The American Hockey Association arose from the Central Hockey League, which was a semi-professional league that itself arose from the western section of the United States Amateur Hockey Association (Duluth, Minneapolis, St. Paul), plus the Winnipeg Maroons. A team was added in Chicago, and the former Sault Ste. Marie club moved to Detroit for the 1926-27 season.
The Canadian-American Hockey League was essentially brand-spanking new for the 1926-27 season. It featured teams in Boston, Springfield, New Haven, Providence and Quebec City, and had the greatest overlap in territory with the NHL.
The Canadian Professional Hockey League was a result of the professionalization of a bunch of Ontario Hockey Association senior clubs: Hamilton, London, Niagara Falls, Stratford and Windsor.
The Prairie Hockey League arose from the remains of the Western Hockey League, and was geographically the most isolated of all the professional leagues (unless you count the California league, which was not affiliated to the rest of the leagues in any way). It included teams in Calgary, Edmonton, Regina, Saskatoon and Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan.
Here's a little map to summarize:
The AHA was about to get a much larger footprint once the oil money in Tulsa got thrown around...
ReplyDeleteThat's right, by 1930-31 the AHA still had teams in Duluth, Minneapolis and Chicago, but had also added Buffalo, St. Louis, Kansas City and Tulsa, as you say.
ReplyDeleteThere were no professional teams on the Pacific coast?
ReplyDeleteAs I mentioned under the Prairie Hockey League, there was also the California Hockey League, which was populated by expatriate Canadians but was not an official "minor league". It was independent of the system, man.
ReplyDeleteIt also wouldn't be long until the Prairie League was replaced by the Pacific Coast League, in 1928, putting pro teams Vancouver, Victoria, Portland and Seattle, taking up many of the PCHA's old haunts.