World Cup of Hockey

The World Cup of Hockey was an international ice hockey tournament. Inaugurated in 1996, it was the successor to the previous Canada Cup, which ran from 1976 to 1991. The tournament occurred twice, with the United States winning in 1996 and Canada winning in 2004.

The World Cup of Hockey was organized by the National Hockey League (NHL), unlike the annual Ice Hockey World Championships and quadrennial Olympic tournament, both sanctioned by the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF). World Cup games were played under NHL rules and not those of the IIHF, and the tournament occurred outside of the NHL season, allowing for all of the best players in the world to be available, unlike the World Championships, which overlaps with the NHL's Stanley Cup playoffs.

Canada Cup
The World Cup of Hockey was preceded by the Canada Cup, which began in 1976 in a combined effort from Douglas Fisher of Hockey Canada and Alan Eagleson of the NHL Players' Association. Taking inspiration from soccer's FIFA World Cup, Eagleson proposed a new tournament that would bring together all the top hockey-playing nations. After successful negotiations with hockey officials from the Soviet Union in September 1974, Eagleson began arranging the Canada Cup tournament, which debuted in 1976. It was the first international ice hockey tournament that allowed hockey nations to field their top players, as the Winter Olympics was a strictly amateur competition and the annual World Championships clashed with the Stanley Cup playoffs.

The tournaments, held every three to five years, took place in North American venues prior to the start of the National Hockey League (NHL) regular season. Of the five Canada Cup tournaments, four were won by Canada, while the Soviet Union won one in 1981.

World Cup of Hockey
In 1996, the Canada Cup officially changed its name to the World Cup of Hockey. The United States defeated Canada to win the inaugural event. Other competitors were the Czech Republic, Finland, Germany, Russia, Slovakia and Sweden.

Eight years later, the second installment of the World Cup of Hockey took place in 2004, just prior to the 2004–05 NHL lockout. Canada won its first tournament championship, defeating the Czech Republic in the semifinals and Finland in the final match.

The next installment of the tournament is supposed to take place in the summer of 2016.

Trophy
In 2004, award-winning Canadian architect Frank Gehry designed a new trophy for the tournament. The trophy was criticized by the sports community, noting the Toronto Sun's headline "What is that?"