The

American Hockey League The American Hockey League (AHL) is a professional ice hockey league based in the United States and Canada that serves as the primary developmental league for the National Hockey League (NHL). Since the 2010–11 season, every team in the lea ...

is a minor professional ice hockey league in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

and

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by to ...

. It serves as the top developmental league for the

National Hockey League The National Hockey League (NHL; french: Ligue nationale de hockey—LNH, ) is a professional ice hockey sports league, league in North America comprising 32 teams—25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. It is considered to be the top ranke ...

. The league played its first season in

1936 Events January–February * January 20 – George V of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions and Emperor of India, dies at his Sandringham Estate. The Prince of Wales succeeds to the throne of the United Kingdom as King E ...

as the International-American Hockey League, a "circuit of mutual convenience" formed when the Northeast-based

Canadian-American Hockey League Canadian Americans is a term that can be applied to American citizens whose ancestry is wholly or partly Canadian, or citizens of either country that hold dual citizenship. The term ''Canadian'' can mean a nationality or an ethnicity. Canadian ...

and the Midwest-based International Hockey League agreed to play an interlocking schedule. After two seasons, the leagues formally merged into a unified league under the IAHL name. After the 1939–40 season, the league became known as the American Hockey League. The 1938–39 season—the IAHL's first as a fully merged league—saw the two-time defending

Eastern Amateur Hockey League The Eastern Hockey League was a minor professional United States ice hockey league. Eastern Amateur Hockey League (1933–1953) The league was founded in 1933 as the Eastern Amateur Hockey League (EAHL). The league was founded by Tommy Lockhart, ...

champion

Hershey Bears The Hershey Bears are a professional ice hockey team based in Hershey, Pennsylvania, a town located 14 miles east of the state capital of Harrisburg. The current Bears club has played in the American Hockey League since the 1938–39 season maki ...

added as an eighth member club to replace the

Buffalo Bisons The Buffalo Bisons (known colloquially as the Herd) are a Minor League Baseball team of the International League and the Triple-A affiliate of the Toronto Blue Jays. Located in Buffalo, New York, the team plays their home games at Sahlen F ...

that had been forced to fold 11 games into the 1936–37 season when the roof of its arena collapsed in a snowstorm. The Bears remain the oldest continuously operating hockey team in any league in North America outside of the NHL. The

Rochester Americans The Rochester Americans (colloquially known as the Amerks) are a professional ice hockey team in the American Hockey League; the team is an owned and operated affiliate of the Buffalo Sabres. The team plays its home games in Rochester, New York, a ...

, who joined as an expansion team for the 1956–57 season, are the second oldest.

Seasons

*Franchises in their current form are in boldface, i.e. Hershey Bears.

References

AHL official siteAHL Hall of Fame
- at Internet Hockey Database {{Defunct AHL

Seasons A season is a division of the year based on changes in weather, ecology, and the number of daylight hours in a given region. On Earth, seasons are the result of the axial parallelism of Earth's tilted orbit around the Sun. In temperate and po ...