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Gold
Coast Ice Hockey
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The Rules The rink in the NHL is about 200 feet long and about 80 feet wide. An Olympic rink is 100 feet wide. It is divided into three zones, each zone is marked by a Blue Line. As the team defending the net; our net is in our Defensive Zone; the zone in the middle between the Blue Lines is the Neutral Zone, and the farthest away portion of the ice containing the net (goals) we are attacking is the Offensive Zone. The Puck is a hard vulcanised rubber disk weighing in around 5.5 - 6 ounces. Some of the harder slap shots in the NHL are regularly recorded in excess of 105 miles per hour. The most important thing to remember about the puck is it isn't neutral when in the middle of the ice sheet (the middle section between the blue lines). In the Neutral zone (middle ice) it plays for whoever touched it last. Offside rules vary little from league to league. When crossing into the attacking zone, the puck must be the first attacking player to fully cross the Blue Line (it's an Offside if any player other than the puck first enters the offensive zone). A direct pass can not be made from one player to another across both Blue Lines (this is a two line pass). If a puck is forced out of the offensive zone, all offensive players must vacate the zone before the puck comes back in, otherwise it is an Offside call again! Icing is when a puck is shot uncontested over more than half the length of the ice. When a team ices the puck, it is normally done because the attacking team has been pressing too hard and they need to break the attack's momentum. The downside is that the team who ice the puck can not change any of their players until play resumes inside their defensive zone AND the attacking team can change any of their players. The only other thing to know before making sense of the game is that each side can place six players on the ice at any time. The goalie counts as a player and you will often see a side who is trailing by a point "pull their goalie" a minute before the end of the game to get a sixth attacker on the ice. Risky play, but they are beaten anyway so it is part of the Hockey Mentality of going for it! Penalties - You are not allowed to trip, hook, spear, crosscheck, slash or butt end (with the stick), hit in the back, contact in the face or head with the stick or obstruct another player. If you are caught, it is a two minute penalty. When your team is down a player due to penalty, it is called a Power Play for the other team. Players fighting get an automatic "five for fighting" penalty. Obviously there are a lot more rules that govern the finer points of the game, but these ones sum it up enough that anyone who watches a game can make sense of what they are seeing.
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