Professional ice hockey (hockey) is the competition of ice hockey in which participants are paid to play. Professional competition began in North America in the United States in Pennsylvania and Michigan and in Canada around 1900. Professional ice hockey expanded across Canada and the United States and eventually to many other countries. There are major leagues around the world, including the National Hockey League in North America, the Kontinental Hockey League in Europe and Asia, and the Swedish Hockey League in Europe, as well as minor leagues such as the American Hockey League and ECHL in North America, and the Ligue Nord-Américaine de Hockey in Canada. High-level professional hockey is also present in Germany, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Finland and Switzerland; professional hockey is also played in many other countries, as diverse as Ukraine, the United Kingdom, Austria, Australia and Japan. Development Professional hockey developed in the United States and Canada around the turn of the 20th century. Houghton, Michigan, was formally considered the "birthplace of professional hockey"; however, recent investigations have proven otherwise, beginning with the establishment of the International Professional Hockey League, the first fully professional hockey league, in Houghton in 1904 following conversations between James R. Dee from Houghton, Michigan and representatives of the Western Pennsylvania Hockey League, a semi-professional hockey league started in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1896. The International Professional Hockey League began play in 1904 with teams from Houghton, Michigan (Houghton-Portage Lakes), Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (Pittsburgh Professionals), Calumet, Michigan (Calumet-Laurium Miners), Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario (Sault Ste. Marie Marlboros), and Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan (Michigan Soo Indians). Prior to 1904, playing for pay was not favored by major hockey circuits, as they were established as purely amateur organizations. Players who were found to be paid were marked as professional and were banned by leagues such as the Ontario Hockey Association (OHA), Canadian teams were prohibited from playing in Pittsburgh, and the Canadian teams who played games against professional teams from Northern Michigan were banished by the OHA, including the two teams from Sault Ste. Marie, the Sault Ste. Marie Marlboros and Michigan Soo Indians in 1903-04. Some banned players in Ontario considered starting a professional team in 1898, and there was a proposal to start a professional league in western Ontario in 1899, but professional hockey did not take off in Canada until 1907 with the establishment of the Ontario Professional Hockey League. The earliest known