The Rules of Ice Hockey

In the UK ice hockey is often overseen as other sports are more recognised. A common excuse is that ice hockey is hard to follow on TV. However, when you see the real thing it's a different story!!! As with any other sport the rules are important to understand the game – read the following and then come up to see our next game!


The ice is 200 feet (61 meters) long by 85 feet (26 meters) wide. The ice has two blue lines which indicate the teams' defence and attack zones. The red lines by the goal are called the goal lines. There are two halves of this which is indicated by the red centre line in the middle. The goals are 6 feet ( 1.8 meters) by 4 feet (1.2 meters) high. The players play with a puck – a disc of vulcanised rubber. Trust me, you don't want that to hit you in the face! The puck is 1 inch (2.5cm) thick and 3 inches (7.6 cm) in diameter. It weights about 6 ounces (170 grams). Pucks are actually frozen before the game and kept in a cooler so they don't bounce as much when they're in play.

The game starts and lasts for 60minutes which are divided into three 20-minute periods. Teams consist of 20 players. Six players per team are on the ice at once; a goalie and 5 skaters that will be during rotating shifts that last for 30 seconds to 1.5 minutes. Usually the skaters will be three forwards (left wing, centre and right wing) and two defenders.


The aim of the sport is to get the puck into the opposing team's net. The puck must completely cross the goal line before the goal counts. The puck can touch anything on the way into the goal including feet as long as the puck is not not kicked or battered by hand. The puck can't be struck with a stick above the 4-foot crossbar of the net either.

The game starts when the referee drops the puck in the centre of the ice; the clock will then start to count down. For every pause in the game, the clock will stop. The game therefore consists of 60 minutes of actual play but will last for roughly two hours.

The most common penalties a team will get include tripping, slashing, roughing, charging, high-sticking and the embarrassing too-many-on-the-ice.
When a penalty is called a player must go to the penalty box and cool down for 2 minutes. In those 2 minutes the team will play box-play – four players on the ice! The other team will then play power-play, and if they score before the 2 minutes run out the penalty ends automatically.

Now to the offside rules for ice hockey.
'Trust me – not as complicated as in football!!'

Icing the puck:
When you see the puck go from one end to the other the referee will blow the whistle.
A player has to be over the red centre line before shooting the the puck down behind the goal line. If the puck touches anything on the way down 'icing' will not be called and the play can continue.

Offside:
A team is offside when any member of the attacking team precedes the puck over the defending team's blue line. The position of the player's skates and not that of his stick is the determining factor.

If both skates are over the the blue line before the puck, the player is offside. If one skate is outside the blue line and the other inside the zone the player is onside.

'that's it – not complicated at all!!!!'