39, and the league adds a ninth team the following year when the Indianapolis Capitals are granted membership.
The Hershey Bears are the only remaining original team from the IHL to play without interruption since 1938.
In July 1939, future Hall of Famer Eddie Shore, still active as a defenseman with the Boston Bruins, purchases the Springfield Indians, beginning an extraordinary tenure in the western Massachusetts city.
Providence wins the Calder Cup again in 1940.
What was originally known as the I-AHL was renamed the American Hockey League in 1940 after several seasons.
The Cleveland Barons win the 1941 Calder Cup led by Les Cunningham, the league scoring champion and a five-time AHL All-Star.
In February 1942, the AHL holds an All-Star Game to raise funds for the war efforts in the United States and Canada.
Springfield is forced out of its arena in 1942-43 when it is taken over by the United States Quartermaster for use during World War II; Eddie Shore moves his players to Buffalo and takes control of the Bisons franchise.
By 1943-44 there was only 12 pro teams in the NHL and AHL combined as most of the best pro players were scattered throughout senior or military leagues all across North America.
Buffalo goalie Gordie Bell – just 17 years old – posts nine shutouts and leads the Bisons to the Calder Cup in 1943, their first of two straight titles.
The St Louis Flyers join the AHL in 1944 and draw 13,384 fans for their inaugural game, setting a league record.
Cleveland and Pittsburgh play what is still the highest-scoring game in AHL history, a 12-10 Barons win on March 17, 1945.
As the war drew to an end in 1946-47 the new United States Hockey League was formed.
Cleveland Barons sniper Johnny Holota becomes the first player in AHL history to score 50 or more goals when he nets 52 during the 1946-47 season, and Phil Hergesheimer wins the scoring title with 92 points despite playing on a Philadelphia Rockets team that goes 5-52-7.
The Buffalo Bisons set a single-game scoring mark in a 16-4 win over Philadelphia on November 14, 1948.
The Cincinnati Mohawks join the AHL in 1949-50.
A young Johnny Bower leads the Cleveland Barons to the 1951 Calder Cup.
NHL hockey was first broadcast on television on October 9, 1952, from the Montreal Forum, where the Canadiens hosted Chicago in the season opener.
Head coach King Clancy, 30-goal scorer George Armstrong and star defensemen Tim Horton and Frank Mathers help the Pittsburgh Hornets to the Calder Cup in 1952.
George “Red” Sullivan records 89 assists for the Hershey Bears in 1953-54, a single-season record that still stands today.
The Cleveland Barons win the Calder Cup in 1953, defeating Pittsburgh, 1-0 in overtime, in Game 7 of the Finals on a goal from defenseman Bob Chrystal.
The All-Star Game returns in October 1954, with a team of AHL stars facing the defending champion Cleveland Barons to raise money for a players’ emergency fund.
Zellio Toppazzini wins the scoring title with 113 points and Johnny Bower captures the first of his three consecutive MVP awards in leading the Providence Reds to a Calder Cup title in 1955-56.
The Rochester Americans join the league in 1956-57 and promptly go to the Calder Cup Finals where they lose to Cleveland.
Player/coach Frank Mathers and business manager Baz Bastien move from Pittsburgh to Hershey in 1957-58 and promptly lead the Bears to consecutive championships.
When the Quebec Aces are admitted to the league in August 1959, the AHL has its first true Canadian-based team.
The first attempt was made by CBS with its 'Game of the Week' package that began with the 1959-60 season.
Art Stratton enters the AHL record book with a nine-point game for the Buffalo Bisons in 1962-63.
Rochester wins its first title in 1964-65, with future NHL coaches Al Arbour, Don Cherry and Gerry Cheevers leading the way on the ice.
The AHL’s 80th-anniversary season ends with a Finals matchup between two of the league’s most tenured cities, and the Lake Erie Monsters complete a 15-2 postseason run with a sweep of Hershey to bring the Calder Cup to Cleveland for the first time since 1964.
Springfield Indians GM Jack Butterfield is named interim president of the AHL in August 1966 and is formally elected a year later; he will go on to guide the league for nearly three decades.
The Pittsburgh Hornets win the Calder Cup in 1967, their final act in the AHL before giving way to the NHL expansion Penguins the next season.
The Los Angeles Kings purchase Eddie Shore’s players from him in 1967-68 and rename his franchise the Springfield Kings.
Under the direction of general manager Sam Pollock, the Montreal Canadiens become the first NHL team to own and operate their AHL affiliate in the same market; the Voyageurs begin play at the Montreal Forum in 1969.
The Buffalo Bisons win their fifth and final Calder Cup in 1970, then cease operations as the NHL’s Sabres begin play.
By 1970 two more teams joined: the Buffalo Sabres and Vancouver Canucks.
Former teammates Willie Marshall and Mike Nykoluk both retire after the 1971-72 season, ending two of the most prolific careers in league history; Marshall finishes as the AHL’s all-time leader in goals (523), assists (852), points (1,375) and games played (1,205).
While two additional teams joined the league in 1972, the Atlanta Flames and New York Islanders, a group of Canadian promoters formed the World Hockey Association.
1972: World Hockey Association begins play and challenges NHL supremacy.
The Cincinnati Swords are the class of the league, rolling to the 1973 Calder Cup following a 54-win regular season; the Cup-clinching game, played at the Aud in Buffalo, draws 15,019 fans.
Clarence Campbell assured the NHL Board of Governors that the WHA would fold before the start of the 1973-74 season.
In 1974-75, Rochester’s Doug Gibson becomes the first player ever to lead the AHL in goals, assists and points in the same season.
By 1974 no United States television network was interested in broadcasting NHL hockey.
Despite the crippling effects of the league war, the NHL continued to expand, adding the Washington Capitals and Kansas City Scouts for the 1975-76 season.
After just six teams play in 1976-77, the AHL adds franchises over the next three years in Portland, Maine; Binghamton, N.Y.; Moncton, N.B.; and Glens Falls, N.Y.
During this period, NHL players met the Soviets in an eight-game Summit Series, which led to the 1976 Canada Cup tournament that featured four European national teams.
AHL teams begin a tradition of hosting exhibitions against clubs from the Soviet Union in 1977-78, as Dynamo Moscow visits six league arenas.
After serving 31 years as president of the NHL, he was eased out, replaced in 1977 by John A. Ziegler, Jr., The most pressing matter for Ziegler to address, of course, was the war with the WHA that was crippling owners in both leagues.
The Hershey Bears’ schedule is disrupted late in the 1978-79 season when Hersheypark Arena becomes a shelter in the aftermath of the nuclear accident at nearby Three Mile Island.
After much back-channel negotiating, the war finally came to an end in 1979 when four WHA teams were added to the NHL: the Edmonton Oilers, Hartford Whalers, Quebec Nordiques, and Winnipeg Jets.
1979: Four World Hockey Association teams join the NHL.
With prospects from both the Chicago Blackhawks and Toronto Maple Leafs, the New Brunswick Hawks finish with the AHL’s best record in 1981-82 and go on to win the Calder Cup.
The Binghamton Whalers’ Ross Yates (125 points) edges the St Catharines Saints’ Bruce Boudreau (122) for the 1982-83 scoring title.
New Haven’s 4-OT win over Rochester in the first round of the 1982 playoffs breaks a 44-year-old AHL record for the longest game.
Under head coach Mike Keenan, Rochester defeats Maine for the 1983 Calder Cup; a year later, Maine beats Rochester to earn its third championship in seven seasons.
The 1984-85 Baltimore Skipjacks win a league-record 16 consecutive games and reach the Calder Cup Finals, but they fall to the Sherbrooke Canadiens and their 19-year-old rookie goaltender Patrick Roy, fresh out of junior hockey.
Paul Gardner follows up a 130-point campaign with 112 points in 1985-86, becoming the first player in over 20 years to win consecutive AHL scoring titles.
The AHL institutes a shootout to break ties in 1986-87.
The AHL drops the shootout in favor of awarding a point for an overtime loss in 1987-88.
His trade from Edmonton to the Los Angeles Kings in 1988 arguably saved that franchise and created the momentum for later expansion of the NHL to the Sun Belt cities of the United States.
The United Hockey League, which was founded as the Colonial Hockey League in 1991.
In the playoffs, the first-year Texas Stars reach the Finals but fall to Hershey as the Bears become the AHL’s first repeat champions since 1991.
The NHL suffered its first labor disruption in April 1992 when a players' strike interrupted play for ten days.
The "new" Central Hockey League began operations in 1992-93.
The Binghamton Rangers are the story of the 1992-93 regular season, losing just 13 of 80 games while forward Don Biggs sets the league’s single-season scoring mark with 138 points.
In the meantime, Bettman was forced to deal with a strike by on-ice officials in November 1993.
For the league’s 60th anniversary in 1995-96, the AHL adds teams in Baltimore and Greensboro, N.C., and is realigned into four divisions and two conferences for the first time.
In 1996-97, the Philadelphia Phantoms and Kentucky Thoroughblades join the league and finish 1-2 in attendance.
To help these Canadian franchises, the NHL adopted an assistance plan in 1996.
The Hartford Wolf Pack, who moved into Connecticut’s capital when the NHL’s Whalers departed in 1997, capture the city’s first-ever pro hockey championship as John Paddock becomes the first head coach to win Calder Cups with three different teams.
Philadelphia sets another AHL attendance record in 1998-99, averaging 12,002 fans per game.
Beginning in 1998 the game pitted 'North America' versus 'the World.'
In its first season on Fox, the NHL averaged a 2.0 rating, but by 1999 the numbers had dipped to 1.4, prompting Fox to drop hockey from its schedule.
However, there are many more teams in the AHL you don’t get to see often and while the Penguins had their first season in 1999, the AHL’s history is much older.
A redesigned Calder Cup trophy is unveiled in 2000-01, and the Saint John Flames bring a championship to Atlantic Canada.
As the league continued to expand, adding the Columbus Blue Jackets and Minnesota Wild for the 2000-01 season, to bring the number of franchises to 30, the pool of player talent changed in composition.
2000: Two new teams join the NHL--the Columbus Blue Jackets and the Minnesota Wild--and the league totals 30 franchises.
Bolstered by a dual affiliation with Montreal and Edmonton, the Hamilton Bulldogs dominate the 2002-03 regular season before being derailed by Houston in a classic seven-game Finals series.
The Toronto Marlies set the pace from start to finish, leading the league with 54 wins and 112 points during the regular season before outlasting Texas in the first seven-game Calder Cup Finals since 2003.
The NHL’s lockout of 2004-05 provides the AHL with some of its brightest young talent ever.
Several facets of the NHL’s new rules package are adopted by the AHL, which marks its 70th anniversary in 2005-06.
The Board of Governors overwhelmingly approves the mandatory use of protective visors by all AHL players beginning in 2006-07.
Chicago comes back in 2007-08 and wins its second Calder Cup, holding off Wilkes-Barre/Scranton in six games in the Finals.
Hershey reaches the Calder Cup Finals for the third time in four years in 2008-09 and wins its record 10th championship with a six-game series victory over the Manitoba Moose.
The first-ever outdoor game in AHL history highlights the 2009-10 season, as the Syracuse Crunch draw a league-record 21,508 fans to the New York State Fairgrounds for a meeting with the Binghamton Senators.
The AHL reaches 30 active teams for the first time in 2010-11.
The Norfolk Admirals put together one of the greatest seasons in AHL history in 2011-12, garnering headlines around the world with their professional-hockey record 28-game winning streak.
The first three months of the 2012-13 AHL season are headlined by an even greater influx of young talent in the wake of an NHL work stoppage.
The AHL returns to Utica, N.Y., in 2013-14 as the Comets begin play at a renovated Memorial Auditorium.
Wilkes-Barre/Scranton rookie Matt Murray sets several records during the 2014-15 season, including the longest shutout streak ever by an AHL goaltender (304:11). The AHL adopts a new overtime format that includes time played at 3-on-3, bringing even more excitement to the extra period.
The AHL’s geography changes dramatically in 2015-16 with the formation of a Pacific Division and the addition of five teams in California.
Wilkes-Barre/Scranton finishes with the best regular-season record in the AHL while continuing to develop Stanley Cup champions: 2016-17 AHL All-Rookie forward Jake Guentzel leads the NHL with 13 playoff goals as Pittsburgh wins its second straight title.
In 2017-18, the AHL welcomes Laval, Que., and Belleville, Ont., to the league.
The Colorado Eagles join the AHL in 2018-19, bringing the league to 31 teams for the first time.
With teams gearing up for a run at the Calder Cup Playoffs, the 2019-20 season is abruptly suspended on March 12 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
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American Hockey League competitors
| Company name | Founded date | Revenue | Employee size | Job openings |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ECHL | 1988 | $5.0M | 12 | - |
| Cincinnati Cyclones | 1995 | $3.4M | 51 | - |
| Ontario Reign | 2008 | $2.2M | 80 | - |
| New York Red Bulls | 1994 | $19.0M | 539 | 17 |
| St. Louis Blues | - | $510,000 | 25 | 3 |
| Carolina Hurricanes | - | $28.0M | 357 | 15 |
| Manchester Monarchs | 2001 | $4.1M | 42 | - |
| Minnesota Vikings | 1961 | $26.5M | 497 | - |
| Orange Bowl | 1935 | $50.0M | 20 | 2 |
| Lowell Spinners | 1996 | $5.0M | 125 | - |
American Hockey League history FAQs
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