The Original Six era of the National Hockey League (NHL) began in 1942 with the demise of the Brooklyn Americans, reducing the league to six teams: Boston Bruins, Chicago Black Hawks, Detroit Red Wings, Montreal Canadiens, New York Rangers, and Toronto Maple Leafs. This structure remained stable for a quarter century; the era ended in 1967 when the NHL doubled in size adding six expansion teams.

The Stanley Cup, having been the de facto championship since 1926, became the de jure championship in 1947, when the NHL completed a deal with the Stanley Cup trustees to gain control of the Cup. Toronto and Montreal evidenced dynasties, as the Maple Leafs won the Stanley Cup nine times during this period, including three consecutive titles from 1962 to 1964 and the final Original Six Stanley Cup, in , while the Canadiens won ten times, including five consecutive titles from 1956 to 1960.

Maurice Richard became the first player to score 50 goals in a season in . In 1955, Richard was suspended for assaulting a linesman, leading to the Richard Riot. Gordie Howe made his debut in 1946, retiring 32 years later as the NHL's all-time leader in both goals and points. Willie O'Ree broke the NHL's colour barrier when he dressed for the Bruins in 1958.

The NHL continued to develop throughout the era. In 1943, in an attempt to 'open up' the game, the league introduced the centre-ice red line allowing players for the first time to pass out of their defensive zone. In 1959, Jacques Plante became the first goaltender to regularly wear a face mask for protection. Off the ice, the business of hockey was changing as well. The first amateur draft was held in 1963 as part of efforts to balance talent distribution within the league. The National Hockey League Players' Association was formed in 1967, ten years after Ted Lindsay's attempts at unionization failed.

Background

In the 1930s and early 1940s, both the Great Depression and World War II were detrimental to the NHL. Although the league peaked at ten teams between 1926 and 1931, financial pressures led to the demise of several of these. In 1930, the Pittsburgh Pirates relocated to become the Philadelphia Quakers before folding in 1931. In 1934, the Ottawa Senators became the St. Louis Eagles, and likewise ceased operations after one year in their new market. The Montreal Maroons suspended operations in 1937 as the Montreal market was unable to support two teams. The New York Americans, renamed the Brooklyn Americans, suspended operations in 1942, citing financial difficulty, and a lack of players due to the war. By the 1942–43 season, the league was reduced to six teams. Those six teams are now known, somewhat misleadingly, as the "Original Six". There would be no more expansion or contraction until 1967.

There was also change at the top; in February 1943, league President Frank Calder collapsed during a meeting, dying shortly after. After receiving assurances from the league the Brooklyn franchise he operated would resume play after the war, Red Dutton agreed to take over as president. When the other team owners reneged on this promise in 1946, Dutton resigned as league president. In 1946, with Dutton's recommendation, Clarence Campbell was named president of the NHL. Campbell remained until retirement in 1977. Campbell's tenure matched the league's stability. For the first 21 years of his presidency, the same six teams competed for the Stanley Cup; that period has been called the "golden age of hockey". The NHL featured increasingly intense rivalries coupled with rule innovations that opened up the game.

World War II and post-war period

World War II extensively ravaged the rosters of many teams; by the 1943–44 season teams battled each other for players. In need of a goaltender, the Bruins won a fight with the Canadiens over the services of Bert Gardiner. Meanwhile, the Rangers were forced to lend forward Phil Watson to the Canadiens in exchange for two players, as Watson was required in Montreal for a war job, and refused permission to play in New York.

With only five returning players from the previous season, Rangers general manager Lester Patrick suggested suspension of his team's play for the duration of the war. Patrick was otherwise persuaded; however, the Rangers managed only six wins in a 50-game schedule, giving up 310 goals that year. The Rangers were so desperate for players that 42-year-old coach Frank Boucher made a brief comeback, recording four goals and ten assists in 15 games. That year the Canadiens dominated the league, finishing with a 38–5–7 record. Five losses remains a league record for the fewest in one season; the Canadiens did not lose a game on home ice. Their 1944 Stanley Cup victory was the team's first in 14 seasons. The Canadiens dominated the succeeding 1944–45 season, finishing with a 38–8–4 record. They were defeated in the playoffs by the underdog Maple Leafs, who eventually won the Cup.

NHL teams exclusively competed for the Stanley Cup following the 1926 demise of the Western Hockey League. Though rejected by Cup trustees for various reasons, in the intervening years other teams, and leagues, attempted to challenge for the Cup. In 1947, the NHL reached an agreement with trustees P. D. Ross and Cooper Smeaton to grant Cup control to the NHL, thereby allowing the league to reject challenges from other leagues. The last such challenge came in 1953, from the Cleveland Barons of the American Hockey League; it was rejected, as the AHL was not considered of equivalent calibre to the NHL, which was a condition of the NHL's 'deal' with trustees.

The Hockey Hall of Fame was established in 1943 under the leadership of James T. Sutherland, a former President of the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association (CAHA). The Hall of Fame was established as a joint venture between the NHL and the CAHA, in Kingston, Ontario, considered by Sutherland the birthplace of hockey. Originally called the "International Hockey Hall of Fame", its mandate was to honor great hockey players and to raise funds for a permanent location. The first eleven honored members were inducted on April 30, 1945. Not until 1961 did the Hockey Hall of Fame establish a permanent home at Exhibition Place in Toronto.

On October 13, 1947, to raise money for the newly created NHL Pension Society, the first official All-Star Game took place at Toronto's Maple Leaf Gardens. The NHL All-Stars defeated the Toronto Maple Leafs 4–3 and raised C$25,000 for the pension fund. The All-Star Game remains an annual tradition.

"Rocket" Richard The 1940s Canadiens were led by the "Punch line" of Elmer Lach, Toe Blake and Maurice "Rocket" Richard. In 1944–45, Lach, Richard and Blake finished first, second and third in the NHL's scoring race with 80, 73 and 67 points, respectively. Richard became a media and fan focus with attempts to score 50 goals in a 50-game season, a feat no other player had accomplished in league history. During that season, in a 9–1 victory over Detroit on December 28, 1944, Richard set a single-game scoring record, scoring five goals and three assists. Later scoring his 45th goal in his 42nd game, he broke Joe Malone's goal scoring record. Opposing teams did all they could to prevent him from reaching the 50-goal mark: he was slashed, elbowed and held, as no team wanted to be known for giving up the 50th goal. Despite the opposition's efforts, in Boston at 17:45 of the third period of Montreal's final game of the season, Richard scored his 50th goal. Until Mike Bossy in 1980–81, no other player scored 50 goals in 50 games.

In March 1955, Richard was suspended for the remainder of the season, including the playoffs, after receiving a match penalty for slashing Boston's Hal Laycoe then punching a linesman who attempted to intervene. The suspension created a wave of anger towards Campbell, who was warned not to attend a scheduled game in Montreal after receiving numerous death threats, mainly from French-Canadians accusing him of anti-French bias. Dismissing the warnings, Campbell attended the March 17 game, as planned. His presence was interpreted by many fans as provocation; he was booed, and pelted with eggs and fruit; an hour into the game, a fan lobbed a tear-gas bomb in Campbell's direction; firefighters decided to clear the building. A riot ensued outside the Forum as disenchanted fans leaving the Forum were met by a growing mob of angry demonstrators; the hostile crowd overwhelmed 250 police officers on the scene. Seventy people were arrested, another 37 people were injured; fifty stores were looted, and $100,000 in property damage was reported, in what became known as l'affaire Richard, or the Richard Riot.

The following day, Richard went on Montreal radio to ask fans to cease rioting, and instead support the Canadiens in the playoffs; he offered to take his punishment then come back the following year to win the Cup. While the Canadiens were eliminated in the 1955 Stanley Cup Final, Richard led Montreal to the 1956 Stanley Cup. The incident highlighted the growing cultural gap between French Quebec and English Canada; the riot is often characterized as an early manifestation of Quebec's Quiet Revolution. Campbell's decision to suspend Richard was widely supported by fans outside of Quebec. Some, including Detroit's Ted Lindsay, said the suspension did not go far enough and argued Richard, a man who had paid more fines than any other player in league history, should have been banned for life.

On October 19, 1957, Richard became the first player to score 500 career goals. He retired in 1960, as an eight-time Stanley Cup champion, as well as the NHL's all-time leading scorer, with 544 goals. In 1961, the league waived the customary three-year waiting period; Richard was elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame.

Hockey Night in Canada In the fall of 1951, in an attempt to determine whether it was a suitable medium for broadcasting hockey games, Conn Smythe watched special television feeds of Maple Leaf games. Television already had detractors within the NHL, especially Campbell who declared it "the greatest menace of the entertainment world". In 1952, even though only 10% of Canadians owned a television set, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) began televising games. On November 1, 1952, Hockey Night in Canada was first broadcast on television, with Foster Hewitt calling the action between the Leafs and Bruins at Maple Leaf Gardens. The broadcasts quickly became the highest-rated show on Canadian television. The broadcast came three weeks after Montreal radio host René Lecavalier presented a French-language telecast of the Montreal Canadiens' opener against Chicago, marking the beginning of La Soirée du hockey, which Radio-Canada, the French arm of the CBC, broadcast until 2004. On that same night, Danny Gallivan made his debut as the English language play-by-play announcer for the Canadiens.

While Campbell feared televised hockey would cause people to stop attending games in person, Smythe felt the opposite. "There'll be thousands of people seeing hockey as played by the pros for the first time. They'll be sold on it because it's a great game, and they won't be satisfied to stay [at home] but will turn out to the rinks." As an experiment in the 1956–57 season, CBS first broadcast hockey games in the United States. Amazed with the initial popularity of the broadcasts, it inaugurated a 21-game package of games the following year. The NHL itself adapted to become viewer-friendly. In 1949, to make the puck easier to see, the league mandated the ice surface painted white. In 1951, so each team was distinguishable on black and white television, the League required home teams wear colored jerseys, and the road teams wear white. For the same reason, teams painted the centre red line in a checkered pattern to set it apart from the solid blue lines.

Dynasties

Toronto Maple Leafs