SOYOUWANNA LEARN THE BASICS OF HOCKEY?

Hockey or, as they call it in Kentucky, "Ice Hockey" is the best game in the world. It has speed, crushing slapshots, skill, acrobatic goaltending, and heavyweight fights which result in the loss of teeth and brain fluid. New hockey teams are springing up all over America, and it might have occurred to you to start watching the game or root for your new home team. Or perhaps you couldn't care less about hockey, but your significant other watches it, and you want to at least know what's going on. Maybe you just like to watch people hit each other with large sticks. Whatever your motivation for wanting to know more about hockey is, this article will explain the game to you so that you can keep track of what's happening on the ice. You do know they play it on ice, don't you?

By the way, this article discusses hockey the way it is played in the National Hockey League (NHL), but the rules in junior hockey and international hockey are similar.

1. LEARN WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW BEFORE THE GAME STARTS

Before the game even starts, there's lots of background information that you need to soak up. You need to know all about technical mumbo-jumbo, like: the rink, the goals, the players, the equipment, the amount of time in a game, the different leagues, how the season is structured, and the blind peop… we mean, the referees.

The rink

Hockey is played on a rink 200' long and 85' wide, with rounded corners. The ice surface has painted lines on it, which indicate face-off circles, the goal crease, and the various zones. The most important lines are the red line (which runs across the center of the ice) and the blue lines (which are parallel to the red line and are painted 73' from each end of the rink). The red line indicates center ice, and regulates how far players can pass and shoot (see Section 2). The blue lines divide up the ice into three zones. Each team plays from one side of the ice, and the area behind a team's blue line is called its defending zone. The area behind the opposing team's blue line is called the attacking zone. Finally, the area between the two blue lines is called the neutral zone. You can check out a diagram of the rink.

The goals

Thirteen feet from each end of the ice, right in the center, is a stationary set of goal posts with a net attached behind them. The object of the game is to put the puck in the net more times than the other team does. The posts are six feet apart and the top post (or crossbar) is four feet from the ice. A red line called the goal line is painted between the two posts, and the puck must cross this line entirely for a goal to be counted. We know it's confusing that the place where the pucks go and the act of putting a puck there are both called the same thing (a goal). You have two choices: you can either get used to it or you can always call the goal "the net." A blue area is painted in front of the goal. It goes out a foot from each side, then extends straight forward for four and a half feet and ends in a semi-circle whose furthest point is six feet from the goal line. This is called the crease (see Section 2 for more about the crease).

The players

There are three basic kinds of players: forwards, defensemen, and goaltenders (goalies). Unless a team is shorthanded due to a penalty or overtime, each team will have six players on the ice during play. Three forwards line up at the front of the team, and they are (from left to right) the left wing, the center, and the right wing. Two defensemen line up behind them, one on the left and one on the right. The goalie is the sixth player. The forwards are responsible for most of the offense, and they tend to stay out front, while the defensemen are largely responsible for hanging back and making sure they are ready to protect the defensive zone. The goalie rarely strays far from his crease, but he does skate out and pass pucks to the other players.

One of the interesting things about hockey is that all the players have to be aware of and involved in what is going on all over the rink. Every movement of the puck and the opposing team's players demands a reaction from each player on the team. Forwards must be responsible for defending their own zone, and defensemen must play a role in the offense.

Forwards tend to stick to one position for most of their careers, but they move around a bit from time to time as the team needs them to or if the coach thinks, for example, that a left wing might be better suited to playing at center. Defensemen are more flexible, in that they can usually play either side, and some will occasionally fill in at a forward position. Goalies are very specialized players. They have to stand in front of the net and stop pucks, some of which are travelling at 90 miles per hour or more. They never play other positions, and other players never play in goal (with a few rare exceptions).

The equipment

Each player carries a stick and the players use these sticks to pass and shoot a puck, a small, hard rubber disk, around the rink. They also use these sticks to hit each other and to smash on the boards in disgust, but they're not supposed to do that (see Section 2). In order to avoid being hurt by the sticks and the pucks, the players wear a good deal of padding and they are required by league rules to wear helmets. This is a relatively new rule in the NHL, and many players were resistant to the wearing of helmets when it was first instituted. There is still a certain amount of macho resistance to wearing face shields, probably because it is bad form to fight when wearing a face shield and, therefor, wearing one proclaims a player to be something of a sissy. The players also wear skates, of course. For skating. On the ice.

Regulation time and overtime

Each game consists of three periods of twenty minutes each. The players get about fifteen minutes of rest between periods. In the regular season, if the game is tied at the end of regulation time (the end of the third period), the teams almost immediately go into overtime, which is an extra five minutes of playing time. During these five-minute overtimes there are only five players on the ice. You will often hear this format referred to as 4-on-4 because although there are five players on the ice for each team only four of them are skating against each other. This is to allow more room to skate and to allow teams to capitalize on their fastest and most skilled players in an attempt to resolve the contest. The overtime in hockey is "sudden death" because if either team scores at any time, that team automatically wins and the overtime period ends. If neither team scores by the end of overtime, the game is declared a tie.

During the playoffs, if the game is tied at the end of regulation time the game will go into overtime, but the players get a fifteen minute rest, and the overtime period is also twenty minutes. These overtime periods are played with six players (or 5-on-5) and are identical to periods in regulation time except that they are "sudden death." The game will continue until one team scores and wins, so overtime playoff games can go into double overtime, triple overtime, etc. There are no ties in the playoffs.

The league

The NHL consists of 28 teams, but two more will be added in the 2000-01 season to bring it up to a total of 30. The league is divided into the Eastern Conference (15 teams) and the Western Conference (13 teams this season, 15 in 2000-01). These conferences are each divided into three divisions of four or five teams. There is inter-conference play, but teams from the same division and conference play each other more often. The Eastern Conference is divided up into the Atlantic, Northeast, and Southeast Divisions, while the Western Conference is divided up into the Central, Northwest, and Pacific Divisions.

Regular Season and playoffs

The NHL season is divided up into the regular season and the playoffs. The regular season consists of 82 games and runs from October until April. During the regular season, a team collects points based on its performance as follows: two points for a win, one point for a tie, one point for a loss in overtime, and zero points for a loss. At the end of the regular season, the eight teams with the most points in each conference go on to the playoffs. However, the top team in each of the three divisions in a conference will go on to the playoffs, even if it had a lower point total than another team that didn't win its division.

The NHL playoffs are long, grueling, and glorious to watch. The top eight teams in each conference are ranked from first to eighth, with the division leaders taking the first through third spots in order of their point totals. The fourth to eighth spots go to the other teams in order of their point totals. The playoffs consist of four rounds. The first three rounds are the quarterfinals, semifinals and finals in each conference, after which the two winners of the conference finals play each other for the Stanley Cup, the ultimate prize in the NHL. Each round is a best of seven series, so a team could play as many as 28 extra games in order to win the Stanley Cup. It is always as much a contest of endurance and determination as it is of skill and teamwork, and we get the theme from Rocky going through our heads just thinking about it.

Officials

In each game there are one or two referees, who make on-ice decisions regarding penalties, goals, and other matters. They wear striped jerseys with orange bands on the arms and they skate around, get in the way of players, and fail to see obvious infractions committed against your team's players. There are also two linesmen, who wear striped jerseys with no orange bands, skate around, get in the way of players, keep track of offsides, passing, and icing (see Section 2), and offer opinions to the referee if he asks. Other officials include the time keeper, the official scorer, two goal judges (one behind each net), and the video goal judge. The latter official conducts video reviews of certain plays to see if questionable goals count or not.

2. LEARN THE RULES

Rule number one: whichever team gets the most points wins. OK, OK, it's a little more complicated than that. We did cover some of the rules of play in Section 1, but those were the raw basics of the game. In this section, we'll explain some of the more complicated plays and the most common bad things players can do to get penalties.

Face-offs

Five face-off circles are painted on the ice. Two on either side and just in front of each net and one at the center of the ice. When play begins at the beginning of a period or after a stoppage in play, two players will face each other at one of the face-off circles and try to gain possession of the puck when the referee or linesman drops the puck. This is why you will hear frustrated hockey fans screaming "Drop the puck!" when there has been a long stoppage in play. The players stand with their sticks crossed and poised right over the face-off dot, and they often joust a bit with their sticks before the puck is dropped. If a player gets too rambunctious the official can wave him out of the circle and get another player to take the face-off.

At the beginning of a period, the face-off is always at center ice. After a stoppage in play, where the face-off takes place will depend upon how and why the play was stopped.

Captains and Alternates

One player on each team is chosen by the coach to be the captain, and he wears a C on his jersey. When he's on the ice he is the only one who can discuss (bitch and complain about) interpretations of the rules with the officials. The coach can also designate two other players as alternate captains, and they wear As on their jerseys. They can discuss the rules with the officials when the captain is not on the ice. If the captain is injured and unable to play, the coach can designate a third player as an alternate or re-assign the captaincy.

Penalties

Players will often receive penalties for their constant bad behavior. The referees are the final arbiters of the penalties they call, and players can get into worse trouble by arguing with refs who penalize them. There are four different kinds of penalties: a minor penalty, for which a player must sit in the penalty box for two minutes; a major penalty, for five minutes in the box; a misconduct, for ten minutes; and a game misconduct, which sends a player out for the whole game. In cases of extreme cheap shots or attempts to injure, the league will review the incident and can hand out stiffer suspensions of several games and/or fine the player.

When one team has a player in the box due to a minor penalty, it must play "shorthanded" (with one less skater) until the penalty expires or the opposing team scores a goal. This situation is called a "power play" for the unpenalized team, and a "penalty kill" for the penalized team. If the penalty is a major penalty, the penalized team must kill the penalty for the entire five minutes, regardless of how many goals the opposing team scores. If a penalized team manages to score a goal while killing the penalty, it is called a shorthanded goal. A team can be shorthanded by two players, but no more. If more than two of a team's players are penalized the team will continue to play with four players (but the penalized players must still serve their penalties before they can play). If a player from each team is assessed a minor or major penalty in the same incident, the penalties are called offsetting. The players must sit in the box but the teams continue to play at full strength (with six players each).

A ten-minute or game misconduct only results in the player being ejected from the game for the stated amount of time; the player's team is not shorthanded for the duration of the misconduct.

Offsides

This is one of the more confusing rules for many new hockey fans. We'll try to keep it simple. A player cannot pass forward (toward the opposing team's goal) to a teammate who is another zone, except when the passing player is in the defending zone (behind his own blue line) and his teammate is in the neutral zone but has not passed the red (center) line. If a player is in the defending zone and he passes to a player who has crossed the red line, the play will be called offside and stopped. This kind of offside is called a "two line pass." If the passer and the receiver are both in the neutral zone (between the two blue lines), it's okay to pass the puck past the red line. A player is never permitted to pass forward to a teammate in the attacking zone (behind the opposing team's blue line). A player may always pass back to a teammate in another zone. When a play is called offside, the whistle is blown and play is stopped for a face-off, the location of which is determined by the circumstances of the offside.

Bringing the puck into the attacking zone has special offside rules. The puck must cross the opposing team's blue line before any attacking player does or the play is called offside and stopped. If the puck leaves the attacking zone while attacking players are still in it, they must all skate back out of the zone before the puck can be shot back in by the attacking team or the play will be offside. If, however, the puck bounces back in off a defending player or is shot back in by a defending player, the play will not be offside.

For the purposes of this rule, a player passes into a zone when both of his skates have completely crossed the line that separates it from the preceding zone. The player's stick or one skate can be in a zone, but so long as one of his skates is touching the line he is not considered in the next zone. For the purposes of passing a puck from one zone forward to another, the puck is considered to enter another zone when it completely crosses the line. The linesmen do not refer to the skates of the player in possession of the puck in these cases.

If the offside rules bore you, you are not alone. It is perfectly possible to enjoy hockey without having a refined understanding of the offside rules. You can just nod as if you understand and leave it up to the linesmen.

Icing

To clarify matters, or to confuse you further, we should mention that it is perfectly acceptable to shoot a puck forward into another zone so long as you are not passing it to a teammate. That is, unless you commit the horrendous crime of icing. It is extremely nerve-wracking to have the attacking team passing the puck around in your zone, so defending players are often tempted to get the puck the hell out of there and shoot it down the length of the ice. If players were allowed to do this with impunity, it would make the game rather boring, as teams would rarely be able to maintain any sustained pressure around the opposing team's net. Therefore, whenever a player shoots a puck from his side of the red line (center) towards the attacking zone, it is called icing unless it is on target for the opposing team's net. There are a few conditions required for this rule to apply. The puck must actually make it to the other end of the rink, and it must not have been possible for the opposing team to obtain possession of the puck. If a linesman thinks a player on the opposing team could have got the puck, he waves off icing and no call will be made. If a teammate of the player who shot the puck can touch the puck before or after it hits the other side of the rink and before a player on the opposing team touches it, then icing is waved off. Finally, a team that is killing a penalty (i.e., when the other team has a power play) is permitted to ice the puck without being called for icing.

If the puck makes it through all these conditions, which happens frequently enough, the whistle is blown, play is stopped, and the puck goes all the way back to the zone of the team that iced the puck for a face-off. This gives the opposing team the opportunity to start the play all set up in the attacking zone, where it's fun to be. This might not seem like a particularly stiff penalty, but teams do not like getting cozy with their opponents in their defending zones, so they avoid icing in all but the most dangerous situations.

Checking

Hockey is a rough sport, and the players are allowed, under certain circumstances, to smash into each other. When a player is carrying the puck forward, players from the opposing team are permitted to impede his progress by skating into him. This is called checking. You can also check a player who has just received a pass, and you can usually get away with checking a player who has just made a pass.

The Crease

The crease is the blue painted area in front of the goal, and it is supposed to be the domain of the goaltender. Players may not enter the crease and interfere with the goaltender. They may enter the crease if they are following the puck in. If a player scores a goal while a teammate is in the crease, the goal can be disallowed if it is ruled that the player in the crease was interfering with the goaltender. If a player is in control of the puck, shoots or carries it into the crease and then scores, the goal is allowed. If a player skates into the goaltender with or without the puck, an interference penalty (see below) will usually be assessed.

Boarding

Boarding occurs when a player is facing the boards and an opposing player checks him from behind so that he is violently crushed into the boards. A player can be assessed either a minor or major penalty for boarding, and in many cases more severe penalties or suspensions will be assessed, because players can be very badly hurt from this. If a player is bent over and is slammed into the boards, he can suffer a concussion or even a broken neck, so players and officials alike frown heavily upon players who commit boarding.

Charging

A charging penalty is assessed whenever a player checks another player with excessive violence after skating a long distance. This is mostly a judgement call on the part of the ref; they don't like to see a player line up another and go skating up to smash into him at top speed. This penalty can also apply if a player checks a goaltender. Goaltenders may not be checked even if they leave their creases.

Cross-checking

Cross-checking occurs when a player smashes into another player with his stick held in both hands in front of his body. It can be very painful, and players are very fond of it. A little bit of cross-checking, particularly when defending one's own net, is usually permitted by the refs, but if it becomes excessive or it's just gratuitous nastiness, a penalty will be called.

Elbowing

You aren't allowed to stick your elbow out and hurt people. Aww! Come on! The league takes this pretty seriously, because elbowing can cause concussions. If a player receives a major penalty for an elbow, he also receives an automatic game misconduct and a minimum $100 fine.

Head-Butting

Head-butting is a major no-no. If a player attempts a head-butt, he receives a double-minor penalty. If he actually does head-butt someone, he receives a major penalty. If the head-putted person is injured, the player receives a major penalty and a game misconduct.

High Sticking

If a player's stick makes contact with another player above the struck player's shoulder height, a penalty will be assessed. This applies even if the contact was accidental, unless the contact occurred in the normal windup or follow-through of a shot. If the contact is deliberate and/or causes an injury, a double minor or major penalty will be assessed.

Players are also not allowed to bat a puck out of the air with a stick above shoulder height, or to redirect a puck into the net with a stick above the height of the crossbar on the goal. If a goal is scored in this manner, it will be disallowed.

Holding

A player is not allowed to hold onto an opponent with his hands, arms or legs. It's okay to use a hand to hold off a player by straight-arming him, but you can't grab or hold him. Players are also forbidden to hold onto other players' sticks. Either sort of infraction results in a minor penalty. You go and sit in the box, and you feel shame.

Hooking

This penalty is assessed when a player uses the blade or shaft of his stick to impede another player's movement. Players do this quite frequently and get away with it, but if they really put the hook on someone they get the whistle.

Interference

This penalty describes a wide range of evils, but it mostly refers to the practice of impeding the progress of a player who is not in possession of the puck. If a player doesn't have the puck, it's nobody else's business where he wants to skate. The league has been trying very hard to crack down on this infraction in recent years, because teams had come to rely on it to shut down opposing teams' skilled players and make the game more boring.

A special sort of interference call is the penalty shot. If someone has a breakaway, i.e., he is on his opponent's side of the red line and there is nobody between him and the goalie, and someone trips him up or otherwise impedes him from behind, he is supposed to be awarded a penalty shot. Refs only do this in extreme cases, usually preferring to assess a tripping or interference minor. If a penalty shot is awarded, the clock is stopped and the player is allowed to skate, all by himself, from center ice towards the opposing goalie and take his best shot. This is one of the more exciting moments in hockey, and we wish refs would award these more often.

Roughing

A roughing penalty is assessed when players get feisty and hit each other or wrestle a bit, but leave their gloves on. You'll quickly notice that refs will allow quite a bit of pushing, shoving and grabbing after the whistle before they'll make a roughing call, but they'll call this penalty if things get out of hand. If the gloves come off and players start slugging each other in earnest, then it's a fight and fighting penalties will be assessed (see Section 3).

Slashing

This is another one of those things that hockey players do all the time and are only penalized for occasionally. Slashing refers to the practice of hitting other players with your hockey stick. Players use their sticks to irritate each other, to interfere with shooting and passing, and, yes, to hurt each other. A slashing penalty is usually called when the contact is particularly nasty, or when an injury is sustained or feigned by the recipient of the blow. Many slashes are disguised as attempts to get the puck, and it's easier to get away with those. Penalties are called more often when a player slashes another player who doesn't have the puck. A slashing penalty will usually be a minor or double-minor. Majors for slashing are rare."

Tripping

Just like it sounds. This can be done with the legs or stick, and it usually results in a minor penalty. See? Some of these rules are really simple!

3. ADMIT THAT YOU LIKE THE FIGHTING

The NHL isn't sure whether it likes fighting or not; on the one hand, they don't want to generate a barbaric image for shiny, happy TV-land, but on the other hand, they know that these are decadent times and the people want to see violence. We do not suffer from such uncertainty. We know that we like the fights, and you might as well go ahead and admit that you like them, too.

In the olden days, hockey players used to fight a lot more, and they fought because they were genuinely so pissed off at each other that they wanted to see blood. Nearly all players fought, including the star players, and nobody really worried too much about the occasional bench-clearing brawl or a trip to the infirmary for fifty stitches. With expansion, however, the league started thinking it might want to appeal to fans who were not quite so keen on blood (we believe there are several nuns who fit this description), and they instituted more controls on fighting.

Nowadays, fighting is more of a side show and less frequently a genuine display of emotion and intensity. Usually, each team will have one or more designated goons (big, nasty guys who fight a lot), and if there is a lull in the action these goons will often agree with each other that it's time for them to have a fight and get everyone fired up. We don't think there's anything wrong with this sort of side show action. These guys are well paid and they put on a good show. And there are still real fights. Hockey is a very difficult game and a very frustrating game, and players can easily get under each other's skins. It's great to see these tough, intense guys show some heart and blow off some steam.

Here's how the rules of fighting work: if a player skates up to another player, whips off his gloves and punches him, the other player will almost always begin to punch back. The player who started it will get a two-minute-instigator penalty and both players will get offsetting fighting major penalties. The result is that the instigator's team has to kill off a penalty. Sometimes a player will not fight back, and will, instead, crumple to the ice with his hands over his head. This is called "turtling." Guys who turtle are looked upon with the utmost scorn, first because they are wimps, and second because players almost never go up and start punching a guy unless he deserves it for some cheap shot he committed earlier. It's bad enough to cheap-shot somebody, but it's much worse not to admit it when someone comes to make you pay for your cheap-shot. In this case the punching player will receive a major penalty, and the turtling player will receive universal derision.

The more common sort of fight is where two players get angry with each other or otherwise decide they want to fight. They start jawing at each other and giving each other macho signals until they're both sure they want to go, and then they drop sticks and gloves, grab on, and start punching. The dropping of the gloves is the surefire signal that fighting has begun. You can often punch a guy once or twice with your glove on and get away with nothing or just a two-minute roughing call. But once the gloves are off, you're going to sit for five minutes so you might as well hurt the guy. Once the fight starts, all the other players who don't get involved in fights of their own (often many fights will break out simultaneously) must skate over to the bench and get out of the way. The linesmen then circle around and let the fighters go at it for a while until one starts to get the best of it or one goes down. Then the linesmen go in and break up the fight, and the fighters skate over to their respective penalty boxes. In this sort of fight, both players are assessed offsetting major penalties, both teams continue to skate at full strength, the crowd and the players get fired up, and all is well.

Ah, hockey! What other sport can compare?

Now if you still have unanswered questions about hockey, don't ask us. We already told you all we know. Go to Answerbag.com for hockey answers.