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The American Hockey League is a professional ice hockey league with 31 franchises located in Canada and the United States. The league is called the American Hockey League and is often referred to as LAH or AHL. The AHL is structured into two associations of fifteen franchises. Each association is composed of two divisions of seven and eight formations. A typical HLA season consists of a regular season and then playoffs. During the regular season, each team plays 68 or 76 games and the top four teams in each division qualify for the playoffs. Since the 1936-1937 season, the Calder Cup has been awarded to the best team in the series.
Traditionally, AHA teams are associated with National Hockey League teams and also with lower-level leagues. The AHA franchises serve as schools for the NHL franchises. In 2006, the LAH created its first Hall of Fame to showcase personalities who have made their mark on the league’s history.
Current structure
The American Hockey League has a variable number of teams each year. The league is divided into two associations, each with two divisions for thirty teams.
Teams play 68 or 76 games during the regular season: since the 2015-2016 season, the five California-based teams (Bakersfield, San Jose, Ontario, San Diego and Stockton) have only played 68 games to reduce travel costs3. The following season, the new Tucson Roadrunner team also adopted this tactic.
Because they do not play the same number of games in the regular season, teams are ranked according to the percentage of points they have accumulated during the season compared to the number of points that were in play. The top four teams from the different divisions qualify for playoffs at the end of the regular season.
The series consists of four different stages: the divisional semi-finals, the divisional finals, the association finals and the Calder Cup final. The first round of the series is played at the best of five matches, with the first team to win three matches continuing its progression in the “qualifying tree” towards the Cup final. The following rounds are played in the best of the seven games.
The rules used in the American league are identical to those used in the national league. As the NHL’s anteroom for players, the HLA is also sometimes the ideal place to test new rules that may be adopted in the future in the NHL.
Thus, during the 2004-2005 season, many changes were tested and are currently in effect in the NHL:
- Shooting shots were introduced after extra time to determine a winner in each game.
- Cancellation of automatic offside: an attacker returning to the neutral zone without touching the puck is put back into play.
- Reduction in the size of goaltender equipment.
- Reduction of the goalkeepers’ playing area: they can no longer touch the puck outside a certain area behind their goal.
Currently, however, there is a difference between the LAH and the NHL:
Modification in 2014 of the extension format: the duration of the extension will be reduced from 5 to 7 minutes. The first 4 minutes are played 4 against 4 and then 3 against 3 after 8.
Rules concerning players
As the LAH is a development league for the NHL, its objective is to promote young talent. To this end, it has introduced the veteran rule9. This requires LAH franchises to have no more than five veterans in their line-up during a match. A player is considered a veteran if, at the beginning of the season in question, he has played a total of more than 260 combined matches in the following leagues: NHL, LAH, International Hockey League or European Elite Championship10. On July 7, 2007, the AHA and the Professional Ice Hockey Players’ Association signed a new three-year agreement effective August 31. The latter, based on the previously established rules, adds a modification to the veterans’ rule: each franchise can name a player who has played 320 or fewer professional games as a development player, thus freeing up a place for an additional veteran11.
The contracts of players playing in LAH are of four types:
SPC (Standard player’s contract): player under standard contract also commonly known as LAH contract;
PTO (Professional try-out contract): professional player on probation;
ATO (Amateur try-out contract): amateur player on trial;
NHL: player under contract with an NHL team who leaves him at the disposal of his LAH school club.
Affiliations
Since NHL teams are conventionally limited in size, they have “affiliated” with minor league teams. This allows them to recruit young players for the annual drafts while allowing them to continue their development without launching them too early into the “big bath”. In addition, these affiliated teams (also known as school clubs) provide a talent pool for NHL franchises that call on them to respond to injuries or misdeeds of players in the starting squad.
Most affiliations are concluded by a contract sealing an agreement for one or more seasons between the NHL team and the minor league team. A few exceptions should be noted, however, since some NHL teams sometimes own their own school club.
As affiliations are mainly linked to a contractual agreement, they are not fixed in time and each season, various changes lead to changes due, for some, to financial reasons58. Similarly, several NHL teams may be affiliated with the same LAH franchise. However, the teams do not share the same players who are themselves contractually bound to only one NHL team (or even only to the school club and therefore unable to access the NHL). Similarly, an NHL team may affiliate with several school clubs (as was the case for the Edmonton Oilers with five AHA franchises in the 2006-2007 Season).
Impact of the AHL
As the main cradle of the NHL’s future hopes, the American league, although it obviously does not know the excitement of the national league,60 is followed by many hockey fans. During the 2006-2007 Season, an average of nearly 5,500 spectators attended each AHL game with a record 8,671 per game played at the Hershey Bears.
During the 2005-2006 season, more than 180 matches were broadcast live by mainly local media62. In addition, the league signed a contract with B2 Networks for the live broadcast of AHL games on the Internet allowing fans to follow their team via a Pay-per-view system63. The All-Star Game, first televised in 1995, was seen by more than 100 million North American households when it was broadcast in 2007.
NHL franchise fans often keep an eye on young players and hope for a bright future in their favourite team. They are particularly interested in school clubs during the final phases (playoffs), when the NHL team is eliminated but the LAH team is still in the running, with the hope of a successful school club becoming a palliative to the elimination of the NHL franchise. Despite this, some Canadian purists are much more often attracted to the junior leagues of the Canadian Hockey League (QMJHL, OHL and OHL) than to the OHL.
League All-Star Game
The first LAH65 All-Star Game is created to raise funds to support the war effort of the United States and Canada. It took place on February 3, 1942 in Cleveland and brought together the best players from the East and West divisions.
This event did not reappear until twelve years later, in October 1954. It changes format and pits the winners of the Calder Cup from the previous season against a selection of the other top players in the LAH. It will keep this form until its seventh edition in 1959. It should be noted that Fredrick Glover (one of the top seven members of the AHA Hall of Fame) will be competing in all six games.
This show was then forgotten for thirty-six years before being reborn in 1995. The match then pits the best Canadian players against the best Americans.
The following season, in addition to the All-Star Game, skill contests appear at the event (speed, skill, fastest shot…). The appointment is renamed All Star Classic and lasts two days.
From the 1996-1997 to 2009-2010 seasons, the best Canadians compete against the best players in the world in the PlanetUSA team. Since 2011, the best players of the Western Association have been competing against those of the East.
Star Match History
In January 2006, the AHA announced the creation of its Hall of Fame, similar to the NHL Hall of Fame, to honour the most important players and builders in the league’s history.
Seven personalities who marked the American league were inducted that year during the All-Star Game. By chance or by will, the first inductees formed a complete ice hockey team: a goalie (Johnny Bower), two defenders (Frank Mathers and Eddie Shore) and three strikers (Jody Gage, Fredrick Glover and Willie Marshall) with a builder Jack Butterfield associated.