Ice hockey, referred to simply as hockey in Canada, Finland, Sweden and the United States, is a team sport played on ice. It is one of the world's fastest sports, with players on skates capable of going high speeds on natural or artificial ice surfaces. Though played on six continents, ice hockey, as a participatory and as a spectator sport, is most popular in nations in which the climate is sufficiently cold as to permit natural, long-term seasonal ice cover; Canada, the Czech Republic, Finland, Slovakia, Sweden, Russia, and the United States have dominated international competition, claiming 47 of the 48 gold and silver medals awarded in the men's and women's competitions at the Olympic Winter Games. Ice hockey is one of the four major North American professional sports, represented at the highest level by the National Hockey League. It is the official national winter sport of Canada, where six of the 30 NHL franchises are based; Canadian-born players, though, outnumber American-born players in the NHL by a factor of three (30 per cent, additionally, come from outside North America). The sport is played on a hockey rink. During normal play, there are six players, five positional players and one goaltender, per team on the ice at any time, each of whom is on ice skates. The objective of the game is to score goals by shooting a hard vulcanized rubber disc, the puck, into the opponent's goal net, with the goal nets placed at opposite ends of the rink. The players may control the puck using a long stick with a blade that is commonly curved at one end. Players may also generally redirect the puck with any part of their bodies, but the kicking of the puck into the goal is prohibited. Show new selected content
 The Calgary Flames are a professional men's ice hockey team based in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. They are members of the Northwest Division of the Western Conference of the National Hockey League (NHL). The club is the third major-professional ice hockey team to represent the city of Calgary, following the Calgary Tigers (1921–26) and Calgary Cowboys (1975–77). The Flames arrived in the city of Calgary in 1980 after spending their first eight seasons in Atlanta, Georgia, as the Atlanta Flames. The Flames spent their first three seasons playing in the Stampede Corral before moving into their current home arena, the Olympic Saddledome (now Pengrowth Saddledome), in 1983. In 1986, the Flames became the first Calgary team since the Tigers in 1924 to compete for the Stanley Cup. In 1989, the Flames captured the Cup for the first time. Calgary is one of two NHL franchises in Alberta, with the other being the Edmonton Oilers. The cities' proximity has led to a famous rivalry, known as the Battle of Alberta. (more...) More featured articles - Improve this portal; feel free to add suggestions at the talk page.
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