Ice hockey is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an ice skating rink with lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice hockey sticks to control, advance, and shoot a closed, vulcanized, rubber disc called a "puck" into the other team's goal. Each goal is worth one point. The team which scores the most goals is declared the winner. In a formal game, each team has six skaters on the ice at a time, barring any penalties, one of whom is the goaltender. Ice hockey is a full contact sport, and is considered to be one of the more physically demanding team sports. It is distinct from field hockey, in which players move a ball around a non-frozen pitch using field hockey sticks.
The National Hockey League is a professional ice hockey league in North America comprising 32 teams – 25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. The Stanley Cup, the oldest professional sports trophy in North America, is awarded annually to the league playoff champion at the end of each season. The NHL is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada and is considered to be the top-ranked professional ice hockey league in the world, with players from 17 countries as of the 2023–24 season. The International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) also views the Stanley Cup as one of the "most important championships available to the sport". The NHL is headquartered in Midtown Manhattan.
The World Cup of Hockey is an international ice hockey tournament. Inaugurated in 1996, it is the successor to the Canada Cup, which was held every three to five years from 1976 to 1991 and was the first international hockey championship to allow nations to field their top players. The World Cup has occurred thrice before on an irregular basis, with the United States winning in 1996 and Canada winning in 2004 and 2016. Following the 2016 tournament, it was uncertain if the series would be continued, after the cancellation of the 2020 tournament. It is tentatively scheduled to be held every four years, starting in 2028.
Fighting is an established tradition in North American ice hockey, with a long history that involves many levels of amateur and professional play and includes some notable individual fights. Fights may be fought by enforcers, or "goons" —players whose role is to fight and intimidate—on a given team, and are governed by a system of unwritten rules that players, coaches, officials, and the media refer to as "the code". Some fights are spontaneous, while others are premeditated by the participants. While officials tolerate fighting during hockey games, they impose a variety of penalties on players who engage in fights.
The 2004 World Cup of Hockey was an international ice hockey tournament. It was the second installment of the National Hockey League (NHL)-sanctioned competition, eight years after the inaugural 1996 World Cup of Hockey. It was held from August 30 to September 14, 2004, and took place in various venues in North America and Europe. Canada won the championship, defeating Finland in the final, held in Toronto.
The Canada men's national ice hockey team is the ice hockey team representing Canada internationally. The team is overseen by Hockey Canada, a member of the International Ice Hockey Federation. From 1920 until 1963, Canada's international representation was by senior amateur club teams. Canada's national men's team was founded in 1963 by Father David Bauer as a part of the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association, playing out of the University of British Columbia. The nickname "Team Canada" was first used for the 1972 Summit Series and has been frequently used to refer to both the Canadian national men's and women's teams ever since.
The United States men's national ice hockey team is based in Colorado Springs, Colorado, with its U18 and U17 development program in Plymouth, Michigan. The team is controlled by USA Hockey, the governing body for organized ice hockey in the United States. The U.S. team is currently ranked 6th in the IIHF World Rankings.
Ice hockey tournaments have been staged at the Olympic Games since 1920. The men's tournament was introduced at the 1920 Summer Olympics and was transferred permanently to the Winter Olympic Games program in 1924, in France. The women's tournament was first held at the 1998 Winter Olympics.
The Triple Gold Club is the group of ice hockey players and coaches who have won an Olympic Games gold medal, a World Championship gold medal, and the Stanley Cup, the championship trophy of the National Hockey League (NHL). The International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) considers them to be "the three most important championships available to the sport".
Gord Miller is a Canadian sportscaster for Bell Media's sports cable network TSN. He is the lead play-by-play announcer for TSN Hockey and coverage of international hockey, including the IIHF World Junior Championship. He also covers the annual NHL Entry Draft, provided play-by-play for Canadian Football League games, and does play-by-play for the Stanley Cup playoffs on ESPN in the United States. Miller was awarded the Paul Loicq Award by the International Ice Hockey Federation in 2013, for his contributions to international ice hockey.
The IIHF World Junior Championship (WJC), sometimes referred to as World Juniors, is an annual event organized by the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) for national under-20 ice hockey teams from around the world. It is traditionally held in late December, ending in early January. The tournament usually attracts the top hockey players in this age category.
The 2008 IIHF World Championship was played between May 2 and May 18, 2008 in the Canadian cities of Halifax and Quebec City (Quebec). The two venues were the Halifax Metro Centre and the Colisée Pepsi. The tournament was won by Russia which claimed its first gold medal since 1993.
Hockey at the 2010 Winter Olympics was held at Rogers Arena in Vancouver, home of the National Hockey League's Vancouver Canucks, and at UBC Winter Sports Centre, home of the Canadian Interuniversity Sport's UBC Thunderbirds. Twelve teams competed in the men's event and eight teams competed in the women's event. Canada won both tournaments with victories against the United States, while Finland won both bronze games, however against different opponents.
The men's tournament in ice hockey at the 2010 Winter Olympics was held in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, from February 16–28, 2010. Games were hosted at two venues – Canada Hockey Place and UBC Thunderbird Arena. These Olympics were the first to take place in a city with a National Hockey League team since the NHL players were introduced in 1998, which meant players on the Vancouver Canucks who were competing in the Olympics were playing in their home arena: Roberto Luongo for Canada, Ryan Kesler for the United States, Pavol Demitra for Slovakia, Sami Salo for Finland, Christian Ehrhoff for Germany, and Daniel and Henrik Sedin for Sweden.
The 2006 IIHF World Championship was held in between 5–21 May 2006 in Riga, Latvia. It was the 70th annual event, and was run by the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF).
The men's tournament in ice hockey at the 2014 Winter Olympics was held in Sochi, Russia between 12–23 February 2014. For the fifth consecutive Olympics, players from the National Hockey League participated. Twelve countries qualified for the tournament; nine of them did so automatically by virtue of their ranking by the International Ice Hockey Federation, while the other three took part in a qualification tournament.
The men's tournament in ice hockey at the 2018 Winter Olympics was held in Gangneung, South Korea between 14 and 25 February 2018. Twelve countries qualified for the tournament; eight of them did so automatically by virtue of their ranking by the International Ice Hockey Federation, one, South Korea, automatically qualified as hosts, while the three others took part in a qualification tournament.
Thomas Chabot is a Canadian professional ice hockey defenceman and alternate captain for the Ottawa Senators of the National Hockey League (NHL). Chabot was drafted in the first round by the Senators in the 2015 NHL Entry Draft.
The National Hockey League (NHL) is shown on national television in the United States and Canada. With 25 teams in the U.S. and 7 in Canada, the NHL is the only one of the four major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada that maintains separate national broadcasters in each country, each producing separate telecasts of a slate of regular season games, playoff games, and the Stanley Cup Finals.
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused disruption to ice hockey across the world, mirroring its impact across all sports. Across the world and to varying degrees, events and competitions have been cancelled or postponed.
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