nat between you and @uglyducklingofthe2000s im slowly getting into hockey!!! someone explain the ice sport to meee im so confused!!!
Alright, strap in, because hockey is UNHINGED, and I mean that with complete affection.
The basic premise: You’ve got six people on ice skates (five players + one goalie) per team. They’re all trying to hit a vulcanized rubber disk (the puck) into the other team’s net using sticks. First to score the most goals wins. Simple, right?
WRONG, because hockey is actually bonkers.
Things you need to know:
The game is divided into three 20-minute periods. But here’s the thing — the clock stops for penalties, goals, and various other reasons, so a “60-minute” game takes like 2.5 hours. It’s fine. We’re all having a good time.
There are FIGHTS. Like, actual fist fights. The refs just let it happen. They have a penalty box where you sit and think about what you’ve done for 2-5 minutes depending on your crime. Fighting gets you 5 minutes. Slashing someone with your stick? 2 minutes. Too many men on the ice? Believe it or not, also 2 minutes. Sometimes a player will commit a penalty so egregious they get a game misconduct and get kicked out entirely. It’s like getting sent to the principal’s office except you’re a 6’2” man-child who just cross-checked someone into the boards.
Positions:
- Goalies are a different species. They’re completely unhinged. One goalie used to go to the same restaurant before every game and order the same meal. Patrick Roy used to talk to his goalposts and thank them when they saved him. Roberto Luongo had a Twitter account where he roasted himself. They’re like 6’4” tall and wear so much padding they look like boss battles. Getting scored on is apparently such a personal affront that they take it as a deep spiritual wound.
- Centers are like the quarterbacks — they take the faceoffs (that’s when the ref drops the puck between two players to start play) and are usually good at everything.
- Wingers zoom up and down the sides of the ice and score goals. They’re fast and sometimes a little unhinged.
- Defensemen are generally the big guys who protect the goalie and also sometimes score absolute bangers from the blue line. They block shots with their bodies on purpose. On PURPOSE.
Facts that sound fake but aren’t:
- The Stanley Cup (the championship trophy) is the only major sports trophy that has the names of every winning player engraved on it. It’s been around since 1893, and it’s got its own handler (the Keeper of the Cup) who travels with it. Yes, really.
- Players drink champagne out of it, babies have been baptized in it, it’s been drop-kicked into a canal, left on the side of the road, used as a dog bowl, and taken to strip clubs multiple times. The Cup has seen things.
- There was a goalie in the 1960s named Terry Sawchuk who took shots to the face so many times he needed like 400 stitches over his career. This was BEFORE masks were mandatory. He just ... kept playing. The first goalie to regularly wear a mask (Jacques Plante) was mocked for it.
- Hockey players will play through the most insane injuries. They’ve played with punctured lungs, broken legs, torn ligaments. One guy (Bobby Baun) scored a game-winning goal in the playoffs on a BROKEN LEG. Gregory Campbell broke his leg blocking a shot and FINISHED HIS SHIFT. That’s a whole minute of skating on a broken leg because he didn’t want his team short-handed. Patrice Bergeron played through a punctured lung, broken ribs, and a separated shoulder in the playoffs. He had a tear in his lung cartilage and couldn’t breathe properly. Still played.
- Fighting is so normalized that there used to be players whose entire job was to be “enforcers” — their job was literally just to fight people to protect their star players. Some of them couldn’t even skate that well, but they could certainly throw hands.
The weird rules:
- Offsides exists. Basically, you can’t enter the offensive zone before the puck does. The blue lines matter.
- Icing is when you shoot the puck from your side of the red line all the way past the goal line on the other end, and no one touches it. It’s a no-no. Play stops, and you have to take the faceoff back in your own zone. It’s to prevent teams from just yeeting the puck away constantly.
- You can only have six players on the ice, but teams have 18 skaters total who rotate in “shifts” every 45 seconds or so because hockey is EXHAUSTING. You’re skating full speed, getting hit, and trying not to die. Line changes happen on the fly while play continues, which means sometimes you get too many men on the ice and get penalized for it.
- In the case of a penalty, you go on the “power play” (your team has more players) or “penalty kill” (you have fewer). It’s 5 on 4 or sometimes 5 on 3, and it’s chaos.
- You can pull your goalie at the end of the game if you’re losing to get an extra attacker. This is a desperate Hail Mary move, and it either works spectacularly or you get scored on immediately. There is no in-between.
NHL chaos:
- There are 32 teams, a mix of American and Canadian.
- Canadian fans are absolutely rabid (affectionate). The Montreal Canadiens have won the Cup 24 times. The Toronto Maple Leafs haven’t won since 1967, and their fans suffer every single year. It’s a whole thing. Don’t mention Game 7s in Toronto.
- Sunbelt teams exist. Yes, there’s hockey in Florida, Texas, Arizona (well, there WAS … it’s complicated, they moved to Utah), Las Vegas, and Southern California. Gary Bettman (the commissioner, who gets booed at every public appearance) is very invested in “growing the game” in non-traditional markets.
- There are “original six” teams (Montreal, Toronto, Boston, New York Rangers, Detroit, Chicago) that are like the old guard. They have History and Lore.
- Playoff beards are a sacred tradition — you don’t shave until you’re eliminated or you win the Cup. Some guys end up looking like mountain men.
- Throwing an octopus on the ice in Detroit is good luck (it started in 1952 when eight wins got you the Cup, so eight tentacles = symbolism. Now it’s just tradition, and there’s a guy whose job is to octopus-wrangle).
- A hat trick is when one player scores three goals in a game, and fans throw their hats on the ice. Yes, actual hats. The ice crew has to come clean them up. Some arenas donate them to charity.
- The Stanley Cup playoffs are a GAUNTLET. You have to win 16 games, it’s best-of-seven series, and it takes like two months. Everyone is dead by the end. Players are playing through injuries that would hospitalize normal humans. It’s the most grueling playoffs in sports.
The culture:
- Chirping: Players talk trash on the ice, and some of it is legendary. “You were in the minors longer than me, you dumb fuck … go dye your hair.” (Matt Martin) is a classic. Sidney Crosby once told a ref, “You can’t do that,” like a disappointed dad.
- Nicknames: Everyone has one. Sid the Kid (Sidney Crosby), The Great One (Wayne Gretzky, who is literally the best ever and whose number 99 is retired league-wide), Mr. Hockey (Gordie Howe), The Rocket (Maurice Richard). They’re very creative. Sometimes they just add “-y” or “-er” to your last name and call it a day.
- The interviews: Hockey players are weirdly humble and call everyone “a great guy, real good player, real good team” in interviews while actively bleeding. They give the most boring, polite interviews (“get pucks deep”) and then go back on the ice and commit violence.
- Superstitions: Sidney Crosby eats the same pregame meal (pasta with tomato sauce) and uses the same old, lucky jock. Guys wear the same underwear for entire playoff runs. Patrick Kane had a lucky mullet. Bruce Gardiner put a gold chain around his goalie’s neck during a winning streak and never took it off.
Why people love it:
It’s fast, it’s violent, it’s beautiful. The skill level is INSANE — these guys are skating 25+ mph while handling a tiny puck with a stick and making split-second decisions. The saves goalies make are physics-defying. The hits are crunchy. The goals are chef’s kiss. A good hockey goal where someone dekes (fakes out) the goalie is pure art.
Also, the sound. The sound of skates on ice, the crack of a slapshot, the thud of a hit, the ping of the puck off the post, the horn when someone scores — it’s all very satisfying.
The playoffs specifically are a different beast. The intensity is cranked to 11. Rivalries get nasty. Every game matters. Overtime playoff hockey will take years off your life. It’s sudden death — next goal wins. It can go on for multiple overtimes. The longest game ever went to SIX overtimes. People were losing their minds.
Getting started:
Pick a team. Watch some highlight reels on YouTube. Find a player you like and follow their career. Join the chaos. Scream at your TV. Learn to love the sound of skates and the smell of ice rinks (it’s a very specific smell — cold and vaguely like zamboni exhaust).
TL;DR: Hockey is people with knives on their feet going 30 mph, hitting each other, and somehow also doing ballet. It’s a sport that said, "What if we made soccer, but everyone was armed, and also it’s on ice, and also you can just fight sometimes?" and somehow it WORKS.
Welcome to the dark side. (The rink is cold.) (We have popcorn and hot dogs.) (You’ll cry about it.) (It’s the best worst decision you’ll ever make.)
