#when I was looking for a hockey rules overview post I fucking found all the stuff from 'rules to dating a hockey player'

[gustavnyquist]

Hey. I’m kind of new to hockey and I would like to have a sort of a masterpost ? Or if you could guide me that’d be great. Thanks !

I sincerely hope you’re asking for a sort of hockey overview (rules, structure, etc.) bc that’s what I’m reading this as and that’s how I’m going to answer

okay so I looked through the tags for a while thinking there would already be something somewhere (and I’m sure there is) but I couldn’t find anything and I can’t think of a specific post that I’m aware of rn, so, I’m just going to make one myself

warning: this is rly long and I could not for the life of me make the read more work, pls forgive me, I will tag it as “long post”

so I’m totally cool with making this and none of this is meant to be condescending, only informational!

1. makeup of the NHL

there are 2 conferences (eastern and western) and 4 divisions (atlantic, metropolitan, central, and pacific)

the eastern conference is made up of:

the atlantic division, wherein you’ll find gems such as the: detroit red wings (wings), ottawa senators (sens), florida panthers (cats), buffalo sabres, toronto maple leafs (leafs), montreal canadiens (habs), boston bruins (b’s), and tampa bay lightning (bolts)

and the metropolitan division, wherein you’ll find beauties by the name of the: carolina hurricanes (canes), philadelphia flyers, washington capitals (caps), new york islanders (isles), columbus blue jackets (cbj, jackets), new jersey devils (devs), new york rangers (rags), and pittsburgh penguins (pens)

the western conference is made up of:

the central divisions, wherein you’ll find stunners such as the: nashville predators (preds), winnipeg jets, st. louis blues, minnesota wild, dallas stars, colorado avalanche (avs), and chicago blackhawks (hawks, trash)

and the pacific division, wherein you’ll find catches by the name of the: edmonton oilers, vancouver canucks (nucks), calgary flames, san jose sharks, arizona coyotes (yotes), los angeles kings, vegas golden knights (vgk, knights), and anaheim ducks

vegas is the newest team, which gave the pacific a full 8-team division, making the central division the only one with 7 teams, however, seattle’s probably getting a team in the near future and you’d think they’d belong in the pacific as well, so who tf knows what the divisions will look like in a few years :-) (this wouldn’t be the first time they’ve changed)

teams in the same division play each other 4 times a year (2 home, 2 away), every team plays each other at least twice every season (1 home, 1 away), and a team from one division can play a team from the other division in their conference 3 times a year, depending on how the scheduling works out

2. basic rules and structure for a hockey game

- a hockey game is 60 minutes, 20 minutes per 3 periods with 2 intermissions, but, generally, with stoppages and real-world timing, a hockey game last about 2 ½ to 3 hours

- there are 6 players from each team on the ice at a time, 3 forwards (right wing, centre, and left wing), 2 defensemen (right and left), and 1 goalie; each team will have with them on the bench 4 lines of forwards (12 guys), 3 defensemen pairs (6 guys), and 2 goalies (starter and backup) - some coaches, instead of 12/6, like to do 11/7, which means taking away a forward in favour of another defenseman, which basically means that some forwards will be taking double shifts and you’ll have an extra d-man to play so they essentially don’t get tired out as fast

- okay so the guy with the puck, on his way into the opponent’s zone (past the blue line) has to enter before any of his teammates, or at least the puck has got to cross the line first; the dudes on the other team can go in whenever bc it’s their own zone, but when you’re on offense, puck first - if you come before the puck, that’s called offside and the linesmen will stop the play and have a faceoff outside of your opponent’s zone

- you can’t just shoot the puck all the way down the ice into the opponent’s zone! that’s called icing - you can shoot it in from centre ice, but not from your zone all the way into the other guys’ zone; if you ice the puck, the linesmen will stop the play and the faceoff will come back in your own zone

- also, the referees (who call penalties) wear the orange armbands and the linesmen do not (they call the offsides and icings)

- nobody knows wtf goalie interference is anymore in the league so it’s best not to ask

which brings me to my next point

3. penalties

- the first thing to remember is that you will never fully agree with all of the refs’ calls as you become more familiar with the game, and yeah, sometimes it’s gonna screw over your team, but that’s hockey

- if your team gets a penalty, that means you’ll be playing 4 guys instead of 5, while the other team (on a power play) will have all 5 guys (plus goalies, of course), and your penalized dude gets to sit in the penalty box (aka sin bin) for 2-5 minutes, depending on what he did and what the call is

- a delayed penalty is when team 1 is called for a penalty, but team 2 (who is about to go on the power play, or pp) is still in control of the puck, so team 2′s goalie goes to the bench (since any goals here by team 1 won’t count) and they get an extra 6th man, and the penalty will be called as soon as team 1 touches the puck (or a goal is scored, and then no penalty)

- you can get a 2, 4, or 5 minute penalty, as well as a 10 minute game misconduct - 2 minutes is minor penalty, 4 minutes is a double minor, and 5 minutes is a major

- 2-minute minors: hooking, crosschecking, tripping, elbowing, highsticking (no blood), kneeing, unsportsmanlike conduct (mouthing off to the refs, ususally), too many men on the ice, and a variety of other things that I either can’t remember rn or don’t get called very often (like tucking your jersey into your pants) - these penalties end immediately if the team on a power play scores

- 4-minute double minors: generally this is for when you highstick someone and they start bleeding - if the power play team scores during the first 2 minutes, only that penalty ends (in other words, still 2 minutes to go), if they score in the second 2 minutes, then the penalty is altogether over

- 5-minute majors: fighting, boarding, spearing, charging, anything that’s more serious - the power play team can score as many times as they want during this penalty and the penalty will not end until the 5 minutes is up

- 10-minute misconduct: this is for when you’re rly being an asshole - mouthing off, seriously injuring a player, and so on, and you can either sit in the penalty box for 10 minutes (your team will not face a penalty for this, just the player) or you might just get kicked out of the game (say it’s the first or second period and there’s 10 minutes or less left, the player will probably just be sent to the dressing room for the misconduct and potentially return the next period)

- and above all else, a player rly can just kicked out of a game, especially if they’ve done something that is worthy of a fine or a suspension, which will be reviewed after the game

- also, both teams can get a penalty, which results in 4-on-4 hockey, and a team can get 2 penalties, which results in 5-on-3 hockey (or like 4-on-3 sometimes, if team 1 has 1 penalty and team 2 has 2)

4. wins, losses, OT, and SO

- if your team wins a game in regulation, congrats, you get 2 full points!

- if your team loses in regulation, you get 0 points :(

- OT (overtime) is when a game is still tied after 3 periods; each team gets 1 point, and the game is now going to sudden-death (someone scores, game over) 5 minute 3-on-3 hockey (yes, 3-on-3, 2 forwards and 1 d-man) - whoever scores now gets the full 2 points

- if that doesn’t solve it, we got to a SO (shootout), which involves 1-on-1 goalie vs. shooter, each team gets 3 shooters to start, the shooters rotate, and whoever scores the most goals wins (if no goals are scored by these 6 shooters, or it’s still tied, it goes to 1-shooter rounds until one team scores and the other doesn’t), winner gets 2 points

5. other general stuff

- come playoff time (only like a month away now), if you want a crash course on that, I’ll be happy to help, since I could do a whole new thing just for that

- if a player’s last name is kane, chances are they are a bad person (feel free to ask me for players that have done some shitty stuff, if you care to know that stuff)

- hockey tumblr is uh… an interesting place, take this as a warning, there are lots of nice ppl I’ve met here, but there are also a lot of opinions and it can get ugly

- there are also NHL awards and an entry draft at the end of the season, which you can ask me about, too (in June, that’s when it all takes place!)

- trades suck sometimes but luckily the trade deadline is over for this season (which was a week ago), so no more trades can be made until after someone wins the stanley cup this year

- there is an all-star weekend in January and that’s always a hoot

- every team has an AHL team affiliate, which is where they keep players that they can call up if someone gets injured, and where players develop so that they can be the best-conditioned player for the NHL before making it to the big league, and they play for their own cup (the Calder Cup, which the Grand Rapids Griffins, affiliate of the Red Wings, won last year)

- each team also has an ECHL team, which is a step under the AHL, like a reserve-reserve team

- if need be, I can also explain how call ups and waivers work, too

- the top three stanley cup winning teams are the: habs (24), leafs (13), and wings (11) - everyone else is pretty far from those totals

- here’s a link to some hockey blogs I like and follow (some of the urls might not be right, but the links should still take you to the right place)

- pls feel free to ask about anything else, I will try my best to explain it!

- you can also ask me about teams and players, specifically, but any of that would just be my own opinion on them and not necessarily a reflection of which teams and players ppl on here like (my fav teams are the wings and sens, and my fav players from each of those teams are Gustav Nyquist (right winger) and Erik Karlsson (d-man), and my fav goalie is Petr Mrazek, who now plays for the flyers)

hope this is helpful and what you were looking for :)