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Ice hockey, referred to simply as hockey in Canada, the United States, and most of Europe including Finland, Sweden, Russia and the Czech Republic, 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. Though played on six continents, ice hockey, as a participatory and as a spectator sport, is most popular in nations in which the climate is sufficiently cold as to permit natural, long-term seasonal ice cover; Canada, the Czech Republic, Finland, Slovakia, Sweden, Russia, and the United States have dominated international competition, claiming 47 of the 48 gold and silver medals awarded in the men's and women's competitions at the Olympic Winter Games.
Ice hockey is one of the four major North American professional sports, represented at the highest level by the National Hockey League. It is the official national winter sport of Canada, where seven of the 32 NHL franchises are based; Canadian-born players, though, outnumber American-born players in the NHL by a factor of three (30 per cent, additionally, come from outside North America).
The sport is played on a hockey rink. During normal play, there are six players, five positional players and one goaltender, per team on the ice at any time, 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, with the goal nets placed at opposite ends 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 generally redirect the puck with any part of their bodies, but the kicking of the puck into the goal is prohibited.
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Ice hockey tournaments have been staged at the Olympic Games since 1920. The men's tournament was introduced at the 1920 Summer Olympics and was transferred permanently to the Winter Olympic Games programme in 1924. The women's tournament was first held at the 1998 Winter Olympics. The Olympic Games were originally intended for amateur athletes, and until 1998, the players of the National Hockey League (NHL) and other men's professional leagues were not allowed to compete. From 1924 to 1988, the tournament started with a round-robin series of games and ended with the medal round. Medals were awarded based on points accumulated during that round. The games of the tournament follow the rules of the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF), which differ slightly from the rules used in the NHL. The tournament follows the World Anti-Doping Agency's (WADA) rules on performance enhancing drugs and the IIHF maintains a Registered Testing Pool, a list of top players who are subjected to random in-competition and out-of-competition drug tests. Several players have tested positive for banned substances since the 1972 Winter Olympics. In July 1992, the IOC voted to approve women's hockey as an Olympic event; it was first held at the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano. The United States won the first tournament in 1998, while Canada won in 2002 and 2006. (more...)
Quotes
| “ | Red ice sells hockey tickets. | ” |
| — Bob Stewart | ||
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The Hockey Hall of Fame is a hall of fame and museum located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Dedicated to the history of ice hockey, it contains exhibits that feature interactive displays, players, teams, NHL records, memorabilia and NHL trophies, including the Stanley Cup.
Did you know ...
- ... that Pete Muldoon (pictured), after he was fired after only one season in 1927 by the Chicago Blackhawks, supposedly placed an Irish curse that would prevent the Blackhawks from being first for the next 41 years?
- ...that the Los Angeles Kings have appeared three times in the Stanley Cup Finals during their 50-year existence, and won it in 2012 and 2014?
- ...that the Edmonton Oilers have appeared in the Stanley Cup Finals seven times since they joined the NHL in 1979, winning five times?
- ...that the Avco World Trophy, the championship trophy of the now-defunct World Hockey Association, was not completed when the New England Whalers won the WHA championship in 1973?
- ...that the Scotiabank Saddledome is the home of the Calgary Flames?
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