For the first time since 1979, when the mighty Montreal Canadiens crushed the Rangers in five games, two Original Six teams — the Boston Bruins and the Chicago Blackhawks — will duel for the right to splash Champagne into the shiny silver Stanley Cup.

To add to the theater, the Bruins and the Blackhawks will collide in a Cup finals for the first time, beginning Wednesday night in Chicago, after nearly nine decades of coexistence.

Over the last half-century, the N.H.L. has expanded, not always wisely or well, to 30 teams from coast to coast and across Canada. But for 25 seasons between 1942 and 1967, its territory, like Caesar's Gaul, was divided into three parts — the Bruins and the Rangers in the Northeast, the Canadiens and the Toronto Maple Leafs in eastern Canada, the Blackhawks and the Detroit Red Wings in the Midwest.

The six franchises had survived from the birth of the N.H.L. as we know it during the 1926-27 season after the Cup became the sole property of the league. Hence the Original Six nickname.

During those 25 seasons, hockey was North America's forgotten sports stepchild. Baseball expanded to 20 teams, including four in California. Football featured Paul Brown's Cleveland Browns, Johnny Unitas, and Vince Lombardi's Green Bay Packers. The N.B.A. matured in the Boston Celtics' reign. College basketball basked in John Wooden's U.C.L.A. dynasty.

Hockey, in contrast, was mostly ignored, although each of the six teams was adored by its fans in a venerable arena.

In the Montreal Forum, a goal was trumpeted in French and English: "Canadiens goal by Mauriiiiice Riiiiichard." In the Detroit Olympia, Gordie Howe was idolized as Superman on skates. After a game in Chicago Stadium, the public-address announcer intoned: "Please drive home safely. The life you save may be Bobby Hull's." In the churchlike suit-and-tie hush of Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto, you could hear the puck skidding across the ice.

Voices in New York and Boston were seldom that respectful, especially when that era's one referee appeared. Red Storey was greeted with a "Storey is a bum" chant by Rangers fans in the old Madison Square Garden on Eighth Avenue between West 49th and West 50th Streets. When the balding King Clancy was about to drop the puck in the old Boston Garden, a New England accent bellowed, "Hey, Clancy, we got a town named for you here — Maaarblehead."

That was life in the Original Six era, when fans seldom had to check the number on a player's sweater unless he was a new face. None of the players wore a helmet; they were as recognizable as your next-door neighbors. None of the goaltenders wore a mask until the night in 1959 that Jacques Plante, then with Montreal, was cut on the nose and cheek by a shot at the Garden, took 15 minutes to get stitched and then returned wearing a mask he used in practice. Never to take it off.

For the 1967-68 season, the hockey world changed. The Original Six was joined by the Expansion Six: Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Minnesota, St. Louis, Los Angeles and Oakland. To ease their arrival, the N.H.L. herded its six new teams into a West Division and kept the Original Six together in an East Division. Three seasons later, the breakup began: Buffalo and Vancouver franchises were inserted in the East; Chicago was transferred to the West.

The league soon devised what resembled a Greyhound bus timetable crisscrossing the continent. It added the Islanders, Atlanta (the team later moved to Calgary), Washington and Kansas City (the team moved to Colorado and later New Jersey) and relocated the Oakland franchise to Cleveland, briefly.

When the rival World Hockey Association folded, the N.H.L. absorbed Edmonton, Winnipeg (the team moved to Phoenix), Quebec (the team moved to Colorado) and Hartford (the team moved to Carolina). It later added San Jose, Tampa Bay, Ottawa, Florida, Anaheim and Atlanta again (whose team moved again, to Winnipeg), and Minnesota's team moved to Dallas before another Minnesota franchise was created.

Of the early expansion teams, only the Philadelphia Flyers, alias the Broad Street Bullies, won the Cup, in 1974 and 1975, before the Canadiens of Guy Lafleur, Larry Robinson, Ken Dryden and Coach Scotty Bowman won four in a row, notably that 1979 thumping of the Rangers' Dave Maloney, Ron Greschner and John Davidson.

In 1980, the Islanders of Denis Potvin, Bryan Trottier and Mike Bossy began a four-Cup reign, and then the Oilers won five of the next seven Cup finals, with Wayne Gretzky along for four of the titles. Of the other expansion teams, Pittsburgh and the Devils have each won three Cups; Colorado two; and Calgary, Tampa Bay, Carolina, Anaheim and Los Angeles one each. Since 1979, Original Six teams have won only nine Cups: the Red Wings four; the Canadiens two; the Rangers, the Blackhawks and the Bruins one each.

And now, in a rare reminder of what hockey was like before nearly a half-century of expansion, either the Blackhawks or the Bruins will win another.