National Hockey Association
Founded in 1909 by Ambrose O'Brien, the NHA introduced six-man hockey by removing the rover position in 1911.
The remaining NHA team owners started the NHL in parallel as a temporary measure, to continue play while negotiations went on with Livingstone and other lawsuits were pending.
On November 25, 1909, the other teams in the league disbanded the ECHA and formed the new Canadian Hockey Association (CHA), which excluded the Wanderers.
With Cobalt and Haileybury, two other teams controlled by O' Brien, the NHA was founded on December 2, 1909 at a private meeting at 300 St. James Street in Montreal, and adopted the constitution of the ECHA.
The O'Briens were determined to win the Stanley Cup and a bidding war for players immediately started.
Frank and Lester Patrick were each signed by the Renfrew Millionaires for $3,000[clarification needed] apiece, the highest salaries recorded to that time.
[4] Renfrew also signed star player Cyclone Taylor of the champion Ottawa Senators team, reputedly at $5,000 per season.
Attendance at the CHA games was poor and a meeting of the NHA was held on January 15, 1910 to discuss a possible merger of the two leagues.
[5] Despite the efforts of O'Brien, who added Newsy Lalonde from the Canadiens to Renfrew, the first championship went to the Wanderers, taking over the Stanley Cup and successfully defending it against Edmonton.
[8] The players at first intended to form their own league,[9] but the arenas were under the NHA control and surrendered for that season.
[11] The NHA itself incorporated, forming a Canadian federal corporation capitalized at CA$50,000 (equivalent to $1,424,607 in 2023) divided into five hundred shares of $100 each.
The purpose of incorporation was "to encourage, develop and improve the National Canadian winter game of hockey and athletic sports and pastimes.
In that same off-season, the Patrick brothers built two arenas in Vancouver and Victoria and formed the Pacific Coast Hockey Association (PCHA).
Quebec won the league championship, winning its first Stanley Cup, defending it successfully against Moncton.
The agreement stipulated territorial rights, splitting Canada east and west of Port Arthur, Ontario.
[16] The 1913–14 season, the last before World War I, saw a tie between the Torontos and the Canadiens for first place, and the league's first play-off was held.
Prior to the 1915–16 season, Toronto Shamrocks team owner Eddie Livingstone made two moves that infuriated the NHA and the PCHA.
In 1916, the league stripped Livingstone of the Shamrocks franchise and fielded a second team in Toronto for the 1916–17 season.
A scandal ensued when several stars were subsequently discharged and alleged they had been promised commissions solely to play hockey for the military team.
Wanderers owner Sam Lichtenhein was quoted as saying, "We didn't throw Livingstone out; he's still got his franchise in the old National Hockey Association.
Wanting to balance the schedule, and feeling it unthinkable not to have a team from Canada's second-largest city, the NHL granted a temporary franchise to the Toronto Arena Company, which leased the Blueshirts' players from Livingstone pending resolution of the dispute.
The owners had launched a lawsuit against the Battalion to attempt to make the Canadian Army pay $3000 for leaving the league and this had yet to be heard in court.
The NHA's officials met nearly a year later, on September 20, 1918, when a vote was taken to permanently suspend operations over Livingstone's objections.
[24] That fall, Livingstone, along with Percy Quinn, attempted to launch a rival "Canadian Hockey Association" (CHA) unsuccessfully.
Calder considered that an NHA meeting could not proceed with shareholders not having paid legal fees owed the league books held in court for lawsuits.
The meeting ended when the NHL owners offered to pay legal fees owed to the NHA so as to proceed, according to Calder's terms, but Livingstone and Quinn refused.
[27] Separately, the Montreal and Ottawa NHA owners met and paid the fees owing to the league and Calder fined the Torontos, Ontarios and Quebec a further $200.
The league put forth several innovations, among them the division of each game into three periods, the abolition of the rover position, the institution of match penalties, and allowing line changes on the fly.
On the business side, the NHA introduced the standard contract, reserve clauses, waiver draft and the first salary cap.
The original Ottawa Senators, the oldest of the three, continued in the NHL after the NHA's disbandment, but ceased operations in 1935.
