The Original Stars Hockey League (OSHL), was established in 2004 as an alternative to the NHL, which had locked out its players. The OSHL was comprised of six teams—Toronto, Montreal, Detroit, Chicago, Boston, New York—ostensibly representing the original six cities (although the teams were not located in those cities).
More than 100 players purportedly signed up to play in the barnstorming league. The rules were tweaked to speed up the play of the game and make it more exciting. For example, each team played with four skaters and a goalie, periods were only 17 minutes long, penalty shots were awarded for all minor penalties, and more. The result was some very high-scoring games.
The league originally planned to launch on September 18, 2004 with a triple header at Ricoh Stadium in Toronto, Ontario, which would have included all six teams. The OSHL wasn’t ready for the triple header, though. In the first of major scheduling changes, the league would begin with a series of preseason games. The first was hosted on September 17 in Barrie, Ontario. Toronto beat Detroit 16-13. The next preseason game took place on September 19 in Sarnia, Ontario. Chicago beat New York 13-9. And on September 20, Boston beat Montreal 14-11 in Brampton, Ontario.
On September 22, however, only 855 fans showed up in Kitchner, Ontario, to watch Montreal beat Chicago 15-14. Within the next couple of days, the league decided to “postpone” the remainder of its preseason with plans to start its regular season on 7 Oct.
Already, though, the league was proving less successful than people had hoped, and players began leaving for other leagues. The OSHL was forced to delay the start of its regular season until October 14 and reduce the number of teams to just four: Boston, Detroit, New York, and Toronto.
The regular season opened with plans for a 10-game Atlantic tour. The first cities to host regular games were Fredericton, New Brunswick, and Antigonish, Nova Scotia. Both were held on October 14, 2004. The Fredericton game was held at the Aitken Centre arena at the University of New Brunswick, where a crowd of 2,025 watched New York beat Toronto 11-4. The Antigonish game, held at St. Francis Xavier University, was attended by 1,100 people. Detroit beat Boston by an unknown score.
The tour continued on October 16 in Charlottetown, PEI, where a crowd of 1,100 in watched New York beat Boston by an unknown score. The next day, October 17, a crowd of 3,500 watched Detroit beat Toronto 9-6 in Moncton, New Brunswick.
The next game was scheduled for October 19 in Sydney, Nova Scotia, but it was cancelled because several of the OSHL players signed with other leagues.
A subsequent lack of game reports in Canadian newspapers suggests that the remainer of the Atlantic tour was cancelled.
- 20 Oct, Boston vrs Detroit, in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia
- 21 Oct, New York vrs Detroit, in Saint John, New Brunswick
- 21 Oct, Toronto vrs Boston, in Summerside, PEI.
- 25 Oct was to have been a doubleheader in Halifax, Nova Scotia, with Toronto playing Detroit and New York playing Boston.
Plans to for late-October games in Ontario (Sudbury, Hamilton, Guelph, and Ottawa) were subsequently cancelled.
By November 13, the league was “all but dead”. According to league's president, Randy Gumbley, the mass migration of NHL players to Europe killed the league.