Ice Hockey

The word hockey comes from the old French word “hocquet,” meaning “stick.” The British most likely brought the idea of using a stick to propel a snowball along the ice of a pond or lake to North America in the 1600 or 1700s. In 1879, college students at McGill University in Montreal organized competitions and developed the first known set of hockey rules.

While men’s ice hockey was first played at the 1920 Olympic Summer Games in Antwerp, it has been played as a winter sport ever since the 1924 Olympic Winter Games in Chamonix. Women’s ice hockey debuted at the Nagano 1998 Olympic Winter Games.

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

A team must not have 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 are played on a North American ice surface which is four metres narrower than international rinks.