Portal:Ice hockey
| Main page | Categories & Topics | WikiProjects & Things you can do |
The ice hockey portal
Ice hockey, referred to simply as hockey in Canada, the United States, and most of Europe including Finland, Sweden, Russia and the Czech Republic, is a team sport played on ice. It is one of the world's fastest sports, with players on skates capable of going high speeds on natural or artificial ice surfaces. Though played on six continents, ice hockey, as a participatory and as a spectator sport, is most popular in nations in which the climate is sufficiently cold as to permit natural, long-term seasonal ice cover; Canada, the Czech Republic, Finland, Slovakia, Sweden, Russia, and the United States have dominated international competition, claiming 47 of the 48 gold and silver medals awarded in the men's and women's competitions at the Olympic Winter Games.
Ice hockey is one of the four major North American professional sports, represented at the highest level by the National Hockey League. It is the official national winter sport of Canada, where seven of the 32 NHL franchises are based; Canadian-born players, though, outnumber American-born players in the NHL by a factor of three (30 per cent, additionally, come from outside North America).
The sport is played on a hockey rink. During normal play, there are six players, five positional players and one goaltender, per team on the ice at any time, each of whom is on ice skates. The objective of the game is to score goals by shooting a hard vulcanized rubber disc, the puck, into the opponent's goal net, with the goal nets placed at opposite ends of the rink. The players may control the puck using a long stick with a blade that is commonly curved at one end. Players may also generally redirect the puck with any part of their bodies, but the kicking of the puck into the goal is prohibited.
Featured article
The Stanley Cup (French: La Coupe Stanley), awarded annually to the National Hockey League (NHL) champion, is the most coveted ice hockey club championship trophy in the world. It is commonly referred to as "The Cup", "The Holy Grail", or facetiously (chiefly by sportswriters) as "Lord Stanley's Mug". The Stanley Cup is surrounded by numerous legends and traditions, the oldest of which is the celebratory drinking of champagne out of the Cup by the winning team. Unlike the trophies awarded by the other three major professional sports leagues of North America, a new Stanley Cup is not made each year; Cup winners keep it until a new champion is crowned. It is the only trophy in professional sports that has the name of all the winning players, coaches, management, and club staff engraved on it. (more...)
Quotes
| “ | All hockey players are bilingual. They know English and profanity. | ” |
| — Gordie Howe | ||
Featured Lists
Selected image
 | The factual accuracy of this portal may be compromised due to out-of-date information. Please help update this portal to reflect recent events or newly available information. Relevant discussion may be found on the talk page. (June 2014) |
Daniel Alfredsson (born 11 December 1972, Gothenburg, Sweden) is a professional Swedish ice hockey player. He is pictured above in 2006 acting as the Captain of the Ottawa Senators of the National Hockey League. He began playing Right Wing for the Detroit Red Wings at the beginning of the 2013-2014 season.
Did you know ...
- ... that Roberto Luongo (pictured) made 72 saves in a 5–4 quadruple overtime win against the Dallas Stars in his first playoff game in the NHL?
- ...that John LeClair had three consecutive 50 goal seasons?
- ...that while Thomas Vanek is the highest drafted Austrian-born player in the NHL, he is of mixed Czech and Slovak descent, moved to the United States in 1998, but represent the Austrian national ice hockey team?
- ...that throwing octopuses during the Detroit Red Wings' playoff runs is a symbol of good luck, which is known as the Legend of the Octopus?
Associated Wikimedia
Sports portals
