Ice hockey, known simply as hockey in Canada and the United
States, is a team sport played on ice. It is one of the world's fastest sports,
with players on skates capable of going high speeds on natural or artificial ice
surfaces. The most prominent ice hockey nations are Canada, Russia, the United
States, Sweden, Finland, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia.
In all there are 64 members in the International Ice Hockey Federation. Its
worldwide popularity is concentrated primarily in locales cold enough for
natural, long-term seasonal ice cover. It is the official national winter sport
of Canada, and it is comparably popular in certain regions of the United States
(notably the Northeast, the Northern Midwest, and Alaska). The parts of North
America which have the strongest followings of the sport are often called
"hockey country". Although it is the least watched of the four major
professional team sports in the United States, it enjoys intense popularity in
Canada. It is generally accepted that about 15 million Canadians and 38 million
Americans watched the 2002 Olympic gold medal hockey game on television, in
which Canada defeated the United States 5-2.
While most of the countries mentioned above have their own professional ice
hockey league, North America's National Hockey League (NHL), is considered the
world's premier professional ice hockey league and attracts almost all of the
world's elite players.
History
The history of ice hockey is one of the most contested in all of sports. The
city of Montreal had been traditionally credited with being the birthplace of
hockey, but early paintings contest this claim; 16th-century Dutch paintings
show a number of townsfolk playing a hockey-like game on a frozen canal.
Kingston, Ontario and Windsor, Nova Scotia also lay claim to its origins for
similar reasons. The origin of the word hockey is officially unknown, it may
derive from the Old French word hoquet, shepherd's crook, but it may also
derive from the Middle Dutch word hokkie which is the diminutive of
'hok', meaning literally 'shack' or 'doghouse' but in popular use meant goal.
When Great Britain conquered New France from France in 1763 (much of which
would later become part of Canada), soldiers used their knowledge of field
hockey and the physically aggressive aspects of what the Mi'kmaq Aboriginal
First Nation in Nova Scotia called dehuntshigwa'es (lacrosse). As Canadian
winters are long and harsh, new winter sports were always welcomed. Using cheese
cutters strapped to their boots, both English- and French-speaking Canadians
played the game on frozen rivers, lakes, and ponds. Early paintings show hockey
being played in Nova Scotia, as well as in the state of Virginia in the United
States.
On March 3, 1875, the first ever organized indoor game was played in
Montreal, as recorded in the Montreal Gazette. In 1877, in order to make some
sense of the game, McGill students, James Creighton, Henry Joseph, Richard F.
Smith, W. F. Robertson and W. L. Murray invented seven ice hockey rules. Having
an organized system in place, the game became so popular that it was featured
for the first time in Montreal's annual Winter Carnival in 1883. In 1888, the
governor general of Canada, Lord Stanley of Preston (whose sons were hockey
enthusiasts), attended the Carnival and was so impressed with the hockey
spectacle that he thought there should be a championship trophy for the best
team. The Stanley Cup was first awarded then to the champion amateur team in
Canada, and continues to be awarded today to the National Hockey League's
championship team. As an interesting historical footnote, one of Lord Stanley's
sons was instrumental in introducing ice hockey to the United Kingdom and from
there, to Europe at large.
By 1893, Winnipeg hockey players incorporated cricket pads to better protect
the goaltender's legs. They also introduced the "scoop" shot, later known as the
wrist shot.
Houghton, MI, located in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, was the birthplace
of professional ice hockey in the United States when the
Portage Lakers were formed in 1899.
The National Hockey League was formed in November of 1917, when members of
the former National Hockey Association were engaged in a dispute with one of
their fellow owners over insurance proceeds. The NHA disbanded, and the new
league began play in December of that year.
On February 16, 2005, the NHL became the first major professional team sport
in North America to cancel an entire season because of a labour dispute. Play
resumed again in the fall of 2005.
International competition
Europeans highly regard the annual men's Ice Hockey World Championships, but
it is less important to North Americans, because it coincides with the NHL
playoffs and, therefore, in North Americans' view, Canada and the United States
cannot field the best team since many of their players are unavailable. Now that
most Europeans play in the NHL, the world championships no longer represent the
best of any nation's players.
Hockey has been played at the Winter Olympics since 1924 (and at the summer
games in 1920). Canada won six of the first seven gold medals. The USSR won all
but two Olympic ice hockey golds from 1956 to 1988, and won a final time as the
Unified Team at the 1992 Albertville Olympics. Since all players in the
communist system were "amateurs," the USSR's elite national team was the best
the country had to offer, while the best Americans, Swedes, Finns, and Canadians
were professionals and thus barred from Olympic competition. Nonetheless,
American amateur college players defeated the heavily favored Soviet squad on
the way to winning the gold medal at the 1980 Lake Placid Olympics. This
"Miracle on Ice" launched a surge of newfound popularity for a game many
Americans had not cared much about before. The United States won their first
gold medal in 1960.
The 1972 Summit Series established Canada and the USSR as a major
international ice hockey rivalry. It was followed by five Canada Cup
tournaments, where the best players from every hockey nation could play. This
tournament later became the World Cup of Hockey, played in in 1996 and 2004,
Canada won in 2004 and the US in 1996. Since 1998, NHL professionals have played
in the Olympics as well, so that the best in the world have had more
opportunities to face off.
There have been nine women's world championships, beginning in 1990. Women's
hockey has been played at the Olympics since 1998. Currently Canada and the US
dominate the world scene (all world championship and Olympic finals have
involved both countries)..
Game
Ice hockey is played on a hockey rink by six players per side, each of
whom is on ice skates. The objective of the game is to score goals
by playing 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. One of the six players is typically a goaltender,
whose primary job is to stop the puck from entering the net, and who is
permitted unique gear towards that end.
The other five players are divided into three forwards and two defencemen.
The forward positions are named left wing, centre and 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, but may change less frequently than the forwards. A substitution of an
entire unit at once is called a line change. 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 play often
proceeds for minutes without interruption. When play is stopped, it is restarted
with a faceoff. There are two major rules of play in ice hockey that
limit the movement of the puck: offside and icing.
In most competitive leagues, each team may carry at most 23 players on its
game roster, two of whom are typically goaltenders. North American professional
leagues restrict the total number of skaters to 18 or fewer.
The remaining characteristics of the game often depend on the particular code
of play being used. The two most important codes are those of the International
Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) and of the North American National Hockey League
(NHL). North American amateur hockey codes, such as those of Hockey Canada and
USA Hockey, tend to be a hybrid of the NHL and IIHF codes, while professional
rules generally follow those of the NHL.
Penalties
A typical game of ice hockey has two to four officials on the ice
charged with enforcing the rules of the game. There are typically two
linesmen, who are responsible only for calling offside and icing violations,
and one or two referees, who call goals and all other penalties.
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, most forceful stick-on-body contact
is illegal -- as there are many infractions for which a player may be assessed a
penalty.
For most penalties, the offending player is sent to the penalty box
and his team has to play without him and with one less man for a short amount of
time, giving the other team what is popularly termed a power play. A
two-minute minor penalty is often called for lesser infractions such as
tripping, elbowing, roughing, high-sticking, too many players on the ice,
illegal equipment, charging (leaping into an opponent), holding, interference,
delay of game, hooking, or cross-checking. More egregious fouls of this type may
be penalized by a four-minute double-minor penalty, particularly those
which (inadvertently) cause injury to the victimized player. These penalties end
either when the time runs out or the other team scores on 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). Five-minute major penalties are called for especially
violent instances of most minor infractions which result in intentional injury
to an opponent, as well as for fighting, checking from behind and spearing.
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 penalised either by a minor or major penalty at
the discretion of the referee, based on the violence of the hit.
Two varieties of penalty do not always require the offending team to play a
man down. 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 (a two-and-ten or five-and-ten). In that 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 (at the officials'
discretion), 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 (he does not sit in the penalty box); meanwhile, if a
minor or major is assessed in addition, a designated player must serve out that
segment of the penalty in the box (similar to the above-mentioned
"two-and-ten").
A player who is tripped by an opponent on a breakaway – when there are
no defenders except the goaltender between him and the opponent's goal – is
awarded a penalty shot, an attempt to score without opposition from any
defenders except the goaltender. A penalty shot is also awarded for a defender
other than the goaltender covering the puck in the goal crease, intentionally
throwing a stick at the puck, or intentionally displacing his own goal posts in
order to avoid a goal.
Officials also stop play for puck movement violations, but no players are
penalized for these offenses. 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 (all penalized two minutes for delay of
game).
Games are overseen by officials that are selected by the league for which
they work. The most common officiating organisation is USA Hockey, where
referees are selected for games depending on their experience level (one, two,
three, or four. Officials are divided into on-ice officials and off-ice
officials.
Tactics
An important defensive tactic is checking – attempting to take the
puck from an opponent or to remove the opponent from play. Forechecking
is checking in the other team's zone, backchecking is checking while the
other team is advancing down the ice toward one's own goal; these terms usually
are applied to checking by forwards. Stick checking, sweep checking,
and poke checking are legal uses of the stick to obtain possession of the
puck. 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.
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.
Offensive tactics are designed ultimately to score a goal by taking a shot.
When a player purposefully directs the puck towards the opponent's goal, he or
she is said to shoot the puck.
A deflection is a shot which 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 which is struck directly off a
pass, without receiving the pass and shooting in two separate actions.
A deke (short for decoy) is a feint with the body and/or stick
to fool a defender or the goalie. Headmanning the puck 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 may
elect to pull the goalie; that is, removing the goaltender and replacing
him or her with an extra attacker on the ice in the hope of gaining
enough advantage to score a goal. However, this tactic is extremely risky, and
as often as not leads to the winning team scoring a goal in the empty net.
Although it is officially prohibited in the rules, at the professional level
fights are sometimes used to affect morale of the teams, with aggressors hoping
to demoralize the opposing players while exciting their own, as well as settling
personal scores. Both players in an altercation receive five-minute major
penalties for fighting. The player deemed to be the "instigator" of an NHL fight
is penalized an additional two minutes for instigating, plus a ten-minute
misconduct penalty. This so-called instigator rule is highly controversial in
NHL hockey: many coaches, sportswriters, players and fans feel it prevents
players from effectively policing the objectionable behavior of their peers,
which is often cleverly hidden from referees. They point to less extreme on-ice
violence during the era before the rule was introduced. Toronto Maple Leafs
owner Conn Smythe famously observed that "If you can't beat 'em in the alley you
can't beat 'em on the ice."
Periods and overtime
A game consists of three periods of twenty minutes each, the clock
running only when the puck is in play. In international play, the teams change
ends for the second period, again for the third period, and again after ten
minutes of the third period. In many North American leagues, including the NHL,
the last change is omitted.
Various procedures are used if a game is tied. In tournament play, as well as
in the NHL playoffs, North Americans favor sudden death overtime, in
which the teams continue to play 20 minute periods until a goal is scored. Up
until the 1999-00 season regular season NHL games were settled with a single 5
minute sudden death period with 5 players (plus a goalie) per side, with the
winner awarded 2 points in the standings and the loser 0 points, in the event of
a tie each team was awarded 1 point. From 1999-00 until 2005-06 the National
Hockey League decided ties by playing a single five-minute sudden death overtime
period with each team having 4 players (plus a goalie) per side to "open-up" the
game, in the event of a tie each team would still recieve 1 point in the
standings but in the event of a victory the winning team would be awarded 2
points in the standings and the losing team 1 point. International play and
several North American professional leagues, including the NHL (in the regular
season), now use an overtime period followed by a penalty shootout. If the score
remains tied after an extra overtime period, the subsequent shootout consists of
five (or three) players from each team taking penalty shots. After these ten (or
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
(actually sudden victory) format. Regardless of the number of goals scored
during the shootout by either team, the final score recorded will give the
winning team one more goal than the score at the end of regulation time. In the
NHL if a team is decided by a shootout the winning team is awarded 2 points in
the standings and the losing team is awarded 1, ties no longer occur in the NHL.
Equipment
The hard surfaces of the ice and boards, pucks flying at high speed (over 160
km/h at times), and other players maneuvering (and often intentionally
colliding) pose a multitude of inherent safety hazards. Besides ice skates and
sticks, hockey players are usually equipped with an array of safety gear to
lessen their risk of serious injury. This usually includes a helmet, shoulder
pads, elbow pads, mouth guard, protective gloves, heavily padded pants, a 'jock'
athletic protector, and leg guards. Goaltenders wear masks and much bulkier,
specialized equipment designed to protect them from many direct hits from pucks.
Youth and college hockey players are required to wear a mask made from metal
wire or transparent plastic attached to their helmet that protects their face
during play. Professional and adult players may instead wear a visor that
protects only their eyes, or no mask at all; however, some provincial and state
legislation require full facial protection at all non-professional levels. Rules
regarding visors and face masks are mildly controversial at professional levels,
as some players feel that they interfere with their vision or breathing and/or
encourage carrying of the stick up high, in a reckless manner, while others
believe that they are a necessary safety precaution.
In fact, the adoption of safety equipment has been a gradual one at the North
American professional level, where even helmets were not mandatory until the
1980s. The famous goalie, Jacques Plante, had to suffer a hard blow to the face
with a flying puck in 1959 before he could persuade his coach to allow him to
wear a protective goalie mask in play.
Women's ice hockey
Ice hockey is one of the fastest growing women's sports in the world, with
the number of participants increasing 400 percent in the last 10 years.[1]
While there are not as many organized leagues for women as there are for men,
there exist leagues of all levels, including the National Women's Hockey League,
Western Women's Hockey League, and various European leagues; as well as
university teams, national and Olympic teams, and recreational teams. There have
been nine IIHF World Women Championships.
The chief difference between women's and men's ice hockey is that
bodychecking is not allowed in women's ice hockey. After the 1990 Women's World
Championship, bodychecking was eliminated because women in many countries do not
have the size and mass seen in North American players. There are many who feel
that the relative lack of physical play is a detriment to its popularity among
the mainstream hockey public.
One woman, Manon Rhéaume, appeared as a goaltender for the Tampa Bay
Lightning in preseason games against the St. Louis Blues and the Boston Bruins,
and in 2003 Hayley Wickenheiser signed 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 and Rheaume, and
forward Angela Ruggeiro.
Sledge hockey
Sledge hockey is a form of ice hockey designed for players with
physical disabilities in their lower bodies. The players ride double-bladed
sledges using sticks which have a spike on one end for propulsion and a blade on
the other end for directing the puck. The rules are very similar to IIHF ice
hockey rules.
SPORT DESCRIPTION
Sledge hockey is an innovative team sport that incorporates the same rules
and discipline structure as regular ice hockey. In sledge hockey, players use
their sticks not only to pass, stickhandle and shoot the puck but also to
manoeuvre their sledges.
Canada is the recognized international leader in the development of the sport
of sledge hockey and equipment for players. Sledge hockey sticks laminated with
fiberglass, as well as aluminum shafts with hand carved insert blades and
special aluminum sledges with regulation skate blades, were first developed in
Canada.
HISTORY OF SLEDGE HOCKEY
Sledge hockey was invented by three Swedish wheelchair athletes on a frozen
lake at a rehabilitation centre in Stockholm in 1961. It became an official
event at the International Paralympic Games in 1994.
The game was an instant success, and after only a couple of years of
development, five teams competed for the Stockholm City Championship. The
Swedish players subsequently introduced the sport to their Norwegian neighbors
and regular matches between respective national teams ensued. Norway in turn
introduced the sport to British wheelchair athletes. In the early 1980s one of
the inventors, Rolf Johansson, a gold medal Paralympian in track wheelchair,
gave one of his hockey sledges to Dick Loiselle, the former director of the 1976
Olympic Games in Montreal. Mr. Johansson did so under the condition that Mr.
Loiselle introduce sledge hockey in Canada.
As a result of rapid growth of the sport, Sledge Hockey of Canada (SHOC) was
created in 1993 and given the mandate by the Government of Canada (Sport Canada)
to be the national sport federation responsible to coordinate, develop and
promote the sport of sledge hockey in Canada.
In 1994, sledge hockey was introduced as a demonstration sport at the
Paralympic Winter Games in Lillehammer, Norway. The sport became a full medal
event at the 1998 Nagano Paralympic Winter Games. Canada has participated in
every Paralympic Winter Games.
| 2006 Winter Olympics
medal count |
| Pos |
Country |
Gold |
Silver |
Bronze |
Total |
| 1 |
Germany |
11 |
12 |
6 |
29 |
| 2 |
United States |
9 |
9 |
7 |
25 |
| 3 |
Austria |
9 |
7 |
7 |
23 |
| 4 |
Russia |
8 |
6 |
8 |
22 |
| 5 |
Canada |
7 |
10 |
7 |
24 |
| 6 |
Sweden |
7 |
2 |
5 |
14 |
| 7 |
Korea |
6 |
3 |
2 |
11 |
| 8 |
Switzerland |
5 |
4 |
5 |
14 |
| 9 |
Italy |
5 |
0 |
6 |
11 |
| 10 |
France |
3 |
2 |
4 |
9 |
| Netherlands |
3 |
2 |
4 |
9 |
| 12 |
Estonia |
3 |
0 |
0 |
3 |
| 13 |
Norway |
2 |
8 |
9 |
19 |
| 14 |
China |
2 |
4 |
5 |
11 |
| 15 |
Czech Republic |
1 |
2 |
1 |
4 |
| 16 |
Croatia |
1 |
2 |
0 |
3 |
| 17 |
Australia |
1 |
0 |
1 |
2 |
| 18 |
Japan |
1 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
| 19 |
Finland |
0 |
6 |
3 |
9 |
| 20 |
Poland |
0 |
1 |
1 |
2 |
| 21 |
Belarus |
0 |
1 |
0 |
1 |
| Bulgaria |
0 |
1 |
0 |
1 |
| Great Britain |
0 |
1 |
0 |
1 |
| Slovakia |
0 |
1 |
0 |
1 |
| 25 |
Ukraine |
0 |
0 |
2 |
2 |
| 26 |
Latvia |
0 |
0 |
1 |
1 |
| |
|
84 |
84 |
84 |
252 |
|
