Ice Hockey as it is called in the United States and hockey in Canada is a team sport played on ice. The sport is very popular in colder climates in the world. Currently there are 64 total members of the International Ice Hockey Federation. Of those 64 members there are seven teams which dominate. Canada, Czech Republic, Finland, Russia, Slovakia, Sweden and the United States. In North America it is one of the four major sports associations. In Canada Hockey is considered the national sport and in the National Hockey League Canadians currently outnumber Americans in the league by a ratio of almost three to one. Overall about thirty percent of the league's players are non-North Americans.

Many believe hockey was derived from a French word hoquet, shepherd's crook. However, some believe it may come from hokkie, which is a Dutch word meaning shack or dog house which in popular use meant goal. Early Dutch paintings showed a number of towns folk playing a hockey like game on a frozen canal. In the 1800's hockey began to emerge in North America and specifically in Eastern Canada, where many English and French Canadian played the game on frozen ponds, lakes and rivers. Much debate over the official birth place of modern ice hockey in Canada included places such as Windsor, Nova Scotia and Montreal, Quebec. What is known is that on March 3, 1875 the first organized indoor game was played in Montreal. The first ice hockey club, McGill University Hockey Club, was founded in 1880. The game became so popular that it was featured for the first time in Montreal's annual Winter Carnival in 1883. By 1917 many leagues had developed across North America including the National Hockey League.

Equipment

Aside from skates, sticks and pucks hockey players use a variety of different pieces of equipment to protect themselves. Equipment includes a helmet, shoulder pads, elbow pads, mouth guard, protective gloves, heavily padded shorts, sometimes known as Ice Pants, a 'jock' athletic protector, shin guards and sometimes a neck guard. Goaltenders also wear masks and much bulkier, specialized equipment designed to protect them from many direct hits from the puck, such as blockers, and goalie pads worn on their legs.

The game

During play, there are six players per side on the ice at any time. There are five players and one goaltender per side. The objective of the game is to score goals by shooting 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 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. A player can angle their feet so the puck can redirect into the net, but there can be no kicking motion. Players may not intentionally bat the puck into the net with their hands.

The other five players are typically divided into three forwards and two defencemen. The forward positions consist of a centre and two wingers: a left wing and a 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. Teams typically employ alternate sets of forward lines and defensive pairings when shorthanded or on a power play. 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. 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 face-off. 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 who may dress for a game to 18 or fewer.

Definitions

Goal
A goal in ice hockey provides a team with one point. A goal is scored when a puck completely crosses the goal line within the goal frame.

Assist
In ice hockey, an assist is attributed to up to the two previous players of the scoring team who touched or deflected the puck towards the scoring teammate, meaning that they were "assisting" in the goal. There can be a maximum of two assists per goal. The primary assist is awarded to the player who of the same team who touched the puck before the goal scorer. The secondary assist goes to the player of the same team who touched the puck before the primary assister.

Plus Minus
Plus/minus is an ice hockey statistic that measures the team goal differential when a specific player is on the ice. A player's plus/minus is increased by one every time his team scores an even strength or shorthanded goal while he is on the ice. Whenever the team is scored against while at even strength or on a power play when the player is on the ice, his plus/minus is decreased by one.

Save Percentage
Save percentage (SV%, SVP, PCT) is an ice hockey and box/indoor lacrosse statistic that represents the percentage of shots on goal a goaltender stops. It is calculated by dividing the number of saves by the total number of shots on goal.

Goals against average (GAA) is a statistic used in ice hockey, water polo and box/indoor lacrosse that is the mean of goals allowed per game by a goaltender. It is calculated by multiplying the number of goals allowed by the number of minutes in one game, and then dividing by the number of minutes played. It is typically given to two decimal places.

A shot in ice hockey is an attempt by a player to score a goal by striking the puck with his stick in the direction of the net. There are four basic types of shots in ice hockey:

The wrist shot is the simplest and most accurate shot. The player starts with the puck on the heel of the blade then draws the puck behind his body while shifting his weight back with his stick, and then quickly sweeps it forward with the stick pointing in the direction that they want to shoot.

The snap shot can be executed the fastest. With very little windup, the player violently snaps his wrists to send the puck flying.

The slapshot is the hardest yet most telegraphed shot. The player draws his stick back away from the puck, then forcefully brings it forward to strike the puck.

The backhand shot is a wrist shot released from the back of the blade, and on the player's backhand. This shot is not as powerful or accurate as any of the other shots, but often comes unexpectedly. Backhand shots are primarily taken close to the goal.

A penalty in ice hockey is a punishment for inappropriate behavior, or the inappropriate behavior itself (whether called or not). A referee makes all penalty calls. A linesman may call only obvious technical infractions such as too many men on the ice. In the NHL, the Linesman may call major intent-to-injure penalties that the referee may have missed. The statistic used to track penalties is called penalties in minutes (PIM).

During a penalty, the player who committed the infraction is sent to the penalty box. In most cases, the penalized team cannot replace that player and is thus shorthanded for the duration of the penalty. Normally, hockey teams have five skaters (excluding the goaltender), so if one penalty is called, play becomes five-on-four.