Canada has participated in 70 of 79 Ice Hockey World Championships, an annual ice hockey tournament organized by the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF). During the first 40 years of the tournament (1920–1961), Canada did not have a national team, instead choosing to send a club team, typically the Allan Cup winner. A national team program, consisting of amateur players, was implemented following the 1961 tournament. By the late 1960s, the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association (CAHA) felt their amateur players could no longer be competitive and pushed for the ability to use players from professional leagues. At the IIHF Congress in 1969, the IIHF voted to allow Canada to use nine non-National Hockey League (NHL) professional players at the 1970 World Championships, but the decision wa