Ice hockey
From the Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can change
| Part of a series of articles on Sports |
|
|
|
|
|
Football |
|
|
Basketball |
|
|
Sprint · Cricket |
|
Ice hockey is a sport that is played by two teams on ice. The players wear ice skates on their feet and can travel at very high speeds. They hold hockey sticks, with which they push or pass a puck around the ice. The players score by shooting the puck into a net; the goaltenders try to stop them. Six players on each team play at once, but a whole team has over 20 players. When a player breaks a rule, a referee calls a penalty, and the team has to play with five players for a while.
Ice hockey is very well-known and well-liked in Canada, Russia, Sweden, Finland, the Czech Republic, the United States, Latvia and Slovakia. Most of the best players in the world play in the National Hockey League (NHL). They try to win the Stanley Cup at the end of the year. In North America, women play in National Women's Hockey League and the Western Women's Hockey League. In North America and Europe, men's hockey is much more popular than women's hockey. Hockey is played by both men and women at the Olympic games, and at world championships. Ice hockey began in Canada in the 19th century. The NHL began in 1917 (it now has 30 teams). In 2002 the Canadian men's and women's ice hockey teams both won gold medals in Salt Lake City, Utah.
[change] Other websites
