Hockey Rules Explained: A Beginner’s Guide to Ice Hockey

Ice hockey is fast, but its basic rules are not complicated. This guide covers what you need to follow a game, mainly using NHL rules, with notes where college, international and youth hockey differ.

Teams and the game

• Each team has six players on the ice: a goaltender and five skaters, usually three forwards and two defensemen (see hockey positions).
• Teams change players on the fly, without stopping play.
• An NHL game has three 20-minute periods of stopped-clock time. How long that takes in real time: how long is a hockey game.
• The team with more goals wins.

Faceoffs

Play starts and restarts with a faceoff: an official drops the puck between two opposing players. There are nine faceoff spots on the ice, chosen according to where play stopped.

Offside

Attacking players may not cross the opponent's blue line into the attacking zone before the puck. If they do, play is stopped and a faceoff is held outside the zone. The position of the skates decides: a player is onside as long as one skate is on or behind the line when the puck crosses.

Icing

A team may not shoot the puck from its own half of the ice across the opponent's goal line without anyone touching it. When that happens, play stops and the faceoff goes back to the offending team's end. A team that is shorthanded because of a penalty is allowed to ice the puck. The NHL uses "hybrid icing": the linesman judges a race to the faceoff dots and waves off icing if the attacking player gets there first. Both rules are explained in detail in icing and offside in hockey.

Penalties and power plays

Penalty	Length	Examples
Minor	2 minutes	Tripping, hooking, holding, slashing, high-sticking
Double minor	4 minutes	High-sticking that draws blood
Major	5 minutes	Fighting, some serious infractions
Misconduct	10 minutes	Player sits out; team is not shorthanded
Game misconduct / match penalty	Rest of the game	Ejection for serious offenses

A penalized player sits in the penalty box and the team plays shorthanded; the other team has a power play. If the power-play team scores during a minor penalty, the penalty ends early.

Overtime and shootouts

• NHL regular season: a tie after 60 minutes goes to five minutes of 3-on-3 sudden-death overtime, then a shootout.
• NHL playoffs: full 20-minute periods of 5-on-5 hockey until someone scores.
• Other leagues and tournaments use their own formats.

The rules on fighting

In the NHL, fighting is not legal but is penalized rather than banned outright: each fighter usually gets a five-minute major. Extra penalties apply to the player who starts a fight (the instigator) and to fights late in games. In college hockey, international (IIHF) hockey including the Olympics, and youth hockey, fighting typically leads to ejection and often suspension.

Other common calls

• Goaltender interference: a goal can be disallowed if an attacker impedes the goalie.
• High stick on the puck: play stops if the puck is played above shoulder height (or the crossbar for goals).
• Too many men: a two-minute bench minor for having seven players on the ice.