Ice Hockey

From Encyc

Ice Hockey is a sport that is based on hockey, sometimes referred to as field hockey, with the difference being that in ice hockey it is played typically indoors, on ice, with players wearing ice skates instead of shoes, larger hockey sticks, a puck instead of a small ball, smaller goals and a lot more padding - as it can be quite a dangerous game while regular hockey is really a non-contact sport.

Ice Hockey probably originated in Canada, certainly as a winter version of regular hockey/field hockey, which in turn was a stick version of soccer.

Ice Hockey is most popular in Canada, where it is virtually the national sport, although it is also fairly popular in United States. The difference in popularity is such that in spite of the 10:1 population difference, Canada is very competitive in head to head battles against United States and in fact regularly wins. There are slightly more players in Canada than United States.

While no countries outside of Canada and United States play Ice Hockey with anywhere near the same degree of seriousness, nonetheless a small degree of people in other countries play the sport, including Czech Republic, Russia, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Germany. It is nonetheless, not truly an international sport, as over 2/3 of the world's competitive players originate from 2 countries.

It is nonetheless a sport at the Winter Olympics, in spite of not being a true international sport, with almost all finals being between Canada and the United States.

Teams[edit]

National Hockey League[edit]

American Hockey League[edit]