Western Pennsylvania Hockey League
| Sport | Ice hockey |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1896 |
| Founder | James Wallace Conant, Andrew McSwigan, Arthur Sixsmith |
| Inaugural season | 1896 |
| Ceased | 1910 |
| Country |
 United States
|
| Last champion(s) |
Pittsburgh Bankers |
| Most titles | Pittsburgh Athletic Club (3) and Pittsburgh Bankers (3) |
The Western Pennsylvania Hockey League (WPHL), was a semi-professional ice hockey league founded in 1896 and existing through the 1910s. Based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the league was the pre-eminent ice hockey league at the time in the United States. It was the first league to openly hire and trade players.
In 1895, Pittsburgh officials, constructed the Schenley Park Casino which featured the first artificial ice-making plant in North America. The 1895-96 winter season also saw the first introduction of hockey in the city. On December 30, 1895, the Pittsburgh Press made mention of a “great international hockey and polo tournament” opening game at the Casino. The newspaper reported that a team consisting of ten players from Queen's University played against a group of local players from Western University (today the University of Pittsburgh) and Pittsburgh Catholic College of the Holy Ghost (today Duquesne University) and a half-hour of exhibition of hockey was played before the polo match. The paper noted that 2,500 to 3,000 fans showed up to watch the game, despite claims of bad weather. No score or records were reportedly kept but the paper did note that the team from Queen's University outplayed the Pittsburghers, who had never played the game before.
The city quickly realized that in order to make money they would need to have more events than just speed skating, family skates and costume parties to make money. They decided that since hockey was a relatively new game, it could catch on in Pittsburgh. Sometime between the Queen's game and November 1896, the Casino's management decided to organize two leagues at the rink; an inter-scholastic league for high schools, and a senior ice hockey amateur league named the Western Pennsylvania League.
The league played its first season in 1896–97 at the Casino, with four teams—the Pittsburgh Athletic Club (PAC), the Duquesne Country & Athletic Club (or Pittsburgh Duquesne), Western University of Pennsylvania (the University of Pittsburgh today) and a team known as Pittsburgh, or the 'Casino' team. The PAC was managed by Charles S. Miller, who became the league's president.
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