Ligue Nord-Americaine de Hockey
Ligue nord-américaine's logo
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| Sport | Ice hockey |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1996 |
| No. of teams | 7 |
| Country | Canada |
| Most recent champion(s) |
Rivière-du-Loup 3L |
| Official website | www |
The Ligue Nord-Américaine de Hockey (North American Hockey League) (LNAH) is a low-level professional league based in the Canadian province of Quebec. It was founded as the Quebec Semi-Pro Hockey League (QSPHL) in 1996, and became fully professional and assumed its current name in 2004. It has no connection with the similarly named North American Hockey League, an American junior league for players under twenty. Teams in the LNAH compete for the Futura Cup, which has been awarded annually since 1997.
Unlike higher-level professional leagues, such as the American Hockey League or the ECHL, the LNAH is not known for its skill level. Its teams employ many enforcers and has a rather infamous reputation for on-ice antics, primarily fisticuffs. The LNAH has the unofficial reputation as the world's toughest hockey league; a New York Times article stated that the league averaged 3.2 fights a game during the 2010–11 season, compared with 0.6 fights in the National Hockey League.
Despite this reputation, many of the players are ex-NHL or ex-AHL players; Patrick Côté, Michel Picard, Stéphane Richer, Bobby Dollas, Guillaume Lefebvre, Garrett Burnett, Daniel Shank, François Leroux, Jeremy Stevenson, Éric Fichaud, Mario Roberge, David Gosselin, Michel Ouellet, Jesse Bélanger, Donald Brashear, Yves Racine, Anthony Stewart and Juraj Kolník. During the 2004–05 NHL lockout, some NHL players played the entire season in the league, such as Sylvain Blouin, Donald Brashear, Sébastien Caron, Mathieu Biron, Marc-André Bergeron and Sébastien Charpentier. The league has a rule that stipulates that all players must either have come from Quebec, or played junior hockey in Quebec.
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Wikipedia