Ice hockey is a team sport played on ice, in which skaters use their sticks to hit a puck into the opponent's net. A fast-paced physical sport, ice hockey is most popular in areas that are sufficiently cold for natural reliable seasonal ice cover, such as Canada, the Czech Republic, Latvia, Scandinavia, Finland, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and the northern latitudes of the United States. With the advent of indoor artificial ice rinks it has become a year-round pastime in these areas. In North America, the National Hockey League (NHL) is the highest level for men and both the Canadian Women's Hockey League (CWHL) and the Western Women's Hockey League (WWHL) are the highest levels for women. It is the official national winter sport of Canada,[1] where the game enjoys immense popularity.
While there are 68 total members of the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF), 162 of 177 medals at the IIHF World Championshipshave been taken by seven nations: Canada, the Czech Republic, Finland, Russia, Slovakia, Sweden and the United States.[2][3] Of the 64 medals awarded in men's competition at the Olympic level from 1920 on, only six did not go to the one of those countries. All 12 Olympic and 36 IIHF World Women's Championships medals have gone to one of those seven countries, and every gold medal in both competitions has been won by either Canada or the United States.[4][5]
National teams
The annual men's Ice Hockey World Championships are more highly regarded by Europeans than North Americans because they coincide with the Stanley Cup playoffs. Consequently, Canada, the United States, and other countries with large numbers of NHL players have not always been able to field their best possible teams because many of their top players are playing for the Stanley Cup. Furthermore, for many years professionals were barred from play. Now that many Europeans play in the NHL, the world championships no longer represent all of the world's top players.
Hockey has been played at the Winter Olympics since 1924 (and at the summer games in 1920). Canada won six of the first seven gold medals, except in 1936 when Great Britain won. The United States won their first gold medal in 1960. The USSR won all but two Olympic ice hockey gold medals from 1956 to 1988 and won a final time as the Unified Team at the 1992 Albertville Olympics. Amateur US college players defeated the heavily favored Soviet squad on the way to winning the gold medal at the 1980 Lake Placid Olympics – an event known as the "Miracle on ice" in the United States. Since the 1998 games in Nagano all top players from the NHL have been able to take part, with Vancouver 2010 being the first in an NHL market since then and nowadays Winter Olympics games are the most highly regarded international tournament by ice hockey fans.
The 1972 Summit Series and 1974 Summit Series, established Canada and the USSR as a major international ice hockey rivalry. It was followed by five Canada Cup tournaments, where the best players from every hockey nation could play, and two exhibition series, the 1979 Challenge Cup and Rendez-vous '87 where the best players from the NHL played the USSR. The Canada Cup tournament later became theWorld Cup of Hockey, played in 1996 and 2004. The United States won in 1996 and Canada won in 2004.
There have been eleven women's world championships as of 2008, beginning in 1990.[44] Women's hockey has been played at the Olympicssince 1998.[46] The 2006 Winter Olympic final between Canada and Sweden marked the first women's world championship or Olympic final that did not involve both Canada and the United States
The annual Euro Hockey Tour, an unofficial European championships between the national men's teams of the Czech Republic, Finland,Russia and Sweden have been played since 1996–97.
Other ice hockey tournaments featuring national teams include the World U20 Championship, the World U18 Championships, the World U-17 Hockey Challenge, the World Junior A Challenge, the Ivan Hlinka Memorial Tournament, the World Women's U18 Championships and the 4 Nations Cup.
Tactics
Main article: Checking (ice hockey)
Checking
An important defensive tactic is checking—attempting to take the puck from an opponent or to remove the opponent from play. Stick checking,sweep checking, and poke checking are legal uses of the stick to obtain possession of the puck. The neutral zone trap is designed to isolate the puck carrier in the neutral zone preventing him from entering the offensive zone. Body checking is using one's shoulder or hip to strike an opponent who has the puck or who is the last to have touched it (the last person to have touched the puck is still legally "in possession" of it, although a penalty is generally called if he is checked more than two seconds after his last touch). Often the term checking is used to refer to body checking, with its true definition generally only propagated among fans of the game.
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