Hockey
...rwards, and a rover who alternated between offense and defense. The National Hockey Association, formed in 1909, eliminated the rover, which meant that east-west championship games alternated between the six- and seven-man styles for a time. Until the mid-1920s teams were sometimes forced to play with fewer than three skaters on the ice because of penalties. The rules and equipment were improvised gradually whenever problems cropped up and as rougher play made certain types of injuries more common. The creation in 1893 of a status symbol, the Stanley Cup--then awarded to Canada's best amateur hockey team--gave some credibility to the sport. Ice hockey is a low scoring game in which the team that hits the most pucks into its opponent's goal wins. The goals are located at each end of the hockey rink, an enclosed rectangular ice surface with rounded corners. The standard size of the rink is 180’by 60’, though there may be slight variations. It is surrounded by sideboards and end boards that stand about three or four feet above the surface of the ice. Some of the roughest hockey action occurs when players are slammed into the boards. To protect the spectators, rinks usually have glass extending from the top of these boards. The glass also keeps the skaters, as well as the pucks, within the playing area. Each goal has a cage framed by two posts four feet high and a bar six feet long across the top. Stretching from the posts to the ice level is a net that encloses the sides and back and forms the cage into which the pucks are shot. The only time a goal can be scored is when the puck crosses the goal line--a 2-inch-wide red border that extends between the goalposts. The rink is divided into three zones. Drawn 60 feet from each goal line is a zone line, or blue line, extending across the width of the rink and up the sideboards. Exactly between the two blue lines, at the middle of the rink, is the centerline, or red line. The ice surface between the blue lines is the center, or neutral, zone. The ice surface also includes markings for face-offs. A face-off is used to start or restart play whenever it has been stopped. In all, there are nine face-off spots, each one foot in diameter. The primary tool of the hockey player is the wooden stick used to maneuver the puck about the ice. In professional hockey the length from the bottom, or heel, of the stick to the top cannot exceed 55 inches, and the length from the heel to the outward end, or toe, of its blade cannot exceed 121/2 inches. The administration of ice hockey penalties makes the game one of the few sports in which a team is deprived of a player after a transgression. The most prevalent penalty is the two-minute minor, which is assessed for such transgressions as holding, tripping, charging, elbowing, hooking, slashing, and interference. When a referee spots such an infraction, he will whistle the offender off the ice and send him to a penalty box or bench where the player sits during the time of his infraction. Penalties made by a goalie are served by a teammate. The player's team may not replace him on the ice, ...