one of the Swedish major professional sports league. SHL, or the Swedish Elite League, which it is often unofficially called in English, is composed of 14 teams. The first season under the former name Elitserien was played in 1975-76. The Swedish ice hockey championships has been played in various forms since 1922. Switzerland In Switzerland, the Nationalliga A (German), or Ligue Nationale A (French), or Lega Nazionale A (Italian) is the top tier of the Nationalliga or Ligue Nationale or Lega Nazionale, the main professional ice hockey league in Switzerland. It is the oldest league remaining today, dating to 1916. United Kingdom Between the wars, British ice hockey grew rapidly with new ice rinks and an influx of Canadian players. A European competition was instituted, and in the 1936 Winter Olympics at Garmisch, Germany, Great Britain won the gold medal, imposing the first ever Olympic defeat on the Canadians. However, because of the disruption of World War II and a lack of suitable venues afterwards the sport faded rapidly. As of 2012, the ten-team, two-division professional Elite Ice Hockey League is the highest level of competition in the United Kingdom and features teams from each of the four Home Nations. United States Much as was the case of the concurrent development of professional gridiron football, the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania metropolitan area was one of the first areas to promote a professional ice hockey team. The Western Pennsylvania Hockey League began hiring professional players in 1902 and acted as a pro–am league. This league joined with teams in Michigan and Ontario to form the International Professional Hockey League in 1904, with Houghton, Michigan dentist Jack Gibson its founder. While this league had folded by 1907, it was the start of professional hockey. The United States would continue to see professional hockey with teams from the PCHL, beginning with the Portland Rosebuds, followed by a Seattle-based franchise a year later. When the Boston Bruins joined the NHL in 1924, the United States was finally represented in the league. It would continue to grow in the NHL until a peak in the 2000s (decade), when 24 of the NHL's 30 teams were in the United States (the loss of the Atlanta Thrashers to Winnipeg in 2011 reduced this number to 23; it returned to 24 American teams when the Vegas Golden Knights joined in 2017). The NHL reached a higher peak when the Seattle