[Lefty Noob]

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[LSC9901]

I do enjoy watching hockey but have always wished I understood it a little better. Where, on the internet, can I read about the game and all the terms associated with it ? I don't expect to become an overnight expert but just need to understand more clearly things such as icing and so on.

[mervinout]

Originally Posted by LSC9901

I do enjoy watching hockey but have always wished I understood it a little better. Where, on the internet, can I read about the game and all the terms associated with it ? I don't expect to become an overnight expert but just need to understand more clearly things such as icing and so on.

now thats a hard question, hopefully blue has an answer. Ive played hockey all my life, and i cant even think of were to start for research how sad is that. Honestly Wikipedia might be your answer

[LSC9901]

Originally Posted by mervinout

now thats a hard question, hopefully blue has an answer. Ive played hockey all my life, and i cant even think of were to start for research how sad is that. Honestly Wikipedia might be your answer

OK ... so tell me about icing. One time I see the puck travel across the lines and it isn't icing, next time it is. I know I'm missing something real simple .... but what ?

[mervinout]

Originally Posted by LSC9901

OK ... so tell me about icing. One time I see the puck travel across the lines and it isn't icing, next time it is. I know I'm missing something real simple .... but what ?

simple, if you clear the puck down ice from your side of the redline and it clears all the way down ice pass the goaline, its a potentional icing, and then it becomes a foot race to the puck, if the team that cleared it touches it first its no icing, if the team whose zone the puck is in touches it after it clears the goal line first its an icing. Now the NHL has added a new rule if the iced puck is an intended pass, and not an intentional clearing there is no icing no matter where the puck starts.

a sub rule of this is, if the the defending team can stop it from clearning all the way down, and they dont and they let it clear so they can get an icing, the icing would then be waved off

[blueandwhite]

There is also a bit of "discussion" about icing and the race to the puck. A lot of players have injured themselves in trying to get to the puck first and many hockey people ie Canadian broadcaster and general loudmouth Don Cherry most of all have come out saying END IT. It's a dumb rule that can sometimes result in a dumb injury - these guys can fly into the boards.
Now where I go to read about hockey is nhl.com. But that's to keep up on the teams and the issues and the big news. Canadian newspapers like The Toronto Star have great write-ups on hockey, too -as they should.
Every team also has an amazing site.
but for questions, I agree - wikipedia is the best. sometimes I have spent fruitless searches across the internet trying to find out certain stats until I pull my hair out but for general info - it works.
Now I like icing myself - I just think, players need to use a certain amount of caution. common sense - take icing out, there's an element of excitement that is gone from the game.

[Loki309]

Icing can be a good or bad rule. Yes it's potentially dangerous during the race for the puck. But if people were allowed to constantly dump the puck it would be like volleyball, you could just shoot it back and forth end to end and stall the action. The thing about it is, with no more two line passing rule, refs are having a hard time trying to figure out what a long clear and a missed pass is. And the grey area (which is becoming a big problem within a lot of hockey rules) is becoming bigger and making calls harder to make. And when they are made, it's about 60/40 on it being wrong/right respectivly.

That was a big issue in the championship this year. I didn't agree with 3/4's the calls being made in the games played, whether it was in favor of the Redwings or against them. But their was a lot of stuff that was called (like goalie interfierence when a guy was pushed on a fast break) that was completely unavoidable. Kinda hard to not run into a goalie when your sliding on your side after being knocked down by a blatant elbow to the back to your head...that's a story for another time though. During this off season I am hoping the league makes some modification on the rules and retrain the refs to make more proper calls.

[simple simon]

another small rule about icing ..... when a team is a man down due to penalty .. they can send the puck all the way down to the opponents end without icing being called

[blueandwhite]

yes - they get the advantage there, and that makes good sense.
regarding the goalie interfernece calls - those will never go away - the goalie will always be protected by the rules, whether you like it or not.
I personally would love to see a goalie get pounded into the boards because he's wandered out of his net - they are such prima donnas if they merely get nicked with a stick - and the dives they take! - but like you said - another story.

[blueandwhite]

I have some more icing rules:
they finally, just recently, added in the new rule that says, The players on the team who are responsible for sending the puck down rink must stay on the ice for the next drop of the puck, their line cannot change - because they found teams were icing it just to get tired players off. Now you can't do that - you ice it - your line is still on until the next whistle after the puck drops.
Also, the goalie doesn't need to touch the puck as it's being iced - what he does is, he raises a hand so the player on his team racing for it knows that if he touches it, it's icing in their favour.
It doesn't matter if the puck hits the goalpost before it passes the goal line - as long as it doesn't hit the goalie in the crease- it's icing. If the puck touches him, comes into his crease, he has to play it. Which yeah i guess he will, won't he?
re the no-touch icing so there's no race for it resulting in injury: the OHL has it and they say it works very well there.

[Lefty Noob]

I've got one maybe someone can help me with. A couple of times I've been watching hockey games, and the issue of an illegal stick comes up, where the refs measure the stick and check it out. So what makes a slick illegal? The curve of the blade, or what?

[blueandwhite]

it's the curve.
apparently Bobby Hull started the "banana blade".
people argue that a curve gives a player no advantage whatsoever - but the rule still holds, at the mercy of the ref - although there is a limit to the size of the curve.
Coaches use it to maybe get a power play when their team is losing - its become a tactic.

[blueandwhite]

The blade cannot be more than three inches in width at any point and it cannot be less than two inches.
hey apprently there is no rule regarding the curvature of sticks in a penalty shootout.

[Loki309]

Yeah mostly its the curve of the blade. It can also be the size of the blade head, or the stick itself. I don't know the stick specific numbers, nor do I feel like sifting through the sand that is the NHL Rule Book. I do know that a goaltenders stick must have no curve to it, and there is a rule on the nob that they put on the top of it so it doesn't slide out of their hand. Their is also a rule on the amount of tape one can apply to the stick, and where the tape may be applied.

Most of the time equipment rules are used these days as a way to stall a teams momentum, or rest a team, I will get to the rest of time later in this post. Rarely is their any call made on the size of a stick, or pads, or jersey, or skate. But if a question is made to an official then they have to inspect it. However all equipment checks have to be done before goals. So a Coach can't call for a check immediately after a goal is scored against them.

Also, a player can get called with an illegal equipment call for playing with a broken stick. Once a stick is broken, the stick must be dropped and replaced. A goalie may not replace his stick when it is broken, however a player from his team (who is already on the ice) may carry one to him.

Illegal equipment calls aren't frequent calls. And something like picking up a broken stick is more of an instinctive thing rather than someone trying to use a broken stick to defend their end of the rink. It is a dumb penalty to take, but you usually see about 3-5 of these in a year.