History

The word hockey comes from the old French word “hocquet” which means “stick.”  The idea of using a stick to propel a snowball along the ice of a pond or lake is credited to be an invention by the British who most likely bought the game to North America in the 1600 or 1700s.

In 1879, college students at McGill University in Montreal organised competitions and developed the first known set of hockey rules.

Men’s Ice Hockey made its Olympic debut at the 1920 Summer Olympic Games in Antwerp, but it was moved to the Winter Games at the inaugural 1924 Winter Olympic Games in Chamonix.  Women’s Ice Hockey debuted at the Nagano 1998 Olympic Winter Games.


Technical

During the Olympic Winter Games, eight women’s teams and 12 men’s teams compete in round-robin tournaments.  Top seeded teams from the round robin play advance to the playoff rounds.

A team must have no more than six players on the ice while play is in progress.  The object is for one team to get the puck (a hard black rubber disc) past the other team’s goaltender and into the net, similar to soccer.

A regular game consists of three 20-minute periods, with a 15-minute intermission after the first and second periods.  If a tie occurs in a game in which a winner must be determined, a sudden-victory overtime period is played.  During the gold medal game, a 20-minute, sudden-victory period is played. In the event of a tie after a sudden-victory period, a game-winning shoot-out determines the winner.

The 2010 Olympic Winter Games ice hockey tournaments will be played on a North American ice surface which is four metres narrower than international rinks.


Major Players

Generally Canada and the USA are seen as the major forces in ice hockey and have the most players represented in the National Hockey League (NHL).  However in the men’s tournament at the 2006 Turin Winter Olympics, Sweden, Finland and the Czech Republic took gold, silver and bronze respectively.

In the women’s tournament Canada claimed gold, Sweden the silver and the USA bronze.

Canada also lay claim to the man generally regarded as the best ice hockey player of all time: Wayne Gretzky who retired in 2009.  Nicknamed ‘the Great One’, Gretzky is the only NHL player to total over 200 points in one season, a feat he achieved an astonishing 4 times.


Bluffers’ Guide

A bodycheck is a tactic used by a player to physically remove an opponent from the puck or the play.  A bodycheck is legal only if the player being checked has the puck or was the last person to touch it.  The bodychecker may only use the hips or shoulder, and must make the hit above the opponent’s knees and below the neck.


Useless Information

In the 1990s, The Mighty Ducks was a series of three live-action films and one animated film released by Walt Disney Pictures.  The movies revolve around an ice hockey team composed of young players and their talented coach who stick together throughout various challenges.

Despite negative reviews by movie critics, the trilogy’s commercial success paved the way for the creation of the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim, (now the Anaheim Ducks) NHL team as well as a related animated series called Mighty Ducks.