 From the beginning of the IIHF World Championships in 1920 , Canada would send a senior amateur club team , usually the previous year 's Allan Cup champion , to compete as the Canadian entry . These teams were often university players , or unpaid players playing ice hockey while being employed in some other profession full @-@ time . From the 1920s until the 1950s , Canadian amateur club teams won most of the World Championship and Olympic titles . As a career , Canadian players would play instead in the various professional hockey leagues , the best reaching the NHL . Their professional status made them ineligible to play in the World Championships or Olympics under the rules of the time . The last Canadian amateur club to win the world championship was the Trail Smoke Eaters in 1961 . 
