Jump to content

Ice Hockey (1875?-), A Canadian Sport Overseen by the International Ice Hockey Federation


DonRocks

Recommended Posts

1) Off sides = The  puck must completely pass the blue line farther away from your own goal before both skates of anyone on your team are over the line. One skate good. Two skates bad.

(PP is kind of out of date with the rules, the two line pass whistle doesn't exist anymore, but, c'mon it's Peter Puck!)

2) If your team is short-handed icing doesn't exist. Only if it is equal strength or you are on the power play. Don't know the exact history of the rule, but it makes sense to give the team that's a man down some way to take the heat out of the kitchen.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1) Off sides = The  puck must completely pass the blue line farther away from your own goal before both skates of anyone on your team are over the line. One skate good. Two skates bad.

(PP is kind of out of date with the rules, the two line pass whistle doesn't exist anymore, but, c'mon it's Peter Puck!)

2) If your team is short-handed icing doesn't exist. Only if it is equal strength or you are on the power play. Don't know the exact history of the rule, but it makes sense to give the team that's a man down some way to take the heat out of the kitchen.

Got it.

If 1 millimeter of one blade of one skate is touching the blue line when the puck crosses, is it off-sides? I'll bet there have been some calls for instant replay on judgment calls such as this. (Is there instant replay in the NHL?)

So what are the specific rules for icing? I suspect it involves the puck crossing a certain number of lines without being touched by another player.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Got it.

If 1 millimeter of one blade of one skate is touching the blue line when the puck crosses, is it off-sides? I'll bet there have been some calls for instant replay on judgment calls such as this. (Is there instant replay in the NHL?)

So what are the specific rules for icing? I suspect it involves the puck crossing a certain number of lines without being touched by another player.

Need to go to bed. I've got a 6 am spinning class to get to and need to lift before, so turning it off after this.

Yes, one mm is good. No, no instant replay on this call. IR only on goal/no goal.

Icing is a puck from behind the blue line closest to your goal to over the goal line on the other end. Until 3(?) years ago, the other team had to touch the puck before the whistle blew. This led to a lot of potentially career ending collisions, so now refs have the discretion to make a judgement call. I wish this rule was in place when I was in HS or college. Thankfully no film exists of the multiple concussions I sustained through these races to the puck.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Offside is called by the linesman whistling the play dead and pointing at the blue line (he stretches his arm out fully and points at the line).  If there is no offside call to be made because the puck went into the defensive zone before the attacking team did, he will make a "wash out" call, which is throwing his arms out to the sides, parallel to the ice.

Linesmen don't always get offside right, because sometimes the play is very close.

Explaining a two-line pass offside was a pain.  I'm glad I don't have to do so these days.

P.S. To me and many other fans of the Edmonton Oilers, "Peter Puck" is Peter Pocklington, longtime owner of the Oilers who helped bring Wayne Gretzky there, and was the owner for all five Stanley Cups.  He also traded Wayne Gretzky to LA in 1988 (Mrs. Gretzky has taken some blame as well for that trade).  Because of all sorts of issues he had to put the team up for sale in the 1990s and the Oilers nearly moved as a result.  He's been in some legal trouble for a while...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Offside is called by the linesman whistling the play dead and pointing at the blue line (he stretches his arm out fully and points at the line).  If there is no offside call to be made because the puck went into the defensive zone before the attacking team did, he will make a "wash out" call, which is throwing his arms out to the sides, parallel to the ice.

Linesmen don't always get offside right, because sometimes the play is very close.

Explaining a two-line pass offside was a pain.  I'm glad I don't have to do so these days.

P.S. To me and many other fans of the Edmonton Oilers, "Peter Puck" is Peter Pocklington, longtime owner of the Oilers who helped bring Wayne Gretzky there, and was the owner for all five Stanley Cups.  He also traded Wayne Gretzky to LA in 1988 (Mrs. Gretzky has taken some blame as well for that trade).  Because of all sorts of issues he had to put the team up for sale in the 1990s and the Oilers nearly moved as a result.  He's been in some legal trouble for a while...

The good thing about this tutorial is that I'm starting from a base of *zero*, but I have a logical mind, so I can ask all the right questions.

Are you saying that a "wash-out" call was originally an *incorrect* "off-sides" call, but that the official corrected himself? Or is it that there *was* a legitimate off-sides, but the conditions reversed themselves after the infraction was committed? (The latter seems unlikely because once an infraction is committed, it can't be un-committed, right?)

The ambiguity to me is that I don't know what you mean when you say "defensive zone." Is it the defensive zone of the attacking team (the team that went off-sides), or the defending team (the blue line where the off-sides supposedly occurred)? And what line constitutes the border of the defensive zone? I'm assuming, perhaps incorrectly, that it's one of the two blue lines.

Do you understand the reason I don't understand?

Thank you both, by the way - this is not a waste of your time. The only reason I'm not a legitimate hockey, soccer, or cricket fan is because I don't know the rules.

(You may also soon realize that there are several things in this world about which I'm a legitimate, world-class expert; many things I know a lot about, and also many things about which I know very, very little, and that covers 99% of the things there are. I usually try to go for total knowledge, or not go at all - I don't like knowing just small amounts about a given subject in which I'm interested - that's just my personal quirk and a personality flaw. It often means I'm either an expert or a novice in any given subject, and is something I'm trying to overcome. I inherently tend to be a "completist" (refer to the Ingmar Bergman retrospective - we couldn't find his third film, so we've stopped), but once you admit there isn't an infinite lifespan, being a completist makes no sense, so I'm trying to change my ways.)

Also, are there five people per team on the ice? What are the positions called? I realize I could look this up, but I want other illiterates to learn as well.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Answers:

1) A "wash-out" call (just throw the arms out to the sides) is not an "oops" call.  The linesman is either going to point at the blue line and whistle the play down because it's offside or by the wash-out let the players and everyone else know that the play is on-side.  But as mentioned, they're not perfect so sometimes they make the wrong call.

2) As for "defensive zone":  Here is a diagram of a playing surface.  The red line that splits the rink in half is the center line.  The two blue lines indicate the start of each team's defensive zone, or the "border" as you described it (you know it's a particular team's defensive zone because that's where the team's goalie is parked).  The space in the middle of the blue lines (which also has the center line going through it) is known as the neutral zone.

Looking at the diagram, let's say Team A has the defensive zone on the left, so its goalie is in the net on the left.  Therefore, Team B has the defensive zone on the right.  Team A gets possession of the puck in its defensive zone and goes on the attack, skating from left to right.  They go through the neutral zone.  Before they cross that blue line that indicates the start of Team B's defensive zone, they have to make sure the puck goes in first.  The players on Team B can do whatever they want.  The onus is on Team A not to screw up.

Furthermore, if Team A is in Team B's zone and the puck escapes into the neutral zone, Team A has to cross back over the blue line in order to be "onside" again.

For a great tutorial, partly because the players are kids and therefore going a bit slower, look at this.

3) There are six players per side on the ice.  Each side has a goalie and two defencemen.  There are three forwards:  The first is the center.  To his left is the left-winger, and to his right is the right-winger.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

The onus is on Team A not to screw up.

Furthermore, if Team A is in Team B's zone and the puck escapes into the neutral zone, Team A has to cross back over the blue line in order to be "onside" again.

Really?! If I'm reading you correctly, that must be *exhausting* if players are beyond the opponent's goal line, and the puck leaks into the neutral zone, if only for a second - they have to skate back to the blue line no matter what? I guess this implies that players must be aware of where the puck is at all times; otherwise, it could sneak back into the neutral zone and they wouldn't know it. Are there any lights on any scoreboards they can look up to and see what the status of the situation is?

Can I infer that if a player is breaking away, they must use a little extra caution when crossing the blue line to keep the puck in front of them? (I guess that's probably second nature on a high level.)

The amazing thing is that I've probably seen 5-10 hockey games live and have never known any of this.

(*) Drawing on what Joe said above, can they just touch the blue line with a piece of their blade, and then head back towards the goal? Or do they need to get both blades completely back into the neutral zone?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Really?! If I'm reading you correctly, that must be *exhausting* if players are beyond the opponent's goal line, and the puck leaks into the neutral zone, if only for a second - they have to skate back to the blue line no matter what? I guess this implies that players must be aware of where the puck is at all times; otherwise, it could sneak back into the neutral zone and they wouldn't know it. Are there any lights on any scoreboards they can look up to and see what the status of the situation is?

Yes, if the puck leaks into the neutral zone everyone on Team A (the attacking team) has to "clear the zone", aka. get out of Team B's zone.  Once everyone on Team A gets back over the blue line, they can turn around and go back in.  This is especially frustrating when it happens on a power play.

In the case of the puck leaking out, one or both of the linesman will raise an arm straight up in the air to warn Team A that they are in danger of being called for offside.  (Yelling about the problem can and will also occur, from various sources.)  Once everyone from Team A clears the zone the arm(s) will come down.   If a linesman's arm is up with the offside warning, the puck ends back up in Team B's defensive zone, and someone on Team A who has not cleared the zone touches it, then the play is whistled dead and the next faceoff occurs in the neutral zone.

As we crassly called it in school, the whole purpose of the offside rule is to prevent what we called "goal sucking", which is parking a player at the other end of the ice for the purpose of loitering.

There are no lights to indicate an offside or anything else besides the red light that goes on when a goal is scored.  Players have to pay attention to what's going on.  As another example, when a power play is about to come to an end you'll hear the goalie of the team on the power play smacking his stick on the ice to tell his teammates it's about to end and the penalized player is about to come back on the ice.

Can I infer that if a player is breaking away, they must use a little extra caution when crossing the blue line to keep the puck in front of them? (I guess that's probably second nature on a high level.)

Yes.  And it's another reason I'm glad I don't have to explain the two-line pass offside anymore.

(*) Drawing on what Joe said above, can they just touch the blue line with a piece of their blade, and then head back towards the goal? Or do they need to get both blades completely back into the neutral zone?

In the case of bailing out of the zone because the puck leaked out, both blades out.  Joe can correct me here if I'm wrong about what he meant, but "one skate good, two skates bad" to me refers to the fact that when Team A is on the attack and going into Team B's zone, sometimes you'll see a player who is ahead of the teammate(s) who have the puck.  Instead of coming to a halt at the blue line he'll just glide along it, with one foot in the neutral zone and one foot in Team B's zone or on the blue line itself.  Once the puck goes in he'll enter the zone.  The linesmen will let that go because he held up; although he's breaking the letter of the law he kept the spirit of the law.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

In the case of the puck leaking out, one or both of the linesman will raise an arm straight up in the air to warn Team A that they are in danger of being called for offside.  (Yelling about the problem can and will also occur, from various sources.)  Once everyone from Team A clears the zone the arm(s) will come down.   If a linesman's arm is up with the offside warning, the puck ends back up in Team B's defensive zone, and someone on Team A who has not cleared the zone touches it, then the play is whistled dead and the next faceoff occurs in the neutral zone.

This is so helpful - I hope you don't mind that your answers are prompting further questions.

If Team A is trying to get back to the neutral zone, and the puck goes back into Team B's defensive zone, must *everyone* from Team A get back into the neutral zone before one of Team A's players touches it? Or only the player that touches it? If you read your final quoted sentence, it's left a little ambiguous.

I actually feel like I'm starting to understand things!

Assuming everyone must retreat to the neutral zone, and the puck ends up in Team B's defensive zone, what do Team A's players do while they're waiting for their teammates to clear the blue line?

Boy, I can see a *lot* of close calls and arguments with these rules. Is it possible to play hockey without officials? I guess it's no different than a pickup baseball game.

Can't wait to get into why and when it's okay to slam someone into the glass!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yes, everyone on Team A has to clear the zone.

Assuming everyone must retreat to the neutral zone, and the puck ends up in Team B's defensive zone, what do Team A's players do while they're waiting for their teammates to clear the blue line?

Regroup.  There are a lot of set plays that teams will rehearse.  If they have to leave the defensive zone and resume the attack, they'll get themselves organized.

Boy, I can see a *lot* of close calls and arguments with these rules. Is it possible to play hockey without officials? I guess it's no different than a pickup baseball game.

Sure, you can play without officials.  Pickup hockey.

Can't wait to get into why and when it's okay to slam someone into the glass!

That's a whole other kettle of fish.  Hockey philosophy, international vs. league hockey, minor hockey, women's vs. men's hockey.  Complicated.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 4/30/2015 at 0:36 AM, lovehockey said:

Before 2005, each team got a point at the end of OT if it was tied.  That was it.  No shootout.  If you won the game in regulation or OT, 2 points.  Loser got nothing.

When they changed the rule, it became two points to a team that wins in regulation, overtime or the shootout; one point to a team that lost in overtime or the shootout; and no points to a team that lost in regulation.

The stats these days will include OT wins and OT losses to reflect the points problem.

What do you all think of this rule? I kind of like it in principle - how is it working in practice? It seems fair to me, adding excitement, but not penalizing a team too much for an overtime loss.

Why did they do away with ties? Because nobody likes a tie? Sort of like having sex withou ... oh, never mind.

Is there a good link explaining the overtime process?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

23 minutes ago, DonRocks said:

What do you all think of this rule? I kind of like it in principle - how is it working in practice? It seems fair to me, adding excitement, but not penalizing a team too much for an overtime loss.

Why did they do away with ties? Because nobody likes a tie? Sort of like having sex withou ... oh, never mind.

Is there a good link explaining the overtime process?

Try this one:  http://www.cbssports.com/nhl/eye-on-hockey/25357275/-on-3-overtime-is-doing-exactly-what-the-nhl-hoped-it-would-do

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...