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Winter Olympics: All About Ice Hockey

To prepare for the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia which begin on February 6, 2014, Dear Sports Fan is running a series of previews of Winter Olympics events. So far we’ve profiled the Luge, Skeleton, and Bobsled.

All About Ice Hockey

ovechkin olympics — The hopes of Mother Russia rest on Alexander Ovechkin and his teammates.

How Does Ice Hockey Work?

In Ice Hockey there are twelve players on the ice at a time: three forwards, two defencemen, and a goalie on each team. The goal is to shoot a small, vulcanized rubber disc into a six foot by four foot net. It’s harder than it sounds. For one thing, the goalies, who are enthusiastically padded, helmeted, and armed with a thick stick, a rectangular blocker, and a glove which resembles an oversized baseball mitt, are preternaturally quick and able to block over ninety percent of the shots that get through to them. Defenders are adept at taking the puck away from attackers or often removing the attacker from the puck by hitting them with a shoulder or a hip.

Although there are some real differences between NHL hockey and Olympic, they’re not as big as people will make them out to be. The biggest difference is the size of the rink — NHL rinks are 85 by 200 feet, Olympic rinks are 98 by 210 feet. This has the effect of favoring speed over strength and discipline over risk-taking. It makes crisp passing a better strategy than skating with the puck. Hockey in the NHL is notorious for permitting players to fight with virtually no penalty to their teams. Olympic hockey has none of this — but with rare exceptions, neither do the playoffs in the NHL.


As much as it pains me to include these, here are the highlights from the 2010 Gold medal game between Canada (victors) and the USA (losers):

Why Do People Like Watching Ice Hockey?

So Many Reasons: About a year ago, I wrote a post all about why people like hockey. Among my favorite are “45 seconds,” and “you can see the puck.” Check it out!
Toughness: I also answered the question, “how tough are hockey players?” The answer? Plenty tough but you knew that already.
The Host Wants It: Of all the events at the Olympics, the one that means the most to Russians by far is the men’s ice hockey gold medal. In an interesting ESPN the Magazine article, Brett Forrest quotes a manager at the state-owned contracting company which built the olympic stadiums. This manager says, “Why do you think we built all this? If we lose, they should shoot everyone.” It’s not clear if he’s joking.

What Are the Different Ice Hockey Events?

There’s a gold medal to be won by the men and the women. That’s it. No fancy events, just ice hockey. The tournament is a little complicated though. Both genders start in groups of four — three groups for men, two for women. There is a round-robin tournament and in the men’s bracket, the group winners plus the second place team with the best record advances to the quarter-finals. The other eight teams are paired off and play a single elimination game to determine the other four teams to advance to the quarter-finals. From there, it’s a single elimination tournament. On the women’s side, the four highest ranking teams start out in one group and the four lowest in the other. All four of the top ranked teams advance to the quarter-final round but the top two teams get a bye while the bottom two teams in the top group have to play the top two teams in the bottom group to qualify for the semi-finals.

It’s frankly just about the most complicated way you could possibly design a tournament for twelve or eight teams.

How Dangerous is Ice Hockey?

Surprisingly not that dangerous. Yeah, the puck is going to knock out a few people’s teeth and maybe break a jaw. Sticks can cut faces or break wrists, but compared to the catastrophic knee injuries of downhill skiing or the spectacular crashes in the sledding sports, ice hockey is relatively low risk. The fluidity of the game keeps the contact to a minimum. Concussions are the boogyman of the sport but in a short tournament like the Olympics, there aren’t likely to be too many concussion stories (partially because players and teams are likely to hide any concussions from view) unless a major player is injured.

What’s the State of Gender Equality in Olympic Ice Hockey?

This is a hard one. It’s obviously not equal — there are four more male teams than female teams — but it’s hard to blame the Olympics here. The outside ice hockey world is dominated by the all-male NHL where the most talented male players in the world can make millions of dollars honing their skills. There are a few women’s professional ice hockey leagues but not at nearly the same scale. Women’s rules differ in a couple obvious ways: they must wear full face-masks and they are not allowed to body-check their opponents. This last rule must be enforced with something of a blind-eye though. I’ve watched women’s ice hockey and it’s still pretty rough.

What are Some Fun Olympic Ice Hockey Stories?

Old to Young, Selänne to Määttä, the Olympics is a time to meet budding stars like 19 year old Finnish defenseman Olli Määttä and bid a fond farewell to legends like fellow Finn Teemu Selänne who will be playing in his sixth Olympic Games. It’s a time to re-visit players like Czech Republic forward Petr Nedved who retired from the NHL in 2007 but who, seven years later could still, according to teammate Jaromir Jagr, be the “best player on the team.”

It’s fun to see long-time NHL teammates like Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin play against each other and long-time rivals like Blackhawk Patrick Kane and St. Louis Blues David Backes play with each other.

Important Links:

The official ice hockey schedule.

NBC home-page for US TV information.

Women’s ice hockey begins on Feb. 8 and ends with the gold medal game on Feb. 20. Men’s ice hockey begins on Feb. 12 and ends with the gold medal game on Feb. 23.

What is the Winter Classic Hockey Game?

Dear Sports Fan,

What is the Winter Classic hockey game? Should I watch it?

Thanks,
Sam

— — —

Dear Sam,

The Winter Classic is the name given to an NHL regular season game scheduled on New Year’s Day with a special twist: it’s played outdoors. This year’s game between the Detroit Red Wings and the Toronto Maple Leafs will be televised on NBC at 1 pm ET. The game will be played on a rink constructed in the center of the University of Michigan’s football stadium, nicknamed “the big house.” The USA Today writes that 107,000 people are expected to attend, which would break the record for attendance at a hockey game. There’s lots of reasons to watch, even if you’re not a hockey fan. Here are a few of them:

The Winter Classic Makes Professional Sports into a Game

An argument I hear from some of my friends who prefer college sports over professional ones is that making a business out of a game ruins the fun of the game. Well, for one day, at least, the Winter Classic transforms hockey back into a game. NHL players are from all over the world but most of them grew up in Canada, Scandanavia, or Russia, and many of them grew up playing outside on frozen ponds as well as inside on rinks devoted to youth hockey leagues. Listen to what some of the players have to say about playing outside:

“As soon as everyone walked in it was like a bunch of 13 and 14 year olds in here” — Red Wings Goalie, Jimmy Howard

“I got chills coming into the building. You grow up playing on outdoor rinks as a kid… it’s going to be a special game to be a part of… it’s going to be an experience I’ll never forget.” — Maple Leafs defenseman, Dion Phaneuf

It’s a regular season game that counts for the standings, but it’s also a throwback to childhood for many of the players and a ton of fun. Like that NFL game between the Eagles and the Lions a few weeks back, when the players are having fun, their joy actually comes across through the television and augments your viewing experience.

The Winter Classic Isn’t a Classic, But It’s Becoming One

The “classic” in Winter Classic is more aspirational than it is a reflection of reality. The first Winter Classic game was played in 2008, so next to some other elements of the NHL like the 121 year-old Stanley Cup (the NHL Championship trophy,) the game is in its infancy. The NHL has done a wonderful job with it though and I would venture to say it’s on its way to becoming a classic tradition. For starters, there’s the deal the league made with HBO to film a four episode season of their sports documentary series 24/7 about the two teams who will play in the Winter Classic. The show is a great lead-in to the game and has at times created its own miniature stars. There’s also an alumni game the night before the Winter Classic that brings back legendary (or just old) players from both teams who get to skate with each other on the outdoor rink. The 30,000+ fans who watched and the players who participated love the chance to relive the past.

The last clever part of the game is that the NHL reached into the sports schedule in just the right place at the right time. New Year’s Day was traditionally dominated by College Football bowl games. As the college football bowl schedule became more and more crowded (one could say bloated) over the last ten or fifteen years, the schedule started creeping deeper into January. The Rose Bowl and Tostitos Fiesta Bowl are still on New Year’s Day but begin later, at 5 pm and 8 pm ET. The other BCS (most important) bowl games are played on Jan 2, 3, or 6. The NHL cleverly swooped in right as New Year’s Day was starting to open up to other sports programming.

The Winter Classic is a Beautiful Sight

An outdoor hockey game can be stunning to watch. The teams always wear uniforms designed just for the Winter Classic. This is obviously a merchandise selling tactic but they also tend to be bolder in color than the normal jerseys, optimized to look good outside. The organizers of the game pick their locations carefully to create stunning tableaus, and there’s always the chance of falling snow to push the images even farther. Here are some photos from Winter Classics, past and present:

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Enjoy the game,
Ezra Fischer

What's New for the '13-'14 NHL Hockey Season?

The NHL Hockey season starts tomorrow with games in Montreal, Edmonton, and Chicago. For nine out of every ten sports fans, this will have about as much impact on their lives as missing one quarter of a regular season football game because they had to run out to the store to get some pickles. The fringe popularity of hockey can be seen clearly in the low importance levels the sport receives on our daily and seven-day almanac forecasts. For the hockey fan though, it is a big day! Hockey fans have many reasons why they love hockey and the start of every season is a time when fans of all teams can be excited and optimistic about their team’s potential… even the Florida Panthers. The NHL is known to be one of the most flexible and quick-reacting leagues when it comes to tweaking the rules to fit the needs of their players, owners, and sponsors. A couple new rules this year highlight this characteristic.

No More Jersey Tucking

Not a new rule technically, the NHL has decided to start enforcing a rule against a player tucking in his jersey which has been part of the rulebook for 50 years. It doesn’t take long to realize that despite the head-fake towards explaining this rule through a ref’s easier identification of the player from behind, that this rule is all about the official sponsors of hockey. The makers of hockey pants (heavily padded) realized long ago that they could get some free advertising by putting their logo on the area that is exposed when a player tucks his jersey. No more!

If you take off mine, I’ll take of yours.

Fighting with Helmets, Visors, or None

For years the most hotly debated topic about hockey in the general media has been the place of fighting in the game. In our post, Why Do People Like Hockey, the seventh reason was “Blood (and Consent.) There are two new rules that affect how players will fight this year.

Players who fight this year, in addition to the normal five minute penalty for fighting, will be given an additional two minute penalty if they take their own helmet off. You might be wondering why a player who is about to get into a bare-knuckle fist-fight on ice would take his own helmet off. Hockey is governed by a highly ritualized set of unwritten rules. There’s a big section of this code that pertains to fighting. For instance, a fighter will not fight a player who isn’t a fighter during the normal course of play but, if a non-fighter makes a dirty play, he’s likely to be challenged by a fighter on the other team and he’s got to fight back. Players who fight a lot have more in common with fighters on other teams than they often do with the skill players on their team. So it’s probably no surprise that they don’t wear visors because a visor is likely to break the hand of whoever is fighting against them.

This year is the first year under a new collective bargained agreement between players and owners that requires new players to wear visors on their helmets that protect their eyes. Joe Haggerty explains that while this rule is meant to protect injuries, it may also cause some injuries for players who are determined to fight:

“Guys have been fighting long enough and punching enough guys in the helmet that your hand is a big, calloused club. You’re used to that. Even when guys don’t have visors on, you’re still hitting a lot of helmet. It takes more area away from the face where you can make contact, so it will be a learning curve.”

The solution? Until the league outlaws fighting all-together, the players will find their own solutions. In the preseason, Krys Barch and Brett Gallant found their own solution. They took each other’s helmets off before beginning to throw punches! David Singer of hockeyfights.com (yes, that exists) commented that this was “Victorian era honor. The Code. A ridiculous loophole on display.” Which is more ridiculous though, the response or the rule? There’s a set of hockey players that make their living partially through fighting. Unbroken hands are a job requirement and punching a visor or helmet too hard is a good way to lose a place on the team; one that, once gone, may never be regained.

How Tough Are Hockey Players?

Dear Sports Fan,

I had heard hockey fans were tough but seriously, how tough are hockey players? I saw a guy get hit in the face with a puck last night, get stitched up, and keep playing. Sheesh.

Sincerely,
Sam

— — —

Dear Sam,

They are really tough.

Thanks for your question,
Ezra Fischer

Just kidding — we’ll write a bit more about this while we’re on the subject. As the Marx Brother’s line from Monkey Business goes, “How much tough you want? You pay too much, we too much tough.” Hockey players are too much tough. The guy you saw last night is named Andrew Shaw. This was him before the game:

This was Shaw during the game:

And this was him after the game:

So, yeah, they are tough. One thing that is notable about hockey culture, which we mentioned before in our post on Ken Dryden’s article earlier this playoff season about violence in Hockey, is how completely brutal players are to each other. The ethos of hockey allows for a player to target another player who he knows to be injured without any guilt. As a result of this, hockey teams are notoriously silent about who is injured and how badly. During the playoffs you may have heard the phrase “So and so has a ‘upper body injury'” or a “lower body injury” or even at times a “body injury.” This is a compromise between the league which insists the teams give out some injury information and the teams that don’t want to give any out. After the season is over, when there is no reason to hide anything anymore, the list of injuries that players were playing through is often unbelievable:

On the winning Blackhawks, aside from Shaw, Michael Handzus played with a broken wrist and a torn ligament in his knee and Marian Hossa played with a pinched nerve in his neck that left him unable to feel his right foot. The Bruins were at least as injured. Nathan Horton played with a separated shoulder that is going to require surgery and Tyler Seguin will also need surgery on his hip. Patrice Bergeron who was one of those players said to have had a “body injury” almost made that an accurate statement with his broken ribs, torn cartilage and separated shoulder.

There seems to be equal parts honor and lunacy in playing through these injuries but increasingly the lunacy is outweighing the honor when it comes to concussions. Speculation and euphemism about concussions hovered over some players, Jaromir Jagr and Jonothan Toews primarily, but as of yet no one has admitted to having suffered one. Frankly this is where a lot of hockey fans find the line between being impressed with hockey players’ toughness and being concerned for their health and saddened or disgusted by the sport very tough to identify.

Why are hockey players so tough? Tradition has a lot to do with it — there is so much ritual in hockey from the anthem before the games to the hand-shake line after a series is complete — and a lot of that tradition teaches players how to react to and play through pain. I also speculated in the Why Do People Like Hockey post that the very nature of hockey allows for playing through injuries that would be impossible in other sports because players play for 45 second shifts at a time, making it more psychologically possible for them to convince themselves they can overcome pain one more time and then one more time again.

Hoping your reading experience was pain-free,
Ezra Fischer

Cue Cards 6-25-13: Hockey and Tennis

Cue Cards is a series designed to assist with the common small talk about high-profile recent sporting events that is so omnipresent in the workplace, the bar, and other social settings.

Sport: Hockey
Teams: Chicago Blackhawks vs. Boston Bruins
When: Monday night, 6-24-13
Context: Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Finals. The Chicago Blackhawks led the seven game series 3-2.
Result: The Chicago Blackhawks win 3-2 and win the Stanley Cup
Sports Fans will be Talking About:

Absolute heartbreak for the Boston Bruins. After a late goal in the third period the Bruins were up by a goal with less than two minutes left. The Blackhawks pulled their goalie (a desperation move) and scored to tie the game. This had to have had everyone in the arena thinking that the game would go to overtime like so many of the games in this series did. The Blackhawks had other ideas and scored again before the end of regulation time to win the game and the series.
The end for Jaromir Jagr? Jagr is 41 and played his first year in the NHL in 1990. He won the championship with the Pittsburgh Penguins in 1991 and 1992 and has not won since. Although he played remarkably well for most of the season and playoffs, he got banged up pretty good in this game, and there was a shot of him after the game mourning the loss that had an air of finality and deep sadness.
This series was about as good as the NHL could wish for. Two original six teams from big U.S. markets playing incredibly well against each other. This season, which looked to be at risk of not happening at all after the owners locked out the players, ended on a high note for the sport.
Of course one of the consequences of the labor problems is that the season ended unseasonably late in the year. It was 95 degrees in Boston today and the ice quality was very poor throughout, particularly at the end of the game when a lot of the important action happened.

What’s Next: Probably a lot of beer for the Chicago team. And the city of Chicago. And I imagine many of the Bruins fans in my life too.

Sport: Tennis
Players: Rafael Nadal and Steve Darcis
When: Monday, 6-24-13
Context: The first round of any tennis tournament is where one expects the expected. It is very rare for anything head-line worthy to happen.
Result: Steve Darcis beat Rafael Nadal in three straight sets, 7-6 (4), 7-6 (8), 6-4
Sports Fans will be Talking About:

The surface — we just did a post on this today about how Nadal’s style of play leaves him open at this stage in his career to being upset on grass.
Who is this Steve Darcis guy anyway? No really, no one will know anything about him except that he is Belgian and that no one knows anything about him.
Nadal’s knee which looked like it was bothering him. Tendonitis in his knees has forced him to miss lots of time in the past few years and it feels more like this is a permanent disability than something which he will one day look back on as a bump in the road. Every loss and every injury for Nadal is therefore analysed as though it may be his last.

Cue Cards 6-24-13

Cue Cards is a series designed to assist with the common small talk about high-profile recent sporting events that is so omnipresent in the workplace, the bar, and other social settings.

Sport: Hockey
Teams: Chicago Blackhawks vs. Boston Bruins
When: Saturday night, 6-22-13
Context: Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Finals. The series was tied 2-2.
Result: Blackhawks win 3-1
Sports Fans will be Talking About:

The cup will be in the house. For the first time, the Stanley Cup will be in the building because if Chicago wins, the series is over. There aren’t many more exciting things in sports than knowing the team you root for can win the championship tonight.
Important injuries. Two of the top players in the series, Jonathan Toews of the Blackhawks and Patrice Bergeron of the Bruins were unable to finish last game. In the grand tradition of hockey (the logic is that if you say what is ailing you, your opponent will target that body part in the next game) neither team is talking about what is wrong with their star player. Rumor has it that Toews has a concussion and Bergeron… something with his spleen.
Fallen Giant? Zdeno Chara, Boston’s 6’9″ captain, and one of the best defensive players in the league has been on the ice for eight of the last nine goals scored against the Bruins. If Chicago has really figured out how to beat him, they will probably win.

What’s Next: Game 6 is Saturday night at 8 p.m.

Sport: Basketball
Teams: Boston Celtics and Los Angeles
When: Sunday, 6-23-13
Context: A trade!
Result: The Boston Celtics trade Coach Doc Rivers to the Los Angeles Clippers for a 2015 first round draft pick
Sports Fans will be Talking About:

More change coming for the Celtics? The Celtics have had the same coach and pretty much the same star players since 2007. Last year Ray Allen left for the Miami Heat and now Doc Rivers has left for the Clippers. What will happen to aging (or aged) stars Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett.
Can you really trade a coach? No, not really — but a team can receive compensation for allowing their coach to sign with another team while under contract. Though people will call this a trade officially it’s not.
Most trade conversations follow the pattern of people taking the position “Team A” got the better deal or “Team B” got the better deal. Taking either of those positions (or both if you want to really have fun) will create a good conversation. You can also take the honorable “it’s too soon to tell” position and do quite well. As this trade involves no tangible basketball players, most of these conversations will be about the relative value of a coach and a pick that could potentially fall at the end of the first round, 25-30 picks into the draft.

Cue Cards 6-20-13

Cue Cards is a series designed to assist with the common small talk about high-profile recent sporting events that is so omnipresent in the workplace, the bar, and other social settings.

Sport: Hockey
Teams: Chicago Blackhawks vs. Boston Bruins
When: Wednesday night, 6-19-13
Context: Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Finals. The Boston Bruins were leading the seven game series 2-1.
Result: Blackhawks win 6-5
Sports Fans will be Talking About:

Overtime. Oh my gosh so much overtime. Three of the four games in this series have gone to overtime
The high score! There had been 12 goals total in the three previous games. This game had 11 goals. Despite the Bruins losing, of the two goalies, Corey Crawford of the Blackhawks is the more concerning goalie. All five of the goals scored against him got past his glove hand. This is suggestive of a weakness the Bruins can continue to exploit.
How much confidence does this give the Blackhawks? Everything that had been going wrong for them in the series turned around in this game. Both their star players, Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews scored goals and they even got their first power play goal of the series (they hadn’t scored in nine attempts against the Bruins before this game)

What’s Next: Game 5 is Saturday night at 8 p.m.

Cue Cards 6-18-13

Cue Cards is a series designed to assist with the common small talk about high-profile recent sporting events that is so omnipresent in the workplace, the bar, and other social settings.

Sport: Hockey
Teams: Chicago Blackhawks vs. Boston Bruins
When: Monday night, 6-17-13
Context: Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Finals. The seven game series was tied 1-1.
Result: The Boston Bruins win 2-0.
Sports Fans will be Talking About:

The Boston Bruins goalie, Tuukka Rask, who hasn’t let in a goal since the first period of game 2.
Blackhawks player Marian Hossa who injured himself in the warm-ups and missed the game. Given what injuries players regularly play through, I wouldn’t be surprised to see him miss the rest of the series.
The series got a little rough in the third period once it was clear the Blackhawks were going to lose. How will that effect the next game?
Is a Bruins victory inevitable? It’s starting to feel that way after two straight victories, particularly because the Bruins have now won seven of the last eight games. Can the Blackhawks raise their game to match the level of their opponents?

What’s Next: Game 4 is Wednesday night at 8 p.m.

Cue Cards 6-17-13

Cue Cards is a series designed to assist with the common small talk about high-profile recent sporting events that is so omnipresent in the workplace, the bar, and other social settings.

Sport: Hockey
Teams: Chicago Blackhawks vs. Boston Bruins
When: Saturday night, 6-15-13
Context: Game 2 of the Stanley Cup Finals. Chicago won game 1 in triple over-time and had the 1-0 series lead.
Result: The Boston Bruins win 2-1 in overtime.
Sports Fans will be Talking About:

The Boston Bruins goalie, Tuukka Rask, played superbly in the first period to keep the Bruins in the game.
This was the second game in a seven game series and both games have gone to overtime. In two games the teams have played the equivalent of three games because of all the overtime needed.
In a seven game series, the team with the better regular season record gets four of the seven games at home. Chicago was at home for the first two games and with the series tied at 1-1, the Bruins now have three of the remaining five games at home. They have captured the home ice advantage.

What’s Next: Game 3 is Monday night at 8 p.m.

— — —

Sport: Basketball
Teams: Miami Heat vs. San Antonio Spurs
When: Sunday night, 6-16-13
Context: Game 5 of the NBA Championships. The seven game series is tied at two games apiece.
Result: Spurs win 114-104
Sports Fans will be Talking About:

What’s wrong with the Miami Heat. The Heat were favorites because of their “big three” star players Lebron James, Dwayne Wade, and Chris Bosh. Now they are one more loss away from losing the championship.
Alternating blow-outs. After a close game one, the teams have traded off winning games by at least ten points.
Spur Danny Green who was a highly regarded player in college but before this season a complete flop as a professional has been playing incredibly well. He had 24 points in the game and now has the record for most three-pointers made in the NBA finals in history.
Continuity (the Spurs best players and coach have been playing together for more than a decade) and coaching have the Spurs one victory away from winning the championship.

What’s Next: Game 6 is Tuesday night at 9 p.m.

— — —

Sport: Golf

Tournament: U.S. Open

When: Thursday-Sunday,June 13-16

Context: Second of four major golf championships of the year – the four most high profile, prestigious tournaments in golf

Result: England’s Justin Rose won with a score of 1 over par – kind of like being valedictorian with a GPA of 2.5

Sports Fans will be Talking About:

The course won. It’s rare when you gather the best players in golf and none of them break par cumulatively over four rounds – but that’s what happened at this and last year’s U.S. Open. Both Opens were won by a player who shot one stroke over par, a pretty mediocre score for professional golfers and an indication of the traditional difficulty of the U.S. Open courses.
Tiger comes up short in another major. Tiger Woods is the best golfer of his generation but to be the best golfer of all time he has to break Jack Nicklaus’s record of 18 majors won – he’s currently 4 behind and hasn’t won one since he was caught setting the record for most females slept with by a golfer in the history of one of the world’s most ancient sports.
Lefty comes up short again. Phil Mickelson (aka Lefty cause…uh…he’s left-handed) is perhaps the second most well-known American golfer active today. Unlike Tiger he’s best known for his tragic shortcomings in big tournaments, which include 5 previous runner-up finishes at the U.S. Open, several of which occurred in heartbreaking fashion. True to form he started the day leading the tournament but wasn’t able to close and lost by 2 strokes.

What’s Next: The next major golf tournament is the Open Championships, which are played in the UK – this year it will be hosted at Muirfield, in Scotland, July 18-21.

What is "Having the Last Change" in Hockey?

Dear Sports Fan,

What does “having the last change” in hockey mean? Please tell me it has something to do with uniform color…

Thanks,
Bob

Dear Bob,

Hockey is one of a few sports that actually bakes into the rule book a couple of small advantages for the home team. Having the last change is one of those advantages and it means that the home team has more control over who on their team plays against particular players on the other team. Here’s how and when this happens and also a little bit of how a team might use this to its advantage.

Hockey is a completely exhausting game (this is one reason why it’s so exciting, as covered in our earlier post on why people like hockey) and the players can only play for about 45 seconds at a time. Hockey teams are therefore made up of about three to four times the number of players as can be on the ice at any time. Unlike football, there isn’t a break between plays, so when players have hit the end of their 45 second shift they skate to their bench and return to it to catch their breath while another player on their team launches themselves onto the ice to replace them. This process looks incredibly chaotic but is normally pretty controlled (and when it’s not, the team that has messed up their substitution often puts themselves at risk for having a goal scored on them). Periodically there will be a break in the play, usually because either the puck has been shot out of the rink, a goalie covers up the puck, a goal is scored, or a penalty is called. When this happens, both coaches have the opportunity to reflect for a second or two and then choose which players they want on the ice.

Coaches will do anything do gain an advantage, and as we will explain later, you can definitely get an advantage through clever player substitutions. As you would imagine, with no rule in place to legislate such things, both coaches would try to see who the other coach is going to put on the ice and then decide who they choose for their team. As exciting as this would be to watch, the NHL decided to control things with a rule that states:

82.1 Line Change – Following the stoppage of play, the visiting team shall promptly place a line-up on the ice ready for play and no substitution shall be made from that time until play has been resumed. The home team may then make any desired substitution, except in cases following an icing, which does not result in the delay of the game.

The home team will use this rule to their advantage by watching to see when the visiting team puts their best offensive players on the ice and then countering with either their best pair of defensive defense-men or their best unit of defensive “checking” forwards. Conversely some home teams will wait to see when their opponents put their best defensive players on the ice and then scuttle their offensive stars back onto the bench to patiently wait for the visiting team’s players to get tired. Of course a lot of the time a visiting coach will have a pretty good idea who the home coach wants to get on the ice. A lot of it is situational — for instance, if a team is down by a few goals and the puck is going to be dropped near their opponent’s goal, they are definitely going to want some of their better offensive players on the ice. So a visiting coach is pretty safe in putting his best defensive players on the ice — I mean what is the home team going to do? If a match-up is really important to a coach he may be willing to instruct his players to play just until their team gets the puck and then to quickly skate off to be replaced. THEN the other coach might tell his players to do the same. It all has the effect of turning a graceful hockey game into something that looks like this.

If this all sounds a little cowardly or over-complicated to you, you might be right. Home teams in the NHL do win more than away teams (55.7% of the time) but that’s actually not that much compared to the advantage of home teams in other sports like the NBA (60.5%) or even the NFL (57.3%) and neither of those sports have any rules that make life easier for the home team. I’m not sure why that is. Maybe some of the advantages that a home team gets are counter-acted by the simplicity of being the away team and knowing that they cannot dictate who plays against who. There are so many factors that go into the advantage a home team has (emotion, routine, intimidated refs, etc.) that it would be pretty hard to isolate this one… but I’m sure there’s a statistician out there working on it!

Thanks,
Ezra Fischer