Quebec Major Junior Hockey League facts for kids

Quick facts for kids
Quebec Major Junior Hockey League
(La Ligue de hockey junior majeur du Québec)

Sport	Ice hockey
Founded	1969
No. of teams	18
Country(ies)	Canada (17 teams)
Most recent champion(s)	Saint John Sea Dogs
Most championships	Gatineau Olympiques (7)
Official website	http://www.en.lhjmq.qc.ca

The Quebec Major Junior Hockey League (French: la Ligue de hockey junior majeur du Québec, shortened as QMJHL in English, LHJMQ in French) is one of the three major junior ice hockey leagues which make up the Canadian Hockey League. Because the name of the league is so long, it is sometimes called the "Q".

There are 18 teams in the QMJHL that are in Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island in Canada, and Maine in the United States. The winner of the QMJHL plays against the winners of the Western Hockey League and Ontario Hockey League for the Memorial Cup. Many good players go from the QMJHL to the National Hockey League, and nine players from the QMJHL are in the Hockey Hall of Fame.

History

The QMJHL was created in 1969 from two different junior leagues in Quebec, the Quebec Junior Hockey League and the Metropolitan Montreal Junior Hockey League. These two teams wanted to make a better junior league for the province, so combined teams from their leagues. Eight teams were from the QJHL and two from the MMJHL and another team came from a town in Ontario on the Ontario-Quebec border. Nearly every team was within a close distance of Montreal, the largest city in Quebec, though no team played in Montreal.

In 1972 the QMJHL finally wanted a team in Montreal, and tried to get the Montreal Junior Canadiens, who played in the Ontario Hockey Association, to join. The OHA made a deal with the QMJHL and gave them the Junior Canadiens while creating a new team in a different city to keep an OHA team with the same name.

Member teams