Hockey

Hockey is a contact sport played with a rubber disk called a puck and a stick that you use to hit the puck with. On a hockey team there are six players on the ice at a time, a goaltender, two defencemen and three forwards(centre, right winger and left winger.). In hockey the main objective is to get the puck into the oppositions net. Each time you score it is worth one point.

The three forwards skate very fast to the other teams zone when on offence passing the puck around trying to score a goal. On the offence the defencemen go up to the end of their zone ready to get a pass from one of the forwards and take a long shot at the goal or make a play. Next when on defence one of the defencemen is in the corner battling for the puck and the other is standing in front of the net trying to prevent passes and shots on their goal. The forwards on while defending are further up trying to cover the enemies defencemen and getting ready for a pass up from their defencemen.

The goalie is the last line of defence. Sometimes the goalie can decide the games score. The goaltenders job is basically to not let any shots go past him into the net. Being a hockey goalie is one of the hardest positions to play because you have to angle yourself perfectly all the time, be unafraid of pucks flying at your face and be very flexible. Goalies need to be flexible so they can flop onto the ice fast enough to block a whizzing puck and switch positions very quickly if the puck bounces awkwardly of if player trick you with sharp passes and quick stickhandling. One of the hard moves a goaltender makes if called the butterfly which involves the goalie to quickly drop down on his pads to stop low pucks.

The equipment a player uses is very important, if you forget to use any piece of equipment you can get seriously hurt. Player wear skates, shin pads, socks, cup, huge pants, neck guard, shoulder pads, elbow pads, jersey, gloves, a stick and one of the most important pieces is the helmet. A goalie has slightly different equipment they wear socks, special skates huge pants, upper body suit, jersey, bigger neck guard, glove to catch pucks, blocker, thick huge pads, helmet and thick stick.

Pro hockey players play in a league called the NHL. In the NHL there are 30 teams. My favourite team is called the Calgary Flames. To follow the NHL and see the scores, standing, schedules go to http://www.nhl.com/