Ice hockey is a team sport played on ice in
which two teams of skaters use sticks to shoot
a hard rubber hockey puck into their opponent's
net to score points. In some countries such
as Canada, the United States, and some European
countries such as Latvia and Sweden, it is
often known simply as "hockey"; the name "ice
hockey" is more used in countries where "hockey"
generally refers to field hockey or both sports
are almost as popular. Ice hockey teams usually
consists of four lines of three forwards,
three pairs of defencemen, and two goalies.
Five members of each team skate up and down
the ice trying to take the puck and score
a goal against the opposing team. Each team
has a goaltender who tries to stop the puck
from going into the goal.
A fast-paced physical sport, hockey is most
popular in areas of North America and Europe.
In North America, the National Hockey League
is the highest level for men's hockey and
the most popular. Ice hockey is the official
national winter sport of Canada, where the
game enjoys immense popularity. Worldwide,
there are ice hockey federations in 73 countries.
The sport is believed to be an off-shoot of
stick and ball games invented elsewhere, particularly
the games of the 1700s and 1800s in the United
Kingdom. These games were brought to Canada
and the United States and several similar
winter games, such as "shinney" and "ice polo"
using informal rules, developed. The first
recognized recorded game resembling modern
ice hockey was played indoors on March 3,
1875, in Montreal, and several characteristics
of that game such as the length of playing
time, the length of the ice rink, the use
of a puck and the dimensions of the goal have
been retained to this day. Amateur ice hockey
leagues began in the 1880s, and professional
ice hockey originated around 1900. The Stanley
Cup, emblematic of ice hockey club supremacy,
was first awarded in 1893 to recognize the
Canadian amateur champion and later became
the championship trophy of the NHL. In the
early 1900s, the Canadian rules were adopted
by the Ligue International de Hockey sur Glace,
the precursor of today's International Ice
Hockey Federation and the sport was played
for the first time in the Olympics in the
Olympic Games of 1920.
In international competitions, the national
teams of seven countries predominate: Canada,
the Czech Republic, Finland, Russia, Slovakia,
Sweden and the United States. Of the 66 medals
awarded all-time in men's competition at the
Olympics, only six medals were not awarded
to one of those countries. In the annual Ice
Hockey World Championships, 162 of 177 medals
have been awarded to the seven nations: All
12 Olympic and 36 IIHF World Women's Championships
medals have been awarded to one of these seven
countries, and every gold medal in both competitions
has been won by either Canada or the United
States.
History
Stick-and-ball games date back to pre-Christian
times. In Europe, these games included the
Irish game of hurling, the closely related
Scottish game of shinty and versions of field
hockey. IJscolf, a game resembling colf on
an ice-covered surface, was popular in the
Low Countries between the Middle Ages and
the Dutch Golden Age. It was played with a
wooden curved bat, a wooden or leather ball
and two poles, with the objective to hit the
chosen point using the least number of strokes.
A similar game had been played for a thousand
years or more by the Norse, as documented
in the Icelandic sagas. In England, evidence
of games of 'hockey on ice', played with a
"bung" date back to the 1700s. William Pierre
Le Cocq stated, in a 1799 letter written in
Chesham, England:
“I must now describe to you the game of
Hockey; we have each a stick turning up at
the end. We get a bung. There are two sides
one of them knocks one way and the other side
the other way. If any one of the sides makes
the bung reach that end of the churchyard
it is victorious.”
An 1797 engraving unearthed by Swedish sport
historians Carl Gidén and Patrick Houda shows
a person on skates with a stick and bung on
the River Thames, probably in December 1796.
British soldiers and immigrants to Canada
and the United States brought their stick-and-ball
games with them and played them on the ice
and snow of winter. In 1825, John Franklin
wrote "The game of hockey played on the ice
was the morning sport" on Great Bear Lake
during one of his Arctic expeditions. A mid-1830s
watercolour portrays New Brunswick lieutenant
governor Archibald Campbell and his family
with British soldiers on skates playing a
stick-on-ice sport. Captain R.G.A. Levinge,
a British Army officer in New Brunswick during
Campbell’s time, wrote about "hockey on
ice" on Chippewa Creek in 1839. In 1843 another
British Army officer in Kingston, Ontario
wrote, "Began to skate this year, improved
quickly and had great fun at hockey on the
ice." An 1859 Boston Evening Gazette article
referred to an early game of hockey on ice
in Halifax that year. An 1835 painting by
John O'Toole depicts skaters with sticks and
bung on a frozen stream in the American state
of West Virginia.
In the same era, the Mi'kmaq people, a First
Nations people of Nova Scotia, also had a
stick-and-ball game. Canadian oral histories
describe a traditional stick-and-ball game
played by the Mi'kmaq in eastern Canada, and
Silas Tertius Rand describes a Mi'kmaq ball
game known as tooadijik. Rand also describes
a game played with hurleys, known as wolchamaadijik.
Sticks made by the Mi'kmaq were used by the
British for their games.
Early 19th-century paintings depict shinney,
an early form of hockey with no standard rules
which was played in Nova Scotia. Many of these
early games absorbed the physical aggression
of what the Mi'kmaq in Nova Scotia called
dehuntshigwa'es. Shinney was played on the
St. Lawrence River at Montreal and Quebec
City, and in Kingston and Ottawa, Ontario.
The number of players was often large. To
this day, shinney is a popular Canadian term
for an informal type of hockey, either ice
or street hockey.
Thomas Chandler Haliburton, in The Attache:
Second Series, reminisced about boys from
King's College School in Windsor, Nova Scotia
playing "hurly on the long pond on the ice"
when he was a student there in 1810 and earlier.
Based on Haliburton's account, there have
been claims that modern hockey was invented
in Windsor, Nova Scotia, by King's College
students and named after an individual. Others
claim that the origins of hockey come from
games played in the area of Dartmouth and
Halifax in Nova Scotia.
Name
The name "hockey" has no clear origin. Its
first known mention is from the 1773 book
Juvenile Sports and Pastimes, to Which Are
Prefixed, Memoirs of the Author: Including
a New Mode of Infant Education, by Richard
Johnson, whose chapter XI was titled "New
Improvements on the Game of Hockey". The belief
that hockey was mentioned in a 1363 proclamation
by King Edward III of England is based on
modern translations of the proclamation, which
was originally in Latin and explicitly forbade
the games "Pilam Manualem, Pedivam, & Bacularem:
& ad Canibucam & Gallorum Pugnam". The English
historian and biographer John Strype did not
use the word "hockey" when he translated the
proclamation in 1720.
According to the Austin Hockey Association,
the word "puck" derives from the Scots Gaelic
puc or the Irish poc. "...The blow given by
a hurler to the ball with his caman or hurley
is always called a puck."
Contemporary ice hockey
While the game's origins lie elsewhere, Montreal
is at the centre of the development of the
sport of contemporary ice hockey. On March
3, 1875, the first organized indoor game was
played at Montreal's Victoria Skating Rink
between two nine-player teams, including James
Creighton and several McGill University students.
Instead of a ball or bung, the game featured
a "flat circular piece of wood". The goal
posts were 8 feet apart.
In 1876, the first game played in Montreal
was reportedly “conducted under the ‘Hockey
Association’ rules”; the Hockey Association
was England’s field hockey organization.
In 1877, The Gazette published a list of seven
rules, six of which were largely based on
six of the Hockey Association’s twelve rules,
with only minor differences; the one added
rule explained how disputes should be settled.
The McGill University Hockey Club, the first
hockey club, was founded in 1877. In the meantime,
in 1880, the number of players had gone from
nine to seven.
The game became so popular that the first
"world championship" of ice hockey was featured
in Montreal's annual Winter Carnival in 1883;
the McGill team captured the "Carnival Cup."
The game was divided into thirty-minute halves.
The positions were now named: left and right
wing, centre, rover, point, cover point and
goalkeeper. In 1885, the Montreal City Hockey
League was established. In 1886 the teams
competing at the Winter Carnival organized
the Amateur Hockey Association of Canada,
and played a season comprising "challenges"
to the existing champion.
In Europe, it is believed that in 1885 the
Oxford University Ice Hockey Club was formed
to play the first Ice Hockey Varsity Match
against traditional rival Cambridge in St.
Moritz, Switzerland; however, this is undocumented.
The match was won by the Oxford Dark Blues,
6–0; the first photographs and team lists
date from 1895. This rivalry continues, claiming
to be the oldest hockey rivalry in history;
a similar claim is made about the rivalry
between Queen's University and Royal Military
College of Kingston, Ontario, Canada. Since
1986, considered the 100th anniversary of
the rivalry, teams of the two colleges play
for the Carr-Harris Cup.
In 1888 the Governor General of Canada, Lord
Stanley of Preston, attended the Montreal
Winter Carnival tournament and was impressed
with the game. In 1892, realizing that there
was no recognition for the best team in Canada,
he purchased a decorative bowl for use as
a trophy. The Dominion Hockey Challenge Cup
was first awarded in 1893 to the Montreal
Hockey Club, champions of the AHAC; it continues
to be awarded annually to the National Hockey
League's championship team. Stanley's son
Arthur helped organize the Ontario Hockey
Association, and Stanley's daughter Isobel
was one of the first women to play ice hockey.
By 1893, there were almost a hundred teams
in Montreal alone; in addition, there were
leagues throughout Canada. Winnipeg hockey
players used cricket pads to better protect
the goaltender's legs; they also introduced
the "scoop" shot, later known as the wrist
shot. Goal nets became a standard feature
of the Canadian Amateur Hockey League in 1900.
Left and right defence began to replace the
point and cover-point positions in the OHA
in 1906.
Ice hockey was not the only game on ice derived
from stick-and-ball games played in Europe;
during this period bandie ball was adapted
to the ice, evolving into bandy. "Ice polo",
played with a ball rather than a puck, was
popular in the United States during this period;
however, by 1893 the first ice hockey matches
were played at Yale and Johns Hopkins University.
Ice polo would die out as Americans adopted
ice hockey. In 1896, the first ice hockey
league in the U.S. was formed. The U.S. Amateur
Hockey League was founded in New York City,
shortly after the opening of the artificial-ice
St. Nicholas Rink.
Lord Stanley's five sons were instrumental
in bringing ice hockey to Europe, defeating
a court team at Buckingham Palace in 1895.
By 1903, a five-team league had been founded.
The Ligue Internationale de Hockey sur Glace
was founded in 1908 to govern international
competition, and the first European championship
was won by Great Britain in 1910. During the
mid-20th century, the Ligue became the International
Ice Hockey Federation.
As the popularity of ice hockey as a spectator
sport grew, earlier rinks were replaced by
larger rinks. Most of the early indoor ice
rinks have been demolished; Montreal's Victoria
Rink, built in 1862, was demolished in 1925.
Many older rinks succumbed to fire, such as
Denman Arena, Dey's Arena, Quebec Skating
Rink and Montreal Arena, a hazard of the buildings'
wood construction. The Stannus Street Rink
in Windsor, Nova Scotia may be the oldest
still in existence; however, it is no longer
used for ice hockey. The Aberdeen Pavilion
in Ottawa was used for ice hockey in 1904
and is the oldest existing facility that has
hosted Stanley Cup games.
The oldest indoor ice hockey arena still in
use today for ice hockey is Boston's Matthews
Arena, which was built in 1910. It has been
modified extensively several times in its
history and is used today by Northeastern
University for ice hockey and other sports.
It was the original home rink of the Boston
Bruins professional team, itself the oldest
United States-based team in the NHL, starting
play in the league in today's Matthews Arena
on December 1, 1924. The Madison Square Garden
in New York City, built in 1968, is the oldest
continuously-operating arena in the NHL.
Professional era
Professional hockey has existed since the
early 20th century. By 1902, the Western Pennsylvania
Hockey League was the first to employ professionals.
The league joined with teams in Michigan and
Ontario to form the first fully professional
league—the International Professional Hockey
League—in 1904. The WPHL and IPHL hired
players from Canada; in response, Canadian
leagues began to pay players. The IPHL, cut
off from its largest source of players, disbanded
in 1907. By then, several professional hockey
leagues were operating in Canada.
In 1910, the National Hockey Association was
formed in Montreal. The NHA would further
refine the rules: dropping the rover position,
dividing the game into three 20-minute periods
and introducing minor and major penalties.
After re-organizing as the National Hockey
League in 1917, the league expanded into the
United States, starting with the Boston Bruins
in 1924.
Professional hockey leagues developed later
in Europe, since bandy was still popular,
but amateur leagues leading to national championships
were in place. One of the first was the Swiss
National League A, founded in 1916. Today,
professional leagues have been introduced
in most countries of Europe. Top European
leagues include the Kontinental Hockey League,
the Czech Extraliga, the Finnish Liiga and
the Swedish Hockey League.
Equipment
Since ice hockey is a full contact sport and
body checks are allowed, injuries are a common
occurrence. Protective equipment is mandatory
and is enforced in all competitive situations.
This includes a helmet, shoulder pads, elbow
pads, mouth guard, protective gloves, heavily
padded shorts or a girdle, athletic cup, shin
pads, skates, and a neck protector. In addition,
goaltenders use different gear, a neck guard,
chest/arm protector, blocker, catch glove,
and leg pads.
One important piece of equipment is the ice
skate itself. Hockey skates are optimized
for several factors, some of which increase
the effort needed to achieve the highest skating
speeds. Hockey skates are optimized for physical
acceleration. This includes rapid starts,
stops, turns, and changes in skating direction.
In addition they must be rigid and tough to
protect the skater's feet from contact with
other skaters, sticks, pucks, the boards,
and the ice itself. Rigidity also improves
the overall maneuverability of the skate.
Blade length, thickness, and curvature and
radius of hollow are quite different from
speed or figure skates. Hockey players usually
adjust these parameters based on their skill
level, position, and body type.
Another important piece of equipment is the
stick itself. It consists of long, relatively
wide, and slightly curved flat blade, attached
to a shaft. The curve itself has a big impact
on its performance. A deep curve allows for
lifting the puck easier while a shallow curve
allows for easier backhands. The flex of the
stick also has impact on the performance.
Typically a less flexible stick is meant for
a stronger player since the player is looking
for the right balanced flex that allows the
stick to flex easily while still having a
strong "whip-back" which sends the puck flying
at high speeds. It is quite distinct from
sticks in other sports games and most suited
to hitting and controlling the flat puck.
Its unique shape contributed to the early
development of the game. The 'Moffat' stick
is currently reputed to be the oldest hockey
stick in existence. By retracing the stick's
ownership through several generations of the
Moffatt family, a settler clan that was farming
outside of North Sydney by the early 1800s,
Presley compiled considerable archival and
other evidence that the object was probably
used in early, shinny-like games of "hurley"
at a popular skating site called Pottle Lake.
It is typical of the 19th century style of
stick used in the Irish game of hurling.
Injury
Ice hockey is a full contact sport and carries
a high risk of injury. The players are moving
at around 30 – 45 km/h and quite a bit
of the game revolves around the physical contact
between the players. Skate blades, hockey
sticks, shoulders, hips, and hockey pucks
all contribute. The type of injuries associated
with hockey include lacerations, concussions,
contusions, ligament tears, broken bones,
hyperextensions, and muscle strains.
Head injuries
According to the Hughston Health Alert, "Lacerations
to the head, scalp, and face are the most
frequent types of injury [in hockey]." Even
a shallow cut to the head results in a loss
of a large amount of blood. Most concussions
occur during player to player contact rather
than when a player is checked into the boards.
Not only are lacerations common, “it is
estimated that direct trauma accounts for
80% of all [hockey] injuries. Most of these
injuries are caused by player contact, falls
and contact with a puck, high stick and occasionally,
a skate blade.” One of the causes of head
injury is checking from behind. Due to the
danger of delivering a check from behind,
many leagues, including the NHL have made
this a major and game misconduct penalty.
Another type of check that accounts for many
of the player to player contact concussions
is a check to the head. A check to the head
can be defined as delivering a hit while the
receiving player’s head is down and their
waist is bent and the aggressor is targeting
the receiving player's head. Checks to the
head have accounted for nearly 50% of concussions
that players in the National Hockey League
have suffered. Concussions that players suffer
may go unreported because there are no obvious
physical signs if a player is not knocked
unconscious. This can prove to be dangerous
if a player decides to return to play without
receiving proper medical attention. In recent
years there has been debate over whether or
not a check to head should be deemed an acceptable
hit in hockey. In March 2011, the NHL instituted
a new concussion testing protocol to help
improve detection of concussions during gameplay
Game
While the general characteristics of the game
are the same wherever it is played, the exact
rules depend on the particular code of play
being used. The two most important codes are
those of the International Ice Hockey Federation
and of the Canadian-founded and North American-expanded
National Hockey League. Both codes originated
from Canadian rules of ice hockey of the early
20th Century.
Ice hockey is played on a hockey rink. During
normal play, there are six players per side
on the ice at any time, one of them being
the goaltender, each of whom is on ice skates.
The objective of the game is to score goals
by shooting a hard vulcanized rubber disc,
the puck, into the opponent's goal net, which
is placed at the opposite end of the rink.
The players may control the puck using a long
stick with a blade that is commonly curved
at one end.
Players may also redirect the puck with any
part of their bodies, subject to certain restrictions.
Players may not hold the puck in their hand
and are prohibited from using their hands
to pass the puck to their teammates, unless
they are in the defensive zone. Players are
also prohibited from kicking the puck into
the opponent's goal, though unintentional
redirections off the skate are permitted.
Players may not intentionally bat the puck
into the net with their hands.
Hockey is an "offside" game, meaning that
forward passes are allowed, unlike in rugby.
Before the 1930s hockey was an onside game,
meaning that only backward passes were allowed.
Those rules favoured individual stick-handling
as a key means of driving the puck forward.
With the arrival of offside rules, the forward
pass transformed hockey into a truly team
sport, where individual performance diminished
in importance relative to team play, which
could now be coordinated over the entire surface
of the ice as opposed to merely rearward players.
The five players other than the goaltender
are typically divided into three forwards
and two defencemen. The forward positions
consist of a centre and two wingers: a left
wing and a right wing. Forwards often play
together as units or lines, with the same
three forwards always playing together. The
defencemen usually stay together as a pair
generally divided between left and right.
Left and right side wingers or defencemen
are generally positioned as such, based on
the side on which they carry their stick.
A substitution of an entire unit at once is
called a line change. Teams typically employ
alternate sets of forward lines and defensive
pairings when shorthanded or on a power play.
Substitutions are permitted at any time during
the course of the game, although during a
stoppage of play the home team is permitted
the final change. When players are substituted
during play, it is called changing on the
fly. A new NHL rule added in the 2005–2006
season prevents a team from changing their
line after they ice the puck.
The boards surrounding the ice help keep the
puck in play and they can also be used as
tools to play the puck. Players are permitted
to "bodycheck" opponents into the boards as
a means of stopping progress. The referees,
linesmen and the outsides of the goal are
"in play" and do not cause a stoppage of the
game when the puck or players are influenced
into them. Play can be stopped if the goal
is knocked out of position. Play often proceeds
for minutes without interruption. When play
is stopped, it is restarted with a faceoff.
Two players "face" each other and an official
drops the puck to the ice, where the two players
attempt to gain control of the puck. Markings
on the ice indicate the locations for the
"faceoff" and guide the positioning of players.
There are three major rules of play in ice
hockey that limit the movement of the puck:
offside, icing, and the puck going out of
play. A player is "offside" if he enters his
opponent's zone before the puck itself. Under
many situations, a player may not "ice the
puck", shoot the puck all the way across both
the centre line and the opponent's goal line.
The puck goes "out of play" whenever it goes
past the perimeter of the ice rink and a stoppage
of play is called by the officials using whistles.
It also does not matter if the puck comes
back onto the ice surface from those areas
as the puck is considered dead once it leaves
the perimeter of the rink.
Under IIHF rules, each team may carry a maximum
of 20 players and two goaltenders on their
roster. NHL rules restrict the total number
of players per game to 18, plus two goaltenders.
In the NHL, the players are usually divided
into four lines of three forwards, and into
three pairs of defenceman. On occasion, teams
may elect to substitute an extra defenceman
for a forward; this seventh defenceman might
sometimes play on the fourth line as a forward.
Penalties
In ice hockey, infractions of the rules lead
to play stoppages whereby the play is restarted
at a face off. Some infractions result in
the imposition of a penalty to a player or
team. In the simplest case, the offending
player is sent to the "penalty box" and their
team has to play with one fewer player on
the ice for a designated period of time. Minor
penalties last for two minutes, major penalties
last for five minutes, and a double minor
penalty is two consecutive penalties of two
minutes duration. A single Minor penalty may
be extended by a further two minutes for causing
visible injury to the victimized player. This
is usually when blood is drawn during high
sticking. Players may be also assessed personal
extended penalties or game expulsions for
misconduct in addition to the penalty or penalties
their team must serve. The team that has been
given a penalty is said to be playing shorthanded
while the opposing team is on a power play.
A two-minute minor penalty is often charged
for lesser infractions such as tripping, elbowing,
roughing, high-sticking, delay of the game,
too many players on the ice, boarding, illegal
equipment, charging, holding, holding the
stick, interference, hooking, slashing, kneeing,
unsportsmanlike conduct, butt-ending, spearing,
or cross-checking. As of the 2005–2006 season,
a minor penalty is also assessed for diving,
where a player embellishes or simulates an
offence. More egregious fouls may be penalized
by a four-minute double-minor penalty, particularly
those that injure the victimized player. These
penalties end either when the time runs out
or when the other team scores during the power
play. In the case of a goal scored during
the first two minutes of a double-minor, the
penalty clock is set down to two minutes upon
a score, effectively expiring the first minor
penalty. Five-minute major penalties are called
for especially violent instances of most minor
infractions that result in intentional injury
to an opponent, or when a "minor" penalty
results in visible injury, as well as for
fighting. Major penalties are always served
in full; they do not terminate on a goal scored
by the other team. The foul of 'boarding',
defined as "check[ing] an opponent in such
a manner that causes the opponent to be thrown
violently in the boards" by the NHL Rulebook
is penalized either by a minor or major penalty
at the discretion of the referee, based on
the violent state of the hit. A minor or major
penalty for boarding is often assessed when
a player checks an opponent from behind and
into the boards.
Some varieties of penalties do not always
require the offending team to play a man short.
Concurrent five-minute major penalties in
the NHL usually result from fighting. In the
case of two players being assessed five-minute
fighting majors, both the players serve five
minutes without their team incurring a loss
of player. This differs with two players from
opposing sides getting minor penalties, at
the same time or at any intersecting moment,
resulting from more common infractions. In
this case, both teams will have only four
skating players until one or both penalties
expire; this applies regardless of current
pending penalties. However, in the NHL, a
team always has at least three skaters on
the ice. Thus, ten-minute misconduct penalties
are served in full by the penalized player,
but his team may immediately substitute another
player on the ice unless a minor or major
penalty is assessed in conjunction with the
misconduct. In this case, the team designates
another player to serve the minor or major;
both players go to the penalty box, but only
the designee may not be replaced, and he is
released upon the expiration of the two or
five minutes, at which point the ten-minute
misconduct begins. In addition, game misconducts
are assessed for deliberate intent to inflict
severe injury on an opponent, or for a major
penalty for a stick infraction or repeated
major penalties. The offending player is ejected
from the game and must immediately leave the
playing surface; meanwhile, if an additional
minor or major penalty is assessed, a designated
player must serve out of that segment of the
penalty in the box. In some rare cases, a
player may receive up to nineteen minutes
in penalties for one string of plays. This
could involve receiving a four-minute double
minor penalty, getting in a fight with an
opposing player who retaliates, and then receiving
a game misconduct after the fight. In this
case, the player is ejected and two teammates
must serve the double-minor and major penalties.
A penalty shot is awarded to a player when
the illegal actions of another player stop
a clear scoring opportunity, most commonly
when the player is on a breakaway –A penalty
shot allows the obstructed player to pick
up the puck on the centre red-line and attempt
to score on the goalie with no other players
on the ice, to compensate for the earlier
missed scoring opportunity. A penalty shot
is also awarded for a defender other than
the goaltender covering the puck in the goal
crease, a goaltender intentionally displacing
his own goal posts during a breakaway to avoid
a goal, a defender intentionally displacing
his own goal posts when there is less than
two minutes to play in regulation time or
at any point during overtime, or a player
or coach intentionally throwing a stick or
other object at the puck or the puck carrier
and the throwing action disrupts a shot or
pass play.
Officials also stop play for puck movement
violations, such as using one's hands to pass
the puck in the offensive end, but no players
are penalized for these offences. The sole
exceptions are deliberately falling on or
gathering the puck to the body, carrying the
puck in the hand, and shooting the puck out
of play in one's defensive zone.
In the NHL, a unique penalty applies to the
goalies. The goalies now are forbidden to
play the puck in the "corners" of the rink
near their own net. This will result in a
two-minute penalty against the goalie's team.
The area immediately behind the net is the
only area behind the net where the goalie
can play the puck.
An additional rule that has never been a penalty,
but was an infraction in the NHL before recent
rules changes, is the two-line offside pass.
Prior to the 2005–06 NHL season, play was
stopped when a pass from inside a team's defending
zone crossed the centre line, with a face-off
held in the defending zone of the offending
team. Now, the centre line is no longer used
in the NHL to determine a two-line pass infraction,
a change that the IIHF had adopted in 1998.
Players are now able to pass to teammates
who are more than the blue and centre ice
red line away.
The NHL has taken steps to speed the game
of hockey up and create a game of finesse,
by retreating from the past where illegal
hits, fights, and "clutching and grabbing"
among players were commonplace. Rules are
now more strictly enforced, resulting in more
penalties, which in turn provides more protection
to the players and facilitates more goals
being scored. The governing body for United
States amateur hockey has implemented many
new rules to reduce the number of stick-on-body
occurrences, as well as other detrimental
and illegal facets of the game.
In men's hockey, but not in women's, a player
may use his hip or shoulder to hit another
player if the player has the puck or is the
last to have touched it. This use of the hip
and shoulder is called body checking. Not
all physical contact is legal — in particular,
hits from behind and most types of forceful
stick-on-body contact are illegal.
Officials
A typical game of hockey has two to four officials
on the ice, charged with enforcing the rules
of the game. There are typically two linesmen
who are mainly responsible for calling offside
and icing violations, breaking up fights,
and conducting faceoffs, and one or two referees,
who call goals and all other penalties. Linesmen
can, however, report to the referee(s) that
a penalty should be assessed against an offending
player in some situations. The restrictions
on this practice vary depending on the governing
rules. On-ice officials are assisted by off-ice
officials who act as goal judges, time keepers,
and official scorers.
The most widespread system in use today is
the three-man system, that features one referee
and two linesmen. Another less commonly used
system is the two referee and one linesman
system. This system is very close to the regular
three-man system except for a few procedure
changes. With the first being the National
Hockey League, a number of leagues have started
to implement the four-official system, where
an additional referee is added to aid in the
calling of penalties normally difficult to
assess by one single referee. The system is
now used in every NHL game, at IIHF World
Championships, the Olympics and in many professional
and high-level amateur leagues in North America
and Europe.
Officials are selected by the league they
work for. Amateur hockey leagues use guidelines
established by national organizing bodies
as a basis for choosing their officiating
staffs. In North America, the national organizing
bodies Hockey Canada and USA Hockey approve
officials according to their experience level
as well as their ability to pass rules knowledge
and skating ability tests. Hockey Canada has
officiating levels I through VI. USA Hockey
has officiating levels 1 through 4.
Tactics
Checking
An important defensive tactic is checking—attempting
to take the puck from an opponent or to remove
the opponent from play. Stick checking, sweep
checking, and poke checking are legal uses
of the stick to obtain possession of the puck.
The neutral zone trap is designed to isolate
the puck carrier in the neutral zone preventing
him from entering the offensive zone. Body
checking is using one's shoulder or hip to
strike an opponent who has the puck or who
is the last to have touched it. Often the
term checking is used to refer to body checking,
with its true definition generally only propagated
among fans of the game.
Offensive tactics
Offensive tactics include improving a team's
position on the ice by advancing the puck
out of one's zone towards the opponent's zone,
progressively by gaining lines, first your
own blue line, then the red line and finally
the opponent's blue line. NHL rules instated
for the 2006 season redefined offside to make
the two-line pass legal; a player may pass
the puck from behind his own blue line, past
both that blue line and the centre red line,
to a player on the near side of the opponents'
blue line. Offensive tactics are designed
ultimately to score a goal by taking a shot.
When a player purposely directs the puck towards
the opponent's goal, he or she is said to
"shoot" the puck.
A deflection is a shot that redirects a shot
or a pass towards the goal from another player,
by allowing the puck to strike the stick and
carom towards the goal. A one-timer is a shot
struck directly off a pass, without receiving
the pass and shooting in two separate actions.
Headmanning the puck, also known as cherry-picking
or breaking out, is the tactic of rapidly
passing to the player farthest down the ice.
A team that is losing by one or two goals
in the last few minutes of play will often
elect to pull the goalie; that is, remove
the goaltender and replace him or her with
an extra attacker on the ice in the hope of
gaining enough advantage to score a goal.
However, it is an act of desperation, as it
sometimes leads to the opposing team extending
their lead by scoring a goal in the empty
net.
A delayed penalty call occurs when a penalty
offense is committed by the team that does
not have possession of the puck. In this circumstance
the team with possession of the puck is allowed
to complete the play; that is, play continues
until a goal is scored, a player on the opposing
team gains control of the puck, or the team
in possession commits an infraction or penalty
of their own. Because the team on which the
penalty was called cannot control the puck
without stopping play, it is impossible for
them to score a goal. However, it is possible
for the controlling team to mishandle the
puck into their own net. In these cases the
team in possession of the puck can pull the
goalie for an extra attacker without fear
of being scored on. If a delayed penalty is
signaled and the team in possession scores,
the penalty is still assessed to the offending
player, but not served. This rule was recently
changed by the NCAA for college level hockey
in the United States. In college games, the
penalty is still enforced even if the team
in possession scores.
One of the most important strategies for a
team is their forecheck. Forechecking is the
act of attacking the opposition in their defensive
zone. Forechecking is an important part of
the dump and chase strategy. Each team will
use their own unique system but the main ones
are: 2–1–2, 1–2–2, and 1–4. The
2–1–2 is the most basic forecheck system
where two forwards will go in deep and pressure
the opposition's defencemen, the third forward
stays high and the two defencemen stay at
the blueline. The 1–2–2 is a bit more
conservative system where one forward pressures
the puck carrier and the other two forwards
cover the oppositions' wingers, with the two
defencemen staying at the blueline. The 1–4
is the most defensive forecheck system, referred
to as the trap, where one forward will apply
pressure to the puck carrier around the oppositions'
blueline and the other 4 players stand basically
in a line by their blueline in hopes the opposition
will skate into one of them. Another strategy
is the left wing lock, which has two forwards
pressure the puck and the left wing and the
two defencemen stay at the blueline.
There are many other little tactics used in
the game of hockey. Cycling moves the puck
along the boards in the offensive zone to
create a scoring chance by making defenders
tired or moving them out of position. Pinching
is when a defencemen pressures the opposition's
winger in the offensive zone when they are
breaking out, attempting to stop their attack
and keep the puck in the offensive zone. A
saucer pass is a pass used when an opposition's
stick or body is in the passing lane. It is
the act of raising the puck over the obstruction
and having it land on a teammate's stick.
A "deke," short for "decoy," is a feint with
the body or stick to fool a defender or the
goalie. Many modern players, such as Pavel
Datsyuk, Mike Legg, Sidney Crosby and Patrick
Kane, have picked up the skill of "dangling,"
which is fancier deking and requires more
stick handling skills.
Fights
Although fighting is officially prohibited
in the rules, it is both a target of criticism
and a considerable draw for the sport. At
the professional level in North America fights
are unofficially condoned. Enforcers and other
players fight to demoralize the opposing players
while exciting their own, as well as settling
personal scores. A fight will also break out
if one of the team's skilled players gets
hit hard or someone gets hit by what the team
perceives as a dirty hit. The amateur game
penalizes fisticuffs more harshly, as a player
who receives a fighting major is also assessed
at least a 10-minute misconduct penalty or
a game misconduct penalty and suspension.
Crowds seem to like fighting in ice hockey
and cheer when fighting erupts.
Periods and overtime
A professional game consists of three periods
of twenty minutes each, the clock running
only when the puck is in play. The teams change
ends for the second period, again for the
third period, and again at the start of each
overtime played. Recreational leagues and
children's leagues often play shorter games,
generally with three shorter periods of play.
Various procedures are used if a game is tied.
In tournament play, as well as in the NHL
playoffs, North Americans favour sudden death
overtime, in which the teams continue to play
twenty-minute periods until a goal is scored.
Up until the 1999–2000 season regular season
NHL games were settled with a single five-minute
sudden death period with five players per
side, with both teams awarded one point in
the standings in the event of a tie. With
a goal, the winning team would be awarded
two points and the losing team none.
From 1999–2000 until 2003–04, the National
Hockey League decided ties by playing a single
five-minute sudden death overtime period with
each team having four players per side to
"open-up" the game. In the event of a tie,
each team would still receive one point in
the standings but in the event of a victory
the winning team would be awarded two points
in the standings and the losing team one point.
The idea was to discourage teams from playing
for a tie, since previously some teams might
have preferred a tie and 1 point to risking
a loss and zero points. The only exception
to this rule is if a team opts to pull their
goalie in exchange for an extra skater during
overtime and is subsequently scored upon,
in which case the losing team receives no
points for the overtime loss.
International play and several North American
professional leagues, including the NHL, now
use an overtime period identical to that from
99–00 – 03–04 followed by a penalty
shootout. If the score remains tied after
an extra overtime period, the subsequent shootout
consists of three players from each team taking
penalty shots. After these six total shots,
the team with the most goals is awarded the
victory. If the score is still tied, the shootout
then proceeds to a sudden death format. Regardless
of the number of goals scored during the shootout
by either team, the final score recorded will
award the winning team one more goal than
the score at the end of regulation time. In
the NHL if a game is decided in overtime or
by a shootout the winning team is awarded
two points in the standings and the losing
team is awarded one point. Ties no longer
occur in the NHL.
The overtime mode for the NHL playoffs differ
from the regular season. In the playoffs there
are no shootouts nor ties. If a game is tied
after regulation an additional 20 minutes
of 5 on 5 sudden death overtime will be added.
In case of a tied game after the overtime,
multiple 20-minute overtimes will be played
until a team scores, which wins them the match.
Women's ice hockey
Modern women's ice hockey
Ice hockey is one of the fastest growing women's
sports in the world, with the number of participants
increasing 350 percent in the last 10 years.
In 2011, Canada had 85,827 women players,
United States had 65,609, Finland 4,760, Sweden
3,075 and Switzerland 1,172. While there are
not as many organized leagues for women as
there are for men, there exist leagues of
all levels, including the Canadian Women's
Hockey League, Western Women's Hockey League,
Mid-Atlantic Women's Hockey League, and various
European leagues; as well as university teams,
national and Olympic teams, and recreational
teams. By the end of 2013, the IIHF had held
fifteen IIHF World Women's Championship tournaments.
The USHL welcomed the first female professional
hockey player in 1969–70, when the Marquette
Iron Rangers signed Karen Koch.
Women's ice hockey was added as a medal sport
at the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan.
The United States won the gold, Canada won
the silver and Finland won the bronze medal.
The chief difference between women's and men's
hockey is that body checking is not allowed
in women's hockey. After the 1990 Women's
World Championship, body checking was eliminated
in women's hockey. In current IIHF women's
competition, body checking is either a minor
or major penalty, decided at the referee's
discretion.
In addition, players in women's competition
are required to wear protective full-face
masks.
One woman, Manon Rhéaume, appeared as a goaltender
for the NHL's Tampa Bay Lightning in pre-season
games against the St. Louis Blues and the
Boston Bruins, and in 2003 Hayley Wickenheiser
played with the Kirkkonummi Salamat in the
Finnish men's Suomi-sarja league. Several
women have competed in North American minor
leagues, including goaltenders Kelly Dyer,
Erin Whitten, Manon Rhéaume, and defenceman
Angela Ruggiero.
Pond hockey
Pond hockey is a form of ice hockey played
generally as pick-up hockey on lakes, ponds
and artificial outdoor rinks during the winter.
Pond hockey is commonly referred to in hockey
circles as shinny. Its rules differ from traditional
hockey because there is no hitting and very
little shooting, placing a greater emphasis
on skating, puckhandling and passing abilities.
Since 2002, the World Pond Hockey Championship
has been played on Roulston Lake in Plaster
Rock, New Brunswick, Canada. Since 2006, the
U.S. Pond Hockey Championships have been played
in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and the Canadian
National Pond Hockey Championships have been
played in Huntsville, Ontario.
Leagues and championships
National teams
Hockey has been played at the Winter Olympics
since 1924. Canada won six of the first seven
gold medals to 1952, the exception occurring
in 1936 when Great Britain won. The USSR won
all but two gold medals from 1956 to 1988
as well as a final time as the Unified Team
at the 1992 Albertville Olympics. The United
States won their first gold medal in 1960.
On the way to winning the gold medal at the
1980 Lake Placid Olympics amateur US college
players defeated the heavily favoured Soviet
squad – an event known as the "Miracle on
Ice" in the United States. Restrictions on
professional players were fully dropped at
the 1998 games in Nagano. The Games saw the
full participation of players from the NHL,
which suspended operations during the Games
and has done so in subsequent Games. The 2010
games in Vancouver were the first played in
an NHL city since the inclusion of NHL players.
The 2010 games were the first played on NHL-sized
ice rinks, which are narrower than the IIHF
standard.
National teams representing the member federations
of the IIHF compete annually in the IIHF Ice
Hockey World Championships. Teams are selected
from the available players by the individual
federations, without restriction on amateur
or professional status. Since it is held in
the spring, the tournament coincides with
the annual NHL Stanley Cup playoffs and many
of the top players are hence not available
to participate in the tournament. Many of
the NHL players who do play in the IIHF tournament
come from teams eliminated before the playoffs
or in the first round, and federations often
hold open spots until the tournament to allow
for players to join the tournament after their
club team is eliminated. For many years, the
tournament was an amateur-only tournament,
but this restriction was removed, beginning
in the 1970s. Players are not paid to play
in the tournament, but insurance and expenses
are covered from the tournament revenues.
The 1972 Summit Series and 1974 Summit Series,
two series pitting the best Canadian and Soviet
players without IIHF restrictions were major
successes, and established a rivalry between
Canada and the USSR. In the spirit of best-versus-best
without restrictions on amateur or professional
status, the series were followed by five Canada
Cup tournaments, played in North America.
Two NHL versus USSR series were also held:
the 1979 Challenge Cup and Rendez-vous '87.
The Canada Cup tournament later became the
World Cup of Hockey, played in 1996 and 2004.
The United States won in 1996 and Canada won
in 2004.
Since the initial women's world championships
in 1990 there have been fifteen tournaments.
Women's hockey has been played at the Olympics
since 1998. The 2006 Winter Olympic final
between Canada and Sweden marked the only
time the women's world championship or Olympic
final did not involve both Canada and the
United States.
Other ice hockey tournaments featuring national
teams include the World U20 Championship,
the World U18 Championships, the World U-17
Hockey Challenge, the World Junior A Challenge,
the Ivan Hlinka Memorial Tournament, the World
Women's U18 Championships and the 4 Nations
Cup. The annual Euro Hockey Tour, an unofficial
European championships between the national
men's teams of the Czech Republic, Finland,
Russia and Sweden have been played since 1996–97.
International leagues
The National Hockey League, and specifically
the Stanley Cup trophy, is the oldest still
operating international competition, featuring
clubs from the United States and Canada. The
league has 30 teams, seven in Canada and twenty-three
in the United States.
The Kontinental Hockey League is an ice hockey
league in Eurasia. The league is the successor
to the Russian Super League and the Soviet
League, the history of which dates back to
the 1940s. The KHL was launched in 2008 with
clubs from the post-Soviet states. The league
expanded beyond the former Soviet countries,
beginning in the 2011–12 season, with clubs
in Croatia, the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
The number of teams has since increased to
28 from eight different countries.
The Asia League Ice Hockey, an international
ice hockey league featuring clubs from China,
Japan and South Korea, is the successor to
the Japan Ice Hockey League.
The Austrian Hockey League, called the Erste
Bank Eishockey Liga for sponsorship reasons,
is the highest-level ice hockey league in
Austria. The roots of the EBEL league go back
to 1923 and changed to its current form in
1965. Starting in the 2005/06 season, non-Austrian
teams were invited to compete for the "EBEL
Champion" title. The league has subsequently
added clubs from Slovenia, Hungary and the
Czech Republic, reaching twelve teams in 2012.
There are also several annual tournaments
for clubs, held outside of league play. Pre-season
tournaments include the European Trophy, Tampere
Cup and the Pajulahti Cup. One of the oldest
international ice hockey competition for clubs
is the Spengler Cup, held every year in Davos,
Switzerland, between Christmas and New Year's
Day. It was first awarded in 1923 to the Oxford
University Ice Hockey Club. The Memorial Cup,
a competition for junior-level clubs is held
annually from a pool of junior championship
teams in Canada and the United States.
International club competitions organized
by the IIHF include the Continental Cup, the
Victoria Cup and the European Women's Champions
Cup. The World Junior Club Cup is an annual
tournament of junior ice hockey clubs representing
each of the top junior leagues.
Leagues
Several countries in Europe have their own
top professional senior leagues. Many future
KHL and NHL players start their professional
careers in these leagues.
In North America, the American Hockey League,
sometimes referred to as "The A," is the primary
developmental professional league for players
aspiring to enter the NHL. It comprises 30
teams from the United States and Canada. It
is run as a "farm league" to the NHL, with
the vast majority of AHL players under contract
to an NHL team. The East Coast Hockey League
is a mid-level minor league in the United
States. Some ECHL players are under contract
to NHL teams. The Southern Pro Hockey League
is a developmental minor league in the United
States. Most undrafted players get their start
in this league.
The Australian Ice Hockey League and New Zealand
Ice Hockey League are represented by nine
and five teams respectively. As of 2012, the
two top teams of the previous season from
each league compete in the Trans-Tasman Champions
League.
Several countries have leagues for players
of junior-age, under the age of 20. The Canadian
Hockey League is an umbrella organization
comprising three major junior leagues: the
Ontario Hockey League, the Western Hockey
League, and the Quebec Major Junior Hockey
League. It attracts players from Canada, the
United States and Europe. There are also junior
leagues in the United States and Russia, and
several of the national professional leagues
in Europe also have developmental leagues.
Ice hockey in popular culture
Ice hockey is the official winter sport of
Canada. Ice hockey, partially because of its
popularity as a major professional sport,
has been a source of inspiration for numerous
films, television episodes and songs in North
American popular culture.
Attendance records
Attendance in the 30,000 range was once quite
common for major international matches held
outdoors in the 1940s and 50s in Moscow's
Lenin Stadium. Figures of this type are still
common in bandy, a relative of ice hockey
played outdoors.
The record for a Stanley Cup playoff game
is 28,183, set on April 23, 1996, at the Thunderdome
during a Tampa Bay Lightning – Philadelphia
Flyers game.
A new record was set on December 11, 2010,
when the University of Michigan's men's ice
hockey team faced cross-state rival Michigan
State in an event billed as "The Big Chill
at the Big House." The game was played at
Michigan's football venue, Michigan Stadium
in Ann Arbor, with a capacity of 109,901 as
of the 2010 football season. When UM stopped
sales to the general public on May 6, 2010,
with plans to reserve remaining tickets for
students, over 100,000 tickets had been sold
for the event. Ultimately, a crowd announced
by UM as 113,411, the largest in the stadium's
history, saw the homestanding Wolverines win
5–0. Guinness World Records, using a count
of ticketed fans who actually entered the
stadium instead of UM's figure of tickets
sold, announced a final figure of 104,173.
The record was approached but not broken at
the 2014 NHL Winter Classic, which also held
at Michigan Stadium, with the Detroit Red
Wings as the home team and the Toronto Maple
Leafs as the opposing team with an announced
crowd of 105,491.
Number of registered players by country
Number of registered hockey players, including
male, female and junior, provided by the respective
countries' federations. Note that this list
only includes the 32 of 72 IIHF member countries
with more than 1,000 registered players as
of December 2012.
Further reading
References
Bibliography
Dryden, Ken. The Game: 20th Anniversary Edition.
Toronto: Wiley Canada. ISBN 978-0-470-83584-5. 
Farrell, Arthur. Hockey: Canada's Royal Winter
Game. Library and Archives Canada. 
Pearsall, David; Ashare, Alan. Safety in Ice
Hockey. Philadelphia: Astm International. 
Selke, Frank. Behind The Cheering. Toronto,
Ontario: McClelland and Stewart Ltd. 
Vaughan, Garth. The Puck Stops Here: The origin
of Canada's great winter game. Fredericton:
Goose Lane Editions. 
Notes
External links
"Mandatory Equipment"
Works related to National Sports of Canada
Act at Wikisource
Media related to Ice hockey at Wikimedia Commons
SIHR – The Origins of Hockey
History of ice hockey
