Soccer may be the beautiful sport, but hockey is no ugly stepsister.
With origins in the early 1800’s, the greatest game on ice gave out the first Stanley Cup, then the Dominion Hockey Challenge Cup awarded by Governor General of Canada Lord Stanley of Preston, in 1893. The trophy is still awarded to the champions of the National Hockey League (NHL) each year. Every player on the winning team gets his name inscribed on the cup. Recently, Colorado Avalanche Defenseman Adam Deadmarsh’s name was misspelled on the cup, one of the many unique features of North America’s oldest awarded trophy. Teams only get to keep the cup for one year after winning the championship before the trophy is awarded to another club.
Why start with the Stanley Cup? Because it is the reason all players put in the time, effort, blood, sweat and tears and coaches and management spend sleepless nights strategizing and negotiating. Every NHL team plays 82 regular season games, 41 at home and 41 on the road. Under the current format, every team will play every other team in the league at least once. There are two conferences, Eastern and Western, and three divisions within each. In the East, there is the Atlantic Division, the Northeast Division and the Southeast Division. In the West, there is the Central Division, the Northwest Division and the Pacific Division. Each of the divisions are designed to emphasize geographical rivalries as well as long-time rivals, including the Original Six teams of the NHL (Montreal Canadiens, Toronto Maple Leafs, Chicago Blackhawks, Detroit Red Wings, Boston Bruins and New York Rangers).
The top eight teams of each conference reach the playoffs. The playoffs consist of a bracket-like format, where the top seed plays the lowest seed and so on. The Stanley Cup playoffs begin in April after the regular season ends and the playoffs can run through June, adding two months to an already grueling schedule. Because of this, teams with depth and teams that can stay healthy have a distinct advantage.
Depth means, of the 12 forwards, 6 defensemen and 2 goalies on a roster, all 20 players are playing consistently and earning many minutes. The forwards are organized into four lines of three, with a center and a “wing” on each side. The defensemen are paired into three lines, and each forward and defense line play shifts, continually coming on and off the ice in generally 90 seconds to 2 minute increments. When a coach says he’s rolling four lines, that means that all four forward lines are getting near equal playing time. Lines are organized by scoring, physicality and special teams.
Special teams are made up of the Power Play unit and the Penalty Kill unit. When a team occurs a penalty, the offending player spends a set amount of time in the penalty box, leaving his team with fewer players on the ice and giving the opposing team a “power play.” A team will usually put four forwards and one defenseman on the ice instead of the usual three forward-two defenseman combination for the power play. The NHL average for scoring on a power play is around 18% success rate, yet with the low scoring nature of the game and momentum changing power, trying to “kill” a penalty, or keep the other team from scoring for the time your player is in the penalty box, is an extremely important part of a team’s success.
On an individual level, hockey players are known for their toughness, skill, speed and quiet off-ice demeanor. Hockey is a physical game, with fighting being an unwritten way for teams to police the ice themselves without referee and league interference, but the stereotype of “I went to a fight and a hockey game broke out,” applies almost exclusively to the movies and the minor leagues. The current rules in the NHL encourages a very fast game, with skaters flying up and down the ice creating opportunities. It also favors players with more skill than grit.
Much of what determines the winner of the game is determined by the pace of the play. If one team continues to get offensive opportunities, that produces a lot of pressure on a goalie to stop many consecutive shots. Teams try to prevent shots from reaching the goalie (a shot-on-goal) by blocking shots and intercepting passes (just like football, but your defense turns into your offense instantaneously).
Teams can win in regulation, in overtime or in a shootout. This is a recent development, as before the 2004-05 lockout ties were part of a teams records, expressed as Wins-Losses-Ties. Now, if neither team wins in overtime, a shootout occurs, where players from each team alternate taking shots one-on-one against the goaltender. Team records are expressed as Wins-Losses-Overtime Losses, where a win earns a team two points, a loss zero points and an overtime loss one point. Points earned by teams determines the divisional and conference standings, as well as which teams make the playoffs.
Because this is a quick and dirty guide to basic hockey, here are a few websites to fill in the holes of your curiosity about the Grand Old Hockey Game (these were the sources to back up my personal knowledge for this page):
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_Hockey
And some recommended reading for those searching for more of a connection to the sport:
John Buccigross’ weekly blog on http://espn.go.com/nhl/
Any of the books about hockey by Jack Falla: Home Ice, Saved or Open Ice: Reflections and Confessions of a Hockey Lifer.
Or, ask your favorite hockey fan for their recommendations!
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This post was written by Melinda Quasius on March 24, 2009
