The International Professional Hockey League (IPHL) was the first fully

professional A professional is a member of a profession or any person who work (human activity), works in a specified professional activity. The term also describes the standards of education and training that prepare members of the profession with the partic ...

ice hockey league The ICE Hockey League (International Central European Hockey League, ICEHL), known as the win2day ICE Hockey League for sponsorship reasons, is a Central European hockey league that also serves as the top-tier ice hockey league in Austria. It c ...

, operating from 1904 to 1907. It was formed by Jack "Doc" Gibson, a dentist who played hockey throughout Ontario before settling in

Houghton, Michigan Houghton (; ) is the largest city and county seat of Houghton County, Michigan, Houghton County in the U.S. state of Michigan. Located on the Keweenaw Peninsula, Houghton is the largest city in the Copper Country region. It is the fifth-larges ...

. The IPHL was a five team circuit which included

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States, and its county seat. It is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, second-most populous city in Pennsylvania (after Philadelphia) and the List of Un ...

Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario Sault Ste. Marie ( ) is a city in northern Ontario, Canada, on the north shore of the St. Mary's River directly across from its "twin city," Sault Ste. Marie, in the state of Michigan. The city's population was 72,051 at the 2021 census, makin ...

Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan Sault Ste. Marie ( ') is a city in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, Upper Peninsula of the U.S. state of Michigan. It is the county seat of Chippewa County, Michigan, Chippewa County and is the only city within the county. With a population of ...

Calumet, Michigan Calumet ( or ) is a Village (United States), village in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, Upper Peninsula of the U.S. state of Michigan. The village is located within Calumet Charter Township, Michigan, Calumet Township, Houghton County, Michiga ...

and Houghton. The IPHL was instrumental in changing the nature of top-level senior men's ice hockey from

amateur An amateur () is generally considered a person who pursues an avocation independent from their source of income. Amateurs and their pursuits are also described as popular, informal, autodidacticism, self-taught, user-generated, do it yourself, DI ...

to professional. In the time period around 1900, leagues in Canada fought against the professionalization of athletics.

John Ross Robertson John Ross Robertson (December 28, 1841 – May 31, 1918) was a Canadian newspaper publisher, politician, and philanthropist in Toronto, Ontario. Career Born in 1841, in Toronto, the son of John Robertson, a Scottish wholesale merchant, and ...

was quoted in the newspapers of the day as saying "for self preservation, the stand of the Ontario Hockey Association (OHA) against the professionalism of Pittsburgh, Houghton, Calumet and the Soo must be uncompromisingly antagonistic ... Any player who figures on any of these teams must be banished from Ontario Hockey." Leagues in Canada had been accused of paying individual players for several years and, in fact, Doc Gibson played on a team expelled from the

Ontario Hockey Association The Ontario Hockey Association (OHA) is the governing body for the majority of junior and senior level ice hockey teams in the province of Ontario. Founded in 1890, the OHA is sanctioned by the Ontario Hockey Federation along with the Northern ...

in 1898 for paying some of its players. However, it was not until the

Portage Lakes Hockey Club The Portage Lakes Hockey Club was one of the first professional ice hockey clubs. Based in Houghton, Michigan, the club played at the Amphidrome from 1904 until 1907, and later appeared in amateur circuits as well. While members of the Internat ...

and the formation of the IPHL in 1904 that any hockey league achieved full-fledged professional status.

League history

In the early 20th century, the mining industry was making huge investments in Northern Michigan. In the fall of 1903, James R. Dee of Houghton started discussions with

Western Pennsylvania Hockey League The Western Pennsylvania Hockey League (WPHL) was an originally amateur and later professional ice hockey league founded in 1896 and existing through 1909. Based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the league became the pre-eminent ice hockey league in ...

(WPHL) representatives in Pittsburgh regarding the establishment of a national hockey association. Houghton's team had played against Pittsburgh's for a ''de facto'' United States national championship in ice hockey. In 1903–04, the professional Houghton team, without a league of its own, played exhibition games against teams from

and Michigan prompting the OHA to ban both the American Soo Indians and

Canadian Sault Hockey Club The Sault Ste. Marie Marlboros, also known as the Canadian Soo and Soo Algonquins, was a professional ice hockey team from Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, Canada. It was the lone Canadian entry in the International Hockey League of 1904–1907, and ...

from competing against Canadian amateur teams. As a result, the two teams had nowhere to go but to the proposed professional league. A meeting was held on November 5, 1904 which included prominent business leaders from Pittsburgh, Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario and Northern Michigan. A number of cities were considered for this new professional league including Montreal, Detroit, Chicago, Minneapolis, St. Paul, Milwaukee, Grand Rapids, and Duluth. However, the league accepted teams from Houghton, Pittsburgh, the two Soos, and Calumet. The representatives of the Canadian Soo suggested a revenue sharing plan that would divide gate receipts in a 60–40 home-visitor split. This revenue sharing plan would make the long journey to Pittsburgh possible, considering that team played at the 5,000-seat capacity

Duquesne Gardens The Duquesne Gardens (officially Duquesne Garden until 1940 and The Gardens afterward) was the main sports arena located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, during the first half of the 20th century. Built in 1890, the building originally served as a tr ...

. The WPHL, which had been paying players to play ice hockey since 1901, put its best professionals into one team, the

Pittsburgh Pros The Pittsburgh Professional Hockey Club, also referred to as the Pittsburgh Professionals and Pittsburgh Pros, were a professional ice hockey team that participated in the International Professional Hockey League (IPHL) from 1904 until 1907. The t ...

, and dissolved. The Houghton Portage Lakes team played at what was a new facility at the time called the Amphidrome on Portage Lake. The Calumet-Laurium Miners, a nearby rival of the Houghton team, played at the new

Palestra The Palestra, often called the Cathedral of College Basketball, is a historic arena and the home gym of the Penn Quakers men's and women's basketball teams, volleyball teams, wrestling team, and Philadelphia Big 5 basketball. Located at 235 So ...

arena in

Laurium Lavrio, Lavrion or Laurium (; (later ); from Middle Ages until 1908: Εργαστήρια ''Ergastiria'') is a town in southeastern part of Attica, Greece. It is part of Athens metropolitan area and the seat of the municipality of Lavreotik ...

. By contrast, Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan made the Ridge Street Ice-A-Torium, the local

curling Curling is a sport in which players slide #Curling stone, stones on a sheet of ice toward a target area that is segmented into four concentric circles. It is related to bowls, boules, and shuffleboard. Two teams, each with four players, take t ...

club, its home rink. The Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario team, or Canadian Soo as it was called, also played at its local curling rink. The IPHL attracted some of the best players from established Canadian amateur leagues. Every player received a minimum salary of at least $15 to $40 a week, with many also getting lucrative jobs in the community. Ottawa's

Hod Stuart William Hodgson "Hod" Stuart (February 20, 1879 – June 23, 1907) was a Canadian professional ice hockey defenceman (ice hockey), cover-point (now known as a defenceman) who played nine seasons for several teams in different leagues from 1899 ...

, was paid $1,800 by the Calumet Miners to play for the team and manage their rink for the 1904–05 season. Frederick "Cyclone" Taylor was enticed into the league with a salary offer of $400 plus expenses. Taylor would later hail the league as helping him developing into a better hockey player:

" heleague was a wonderful testing and training ground, and I was a far better player for my experience there. It was good, scientific hockey, but robust enough to teach a young player how to take care of himself. . . . After that league, I knew I could handle anybody, anywhere. It was a marvellous maturing process."

With the hockey season only lasting a couple of months a year because teams played on natural ice, most of the players went home to their families and regular jobs in Canada at the end of each season. In many cases, this meant that IPHL managers would have to organize completely new teams each season. The Calumet Miners won the first league championship in

1905 As the second year of the massive Russo-Japanese War begins, more than 100,000 die in the largest world battles of that era, and the war chaos leads to the 1905 Russian Revolution against Nicholas II of Russia (Shostakovich's 11th Symphony i ...

. In

1906 Events January–February * January 12 – Persian Constitutional Revolution: A nationalistic coalition of merchants, religious leaders and intellectuals in Persia forces the shah Mozaffar ad-Din Shah Qajar to grant a constitution, ...

and

1907 Events January * January 14 – 1907 Kingston earthquake: A 6.5 Moment magnitude scale, Mw earthquake in Kingston, Jamaica, kills between 800 and 1,000. February * February 9 – The "Mud March (suffragists), Mud March", the ...

, the title went to Houghton-Portage Lakes. After the 1906–07 season, Canada finally established individual professional teams and, soon after, leagues were formed drawing back many players to play for their home crowds. In addition, it was apparent that, while the league was talking about expanding to larger centres such as Toronto, Cleveland and Duluth, there were problems among the existing clubs. The Pittsburgh franchise was seeking a league closer to home to play in and the champion Houghton-Portage Lakes club wasn't interested in another season. The other teams were still making plans for another season in 1907–08. Canadian Soo re-signed Ambrose Degray,

Hugh Lehman Frederick Hugh "Old Eagle Eyes" Lehman (October 27, 1885 – April 12, 1961) was a Canadian professional ice hockey goaltender. He started his ice hockey career playing for the Pembroke Lumber Kings and the Berlin Dutchmen. In 1911, Lehman joine ...

Newsy Lalonde Édouard Cyrille "Newsy" Lalonde (October 31, 1887 – November 21, 1970) was a Canadian professional ice hockey forward in the National Hockey League (NHL) and a professional lacrosse player. Lalonde is regarded as one of hockey's and lacrosse ...

, Edwin "Dutch" Schaefer and Jack Marks. However, on November 4, 1907, Michigan Soo pulled out of the league citing a lack of players and the IPHL folded. The Pittsburgh team would be dissolved and the WPHL was restarted.

Gallery

Some of the high profile players who played in the IPHL: File:Jack Gibson, Portage Lakes Hockey Club.jpg, Jack Gibson with the

File:Jack Laviolette Michigan Soo.jpg,

Jack Laviolette Jean-Baptiste "Jack" Laviolette (July 17, 1879 – January 10, 1960) was a Canadian professional ice hockey player. Laviolette played nine seasons for the Montreal Canadiens hockey club and was their first captain, coach, and general manager. Lav ...

with the

Michigan Soo Indians The Michigan Soo Indians, also known as the American Soo Indians, was a professional ice hockey team from Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, United States. The team played for three seasons in the International Professional Hockey League, the first ful ...

File:Cyclone Taylor 1906.jpeg,

Cyclone Taylor Frederick Wellington "Cyclone" Taylor (June 23, 1884 – June 9, 1979) was a Canadian professional ice hockey player and civil servant. A cover-point and rover, he played professionally from 1906 to 1922, and is acknowledged as one of the ...

with the Portage Lakes Hockey Club File:Hod-stuart.jpg,

with the Portage Lakes Hockey Club File:William Lady Taylor.jpg, William "Lady" Taylor with the

Canadian Soo The Sault Ste. Marie Marlboros, also known as the Canadian Soo and Soo Algonquins, was a professional ice hockey team from Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, Canada. It was the lone Canadian entry in the International Hockey League of 1904–1907, and ...

Teams

Prominent players

The following players are members of the

Hockey Hall of Fame The Hockey Hall of Fame () is a museum and hall of fame located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Dedicated to the history of ice hockey, it holds exhibits about players, teams, National Hockey League (NHL) records, memorabilia and National Hockey Le ...

References

Bibliography

External links

cchockeyhistory.org

{{Western Pennsylvania Hockey League Defunct ice hockey leagues in the United States Defunct ice hockey leagues in Canada Sports leagues established in 1904 Sports leagues disestablished in 1907