Maybe hockey catches your eye, but you don’t know much about it. We want to give you the necessary information so that you can get used to this sport.
We will be as practical as possible when explaining the dynamics. It’s like the cousin of soccer but much faster. The main objective in both sports is to score goals; in both teams, they must avoid scoring. The difference in this sport is that a ball is not used; instead, we have a puck and a stick.
POSITIONS
Each team has six players on the court, and the formation is one goalkeeper and five skaters divided between defenders and attackers. In the lower zone, there are two defenders on each flank defending the goalkeeper, and the attack is made up of a setter who plays in the middle and seeks to create goal plays.
On each side, there is a forward, and their task is to score goals, and the captain of the group usually wears the letter C on their jersey.
GAME EQUIPMENT
To begin with, we are talking about a puck, a black vulcanized rubber with a thickness of one inch and a diameter of 3 inches with a weight of 5 ½ to 6 ounces. The sticks are made of wood with a length of no more than 63 inches.
The base of the stick is flattened in order to impact the puck and its length cannot be more than 12 ½ inches long. The archer’s stick is bigger and his blade is more curved.
Each player will wear a jersey with the number on his back, a helmet, and protective padding on his body. Goalies may wear a protective mask similar to the one catchers wear in baseball.
THE RINK OR TUNDRA
The ice surface on which they play the match is known as the rink. This space is surrounded by glass and protectors with an official dimension of 200 feet long by 85 feet wide.
The rink is divided into zones by a red line in the center and two other blue lines. There are nine points where head-to-heads are held to fight for the puck, and at each end, there is a marked goal area. The goals are made up of three posts and a net; their dimensions are 6 feet wide by four feet high.
GAME DURATION
Each game is divided into three periods with a duration of 20 minutes each. When the first period ends, a 17-minute break is taken to continue with the second. During the match, the teams may request a 30-second break, which is known as a timeout. There are also timeouts specially requested by television stations for commercial breaks.
OVERTIME
At times when there is a tie in a the regular season game, there will be an extra period of 5 minutes. In cases like these, the first to score the goal wins, and the teams will play with one goalkeeper and three skaters. There is the possibility of playing with one more skater instead of a goalkeeper.
Still, if he falls, he loses his point for the tie, and the winner will take an additional point. If the tie persists, a shootout will take place, so to speak, a series of penalties similar to those in soccer, choosing three players to shoot.
Each one will have a confrontation with the rival goalkeeper. The skater will start from the central red line, and if the teams do not win after the heads-up, they will repeat it again.
It is important to remember that in the playoffs, there are no shootouts, instead 20, minute sudden death is played with full draws.
SUBSTITUTES
In a match, there are 20 players, 2 goalkeepers, and 18 skaters, which the coach can change during the match; some even change the whole team lineup.
OFFICERS
The games involve four officials on the ice wearing black and white striped shirts. They are distinguished by an orange band on the arm.
Two of them are referees who oversee the actions that occur in the game, in face-offs and penalties. The remaining referees are lined and mark the infractions on the red line or the blue ones.
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