Western Conference

How hockey teams got their nicknames.

Western Conference

Western Conference Teams

The Western Conference used to be the Clarence Campbell Conference and was originally created in 1974 when the NHL realigned teams into four divisions within the similar two conferences we have today. In 1981 the teams were realigned to make more geographic sense within their conferences, and the Clarence Campbell Conference was shortened to just the Clarence Conference. In 1993 commissioner Gary Bettman decided to go vanilla and changed this to the Western Conference. It is comprised of the Pacific and Central Divisions.

Click on a team below to find out more about the origin of its name.