There is a plaque in Le Windsor, an office building in downtown Montreal that used to be the grand Windsor Hotel.
Unveiled in 2017 by the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada in conjunction with the National Hockey League, the plaque commemorates the founding of the league during a meeting at the hotel 100 years earlier.
“Founded here in November 1917, the NHL holds a special place in Canadians’ hearts,” begins the English wording on the plaque. It goes on to define the NHL as “the world’s predominant hockey league, growing through radio and television broadcasts and captivating generations of fans with the speed and skill of the game.”

Every word on the historical plaque is true. For me, though, the plaque is noteworthy for what it does not say – for what has been deliberately left out of this prominent expression of public history.
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