Ice Hockey

Ice hockey is one of the most action-paced of sports, demanding skillful skating, expert stick-handling, and masterly puck control.

The game developed in the frozen expanses of North America, and a hundred years ago becamethe national winter sport of Canada. It also became very popular in the northern states of the UnitedStates, and later spread to Europe, Japan, and even to Australia.

The game probably arose from boys playing on the ice. The kids probably fashioned pucks fromfrozen «horse apples» and adapted tree branches as hockey sticks, and played on clearedstretches of frozen lakes and rivers, and backyard rinks. Soon it was inevitable that teams began toplay against each other and leagues were formed. The earliest mention of the team ice hockeygame is a newspaper description of the game played at the Victoria Skating Rink in Montreal in1875.

Originally the leagues and national competitions in Canada were amateur. In 1917 the firstprofessional league was formed, the National Hockey League (or NHL), with four clubs — MontrealCanadians, Montreal Wanderers, Ottawa Senators, and Toronto Arenas. Later clubs were formed inAmerican cities, and the NHL spread to the United States. In 1972 a rival professional organisationwas formed, the World Hockey Association (or WHA).

In 1893 Lord Stanley, the Governor-General of Canada, presented a silver trophy, the Stanley Cupto the winners and play-offs for the Stanley Cup began, which then became the symbol ofprofessional hockey supremacy.

Canadian-style ice hockey spread rapidly in Europe between the two World Wars. In the northerncountries it had to compete against bandy.

Hockey is a team game played on an ice surface, known as a rink. Six players — a goalkeeper, twodefence-men, and three forwards — constitute a side.

The game is divided into three periods, each lasting twenty minutes of actual playing time with -10-minute intervals. There are five face-off spots whereby the puck is dropped by the referee betweenthe sticks of two players. After a goal is scored, the puck is brought back to center ice for anotherface-off.

The playing area (rink) is 188 to 200 feet long, and about 85 feet wide. The playing area issubdivided into three zones — defensive, neutral and attacking — by two blue lines (called off-sidelines) teams defensive zone is that zone where the goal cage, which it is defending, is located. Thezone at- the opposite end of the rink is known as the teams attacking zone.

The area between is known as the neutral zone and is divided at the centre by a red line. This lineplays an important role in the game’s body checking regulations. Players are subject to a variety ofpenalties leading to their dismissal from the ice for two minutes or more, thus giving the other teama one-man advantage for the duration of the penalty or until a goal is scored.