of Canada's national identity. Canada is a nation with two official sports. Since its founding, and until 1994, the official sport was lacrosse, a sport invented by Aboriginal peoples. In 1994 ice hockey joined lacrosse as official sports of Canada. The National Hockey League (NHL) is the world's premier professional ice hockey league. Of its thirty teams, six are Canadian: the Montreal Canadiens, Ottawa Senators, Toronto Maple Leafs, Calgary Flames, Edmonton Oilers, and Vancouver Canucks. Ice hockey is popular in Canada because its area is sufficiently cold for natural, reliable seasonal ice cover. Lacrosse is a team sport that is played by ten players (men) or twelve players (women), each of whom uses a netted stick (the crosse) in order to pass and catch a very hard rubber ball with the aim of scoring goals (each worth one point traditionally, but also two in Major League Lacrosse) by propelling the ball into the opponent's goal. The team scoring the most points after
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