Patrick Kane

Patrick Timothy Kane Jr. was born on November 19, 1988. He is an American professional ice hockey right winger/center. He is currently playing for the Chicago Blackhawks of the National Hockey League (NHL).

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Steven Stamkos

Steven Stamkos was born on February 7, 1990. He is a Canadian professional ice hockey player, an alternate captain for the Tampa Bay Lightning of the National Hockey League (NHL). He scored 100 goals in just two years.

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Joffrey Lupul

Joffrey Douglas Sheldon Lupul was born September 23, 1983. He is a Canadian professional ice hockey player currently playing for the Toronto Maple Leafs of the National Hockey League (NHL).

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Jonathan Toews

Jonathan Bryan Toews was born on April 29, 1988. He is a Canadian professional ice hockey centre who plays for and is captain of the Chicago Blackhawks of the National Hockey League (NHL). He is currently the youngest captain in the NHL, having been appointed in 2008. He joined the team in 2007–08 and was nominated for the Calder Memorial Trophy as NHL rookie of the year. Toews has won gold medals at the 2005 World U-17 Hockey Challenge, 2006 and 2007 World Junior Championships, 2007 World Championships, and the 2010 Winter Olympics.

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Phil Kessel

Philip Joseph Kessel, Jr. is an American professional ice hockey forward, an alternate captain for the Toronto Maple Leafs of the National Hockey League (NHL).

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Claude Giroux

Claude Giroux is a Canadian professional ice hockey forward currently playing for the Philadelphia Flyers of the National Hockey League (NHL).

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Henrik Sedin

Henrik Sedin is a Swedish professional ice hockey centre and captain of the Vancouver Canucks of the National Hockey League (NHL). His identical twin brother Daniel also plays for the Canucks. Having played together throughout their careers, the pair are known for their effectiveness playing off one another. Henrik, a skilled passer, is known as the playmaker, while Daniel is known as the goal-scorer. Henrik began his career in the Swedish Elite League with Modo Hockey in 1997. Internationally, Henrik has competed for Sweden. He is a two-time Olympian and helped Sweden to a gold medal at the 2006 Winter Games in Turin. In four appearances at the IIHF World Championships, he has won bronze medals in 1999 and 2001. At the junior level, he appeared in one World U17 Hockey Challenge (where he won silver), two European Junior and three World Junior Championships.

Image of Henrik Sedin with his brother

Image of Henrik Sedin

Image of Henrik Sedin

Image of Henrik Sedin

Image of Henrik Sedin

Corey Perry

Corey Perry is a Canadian professional ice hockey winger currently playing for the Anaheim Ducks of the National Hockey League (NHL). He was born on May 16, 1985. He was selected by the Ducks 28th overall in the 2003 NHL Entry Draft and won the Stanley Cup with the club in 2007. In 2010, he won the Olympic Gold Medal with Canada at the Vancouver Games. In 2011, Perry won the Hart Trophy as the National Hockey League MVP for the 2010-11 seasons.

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Image of Corey Perry

Image of Corey Perry

Image of Corey Perry

Image of Corey Perry

Martin St. Louis

Martin St. Louis was born on June 18, 1975. He is a Canadian professional ice hockey right winger and alternate captain currently playing for the Tampa Bay Lightning of the National Hockey League (NHL).

Image of Martin St. Louis, Ice Hockey Player

Image of Martin St. Louis, Ice Hockey Player

Image of Martin St. Louis in action

Image of Martin St. Louis

Image of Martin St. Louis, Ice Hockey Player

Daniel Sedin

Daniel Sedin was born on September 26, 1980. He is a Swedish professional ice hockey winger with the Vancouver Canucks of the National Hockey League (NHL), and serves as an alternate captain for the Canucks during home games. His identical twin brother Henrik also plays for the Canucks, and is the team captain. Daniel is known as a goal-scorer, while Henrik is known as a playmaker. He won a gold medal at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, and bronze medals at the 1999 and 2001 World Championships.

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Image of Daniel Sedin with his brother Henrik

Image of Daniel Sedin

Image of Daniel Sedin in action

Image of Daniel Sedin with his brother Henrik

The National Hockey League

The National Hockey League is an unincorporated association which operates a major professional ice hockey league of 30 franchised member clubs, of which 7 are currently located in Canada and 23 in the United States. Its headquartered is situated in New York City. The NHL is widely considered to be the premier professional ice hockey league in the world, and one of the major professional sports leagues of the United States and Canada. The league was organized on November 22, 1917, in Montreal, Canada. The NHL draws many highly skilled players from all over the world and currently has players from about 20 different countries. The NHL is considered one of the four major professional sports leagues in North America, along with Major League Baseball, the National Football League, and the National Basketball Association.

Babe Ruth

George Herman Ruth, Jr. was born on February 6, 1895 in Baltimore. He was best known as "Babe" Ruth and nicknamed "the Bambino" and "the Sultan of Swat", was an American Major League baseball player from 1914–1935. In 1936, Ruth became one of the first five players elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Ruth has since become regarded as one of the greatest sports heroes in American culture. He has been named the greatest baseball player in history in various surveys and rankings, and his home run hitting prowess and charismatic personality made him a larger than life figure in the "Roaring Twenties". In 1998, The Sporting News ranked Ruth number one on the list of "Baseball's 100 Greatest Players". In 1999, baseball fans named Ruth to the Major League Baseball All-Century Team. In 1969, he was named baseball's Greatest Player Ever in a ballot commemorating the 100th anniversary of professional baseball. In 1993, the Associated Press reported that Muhammad Ali was tied with Babe Ruth as the most recognized athletes, out of over 800 dead or alive athletes, in America. In a 1999 ESPN poll, he was ranked as the third-greatest US athlete of the century, behind Michael Jordan and Muhammad Ali. Ruth was the first player to hit 60 home runs in one season (1927), setting the season record which stood until broken by Roger Maris in 1961. Ruth's lifetime total of 714 home runs at his retirement in 1935 was a record, until first surpassed by Hank Aaron in 1974. He was died on August 16, 1948.

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The American League Eastern Division

The American League Eastern Division is one of Major League Baseball's six divisions (An Eastern, Central, and Western division for each of the two leagues). This division was created before the start of the 1969 season along with the Western Division. Before that time the American League had existed as a single league of 10 teams.

Four of its five teams are located in the Eastern United States, with the other in Central Canada. At the end of the MLB season, the team with the best record in the division earns one of the American League's four playoff spots. The most recent team to win this division was the Tampa Bay Rays in 2010.

During its 41-year existence, an Eastern Division team has gone on to play in the World Series 25 times, and 14 of those teams have been crowned World Series Champions. Since the 1995 season when the wild-card playoff berth was introduced, the AL East has produced the wild-card team for the American League in 12 out of the 16 years (the Western Division three, and the Central Division just one).

American League

The American League of Professional Baseball Clubs, or simply the American League (AL), is one of two leagues that make up Major League Baseball in the United States and Canada. It developed from the Western League, a minor league based in the Great Lakes states, which eventually aspired to major league status. It is often called the Junior Circuit because it claimed Major League status for the 1901 season, 25 years after the formation of the National League (the "Senior Circuit").

At the end of every season, the American League champion plays in the World Series against the National League champion. Through 2010, American League teams have won 62 of the 106 World Series played since 1903, with 27 of those coming from the New York Yankees alone. The Texas Rangers are currently the defending American League champions. The New York Yankees have won 40 American League titles, the most in the league's history, followed by the Oakland Athletics (15) and the Boston Red Sox (12).

Short History of Baseball

Baseball has a long tradition in the United States. The most popular baseball league in the U.S. is Major League Baseball (MLB). Due to its 162-game schedule, it attracts more ticket sales than any other professional sports league in the world. Teams play almost every day from April to October. The World Series is the championship series of Major League Baseball, the culmination of the sport's postseason each October. It is played between the winner of each of the two leagues, the American League and the National League, and the winner is determined through a best-of-seven playoff.

Notable American baseball players in history include Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio, Lou Gehrig, Roberto Clemente, Hank Greenberg, Sandy Koufax, Willie Mays, Al Kaline, Stan Musial, Pete Rose, Hank Aaron, Nolan Ryan, Mike Schmidt, Honus Wagner, Ted Williams, Mickey Mantle, and Jackie Robinson, who was instrumental in dissolving the color line and allowing African-Americans into the major leagues. Today, some of the notable American players include Derek Jeter, Josh Hamilton, Ryan Braun, Chase Utley, Joe Mauer, Roy Halladay, Alex Rodriguez, Carl Crawford, Tim Lincecum.

Baseball and the variant, softball, are also popular participatory sports in the U.S. However, unlike American football, baseball is also popular in many other countries, notably Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Latin American countries such as the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Mexico, and Venezuela.

These countries are represented well in Major League Baseball today by players such as Hideki Matsui, Magglio Ordóñez, David Ortiz, Albert Pujols (born in the Dominican Republic, but developed in the U.S. and a naturalized American), Iván Rodríguez, Johan Santana, and Ichiro Suzuki. Canada, where baseball developed in tandem with the U.S., is also well represented in MLB with players such as past greats Ferguson Jenkins and Larry Walker and current stars Jason Bay, Russell Martin, Justin Morneau, and Joey Votto.