Another reason that hockey may be a little on the confusing side to most people is that there are a lot of terms used in the game that most people just don’t understand. So, you’re watching a hockey game in the playoffs, and you’re doing a pretty good job of keeping up with the action. Maybe you’ve got a little sweat bet on the game after signing up with one of our recommended legal US hockey betting sites. But suddenly, something happens with a player losing the puck, and the announcers start using language that you just cannot understand. You don’t have a frame of reference, and you can no longer keep up with what’s going on. Don’t worry about this too much. Stick around and we’ll go over some popular hockey terms used during the games.
Ten Common Hockey Terms
1: 2-man advantage – With this term, you may have heard it while watching a game that suddenly seems like a mismatch. In other words, you notice that one team seems to have more players than the other team, but it seems more than two men out there, so you don’t really follow the term. That’s because the term 2-man advantage is actually about 5 men on one team vs. 3 men on the other. It means that one team has two more players than the other.
2: Backchecking – This is a term that’s often heard and it can be very confusing. There’s checking in a lot of sports, but backchecking is unique to only hockey. In simplistic terms, this is when a player rushes back to the defensive zone in order to cover another team’s attack. It’s more or less like backpedaling to play defense.
3:Breakaway – Another term that’s quite popular if you’re watching hockey, a breakaway call and the subsequent action you see does, however, make the term seem a little self explanatory. When a player pushes the puck forward and there are no defensive players around him, he is breaking away from the defense toward the goal.
4: Charging – One thing that most people notice about hockey is that it’s a very rough game. Even still, there are some rules put in place to protect players. When a player takes more than three strides to hit another player, or when a player leaves his feet to hit another player, this move is called charging, and it is a penalty that will land someone in the box.
5: Faceoff – Other than being the last good movie John Travolta made, a faceoff in hockey is basically just the formation at the very beginning of the game or after a stoppage in action. This is when the ref lines up the opposing players and drops the puck between them. They each scramble to shoot the puck out to their teammates.
6: Icing – Of all the terms used in hockey, icing is probably one of the most popular. Icing is easy to understand but has a lengthy explanation. This occurs when a player shoots the puck past the center red line and the other team’s goal line without the puck landing in the net or able to be touched by an opposite player in their neutral/defensive zones. An official stops play when icing occurs and the game will start back up again with a faceoff.
7: Rebound – Just like in basketball when the ball bounces off of the rim and another team grabs the rebound, there is also rebounding in hockey. This occurs when the puck bounces off of the goalie, another player, or the goal net.
8: Tripping – Of all the different hockey terms out there, this is one that you can probably figure out without having to watch it happen. When players are going at it on the ice, and one happens to attack another player’s feet, this is tripping and will typically be called a penalty. It’s also one of those plays that may lead to a fight.
9: Slapshot – This term in hockey is so popular that there have even been movies called Slapshot. A slapshot is typically a very hard shot that’s taken when a player winds up with his stick, bends his stick on the ice, and then allows the energy from the bent stick to blast the puck toward the goal.
10: Spearing – There are some plays in hockey that are just taboo. Even though it’s a violent, fight-happy sport, the players still have their standards. Spearing is when someone takes the point of their stick and jabs it into the opponent. This is a double penalty at a minimum, and spearing someone may almost certainly spur a fight.
Unfortunately, we simply cannot cover every popular hockey term out there. It would require dozens of pages of space, and hours of your time to read it. So, we covered 10 of the most popular terms for you in detail.