Ice Hockey

Ice hockey is a team sport played on an ice rink between two sides who use curved sticks to shoot a rubber puck into the opposing net; the side scoring more goals over three twenty-minute periods wins. The first organized indoor game was played on 3 March 1875 at the Victoria Skating Rink in Montreal, based on rules proposed by a group of McGill University students led by James G. A. Creighton. The international governing body, now the International Ice Hockey Federation, was founded on 15 May 1908 in Paris as the Ligue Internationale de Hockey sur Glace, with Belgium, France, Great Britain and Switzerland as founding members. Each side fields six players at a time, one goaltender and five skaters conventionally grouped as two defensemen and three forwards (a center flanked by a left and right wing), with substitutions made freely and frequently, on the fly, rather than only at fixed stoppages; a distinctive offside and icing set of rules governs how the puck and players may legally cross the rink's zone lines.