Concepts in hockey

Confrontation (faceoff) in the centre of the arena

Near each goal are marked two circles with a diameter of 4.5 meters (in the NHL, the diameter is 15 feet - about 4.57 meters) with a point marked in the centre of each of them. A similar circle is drawn in the centre of the field. Also, two points are drawn near each blue line in the neutral zone. These nine markings are used for a faceoff between two opposing players while their teammates wait outside the circle for the puck to be passed to them. Each game restart in ice hockey is done through a confrontation between two opponents when one of the members of the refereeing team - usually one of the linesmen - throws the puck between them, and each of them tries to pass the puck to his teammates. The location of the confrontation on one of the nine points will be determined according to the location of the stoppage of the game, the reason for its stoppage, and the circumstances of its resumption.

Offside

When a player crosses the blue line with both feet into his team's offensive zone before the puck crosses him, this condition will only be whistled if one of the players on his team touches the puck inside that zone. To get out of a layoff, offensive players must exit the offensive zone (that is, slide back across the blue line into the neutral zone) and re-enter it only after putting the puck into it.

The game will resume in the confrontation at one of the designated points in the neutral zone.

Icing

When a player or goalie hits the puck from his half of the court behind the opponent's goal line (but outside the goal itself) without another player touching it in its path, in principle, it is also required that the opposing team's skater be the first to reach the puck afterwards. Still, the lineman closest to the occurrence can rule on icing immediately even before that if he believes that a player of the opposing team will reach the puck first - and this is to reduce the possibility of a race to the puck between players opponents, which may put them at risk of injury (the option for the linesman's discretion is called "Hybrid Icing"). While in the NHL, it is still possible in some cases to race between opposing players to reach the puck first, in international hockey, such races are not tolerated for reasons of increased safety for the players. If such a race develops, the linesman will immediately whistle for the icing and stop the race.

After an icing violation has been determined, the game will resume with a faceoff in one of the faceoff circles closest to the goal of the team that committed the violation - an excellent advantage for the other team because if it wins the faceoff, then the puck and all its players are already in the attack zone. They can immediately attack the goal without fearing a standoff situation. In addition, a team that has performed icing cannot replace its players on the ice when the game is stopped and has to wait for the next stoppage - a rule that also gives the opposing team a potential advantage of fresher players on the ice.

Icing will not whistle against a team outnumbered on the ice due to a foul they committed. The rationale behind this rule is that the primary goal of a team at a numerical disadvantage is to pass the penalty time without conceding a goal, and its ability to develop attacking play is limited.

penalty kick

The team's defender, dressed in white, commits a foul on an opposing player, who reaches the scoring position alone in front of the goalkeeper. In a KHL league game, this foul leads to a penalty kick.

A penalty shot is stopped in different cases in the game. The most common case is a foul on a player who arrived in an explosive attack alone in front of the opposing goalkeeper. A free kick is executed by the executing player leading the puck from the centre of the arena to the opponent's goal alone in front of the goalie, at the end of the move he has one attempt to score a goal.

Also, in international ice hockey and in the regular season of the NHL and other North American leagues, if a game is not decided even after overtime, a penalty shootout is held to decide it. In the NHL, each team is given three penalty shots, and in international ice hockey, each team is given five penalty shots. If there is still no tie, the penalty shootout continues alternately until one team scores and the other misses.

The penalty shootout does not occur in the playoffs of the NHL and other leagues worldwide. Instead, another full-length overtime (up to 20 "net" minutes) is played until one of the teams scores a goal, at which point the game is stopped and the scorer is declared the winner. If no decisive goal is scored, another overtime is played, and God forbid. The longest official game in history took place in 2017 in the playoffs of the Norwegian league and was decided only in the eighth overtime.

Coach's Challenge

In some cases, the coach can challenge the decision of the referees on the ice and demand a video review. There are two cases in which a coach can appeal the decision of the referees: if a goal against his team was confirmed when, in the coach's opinion, the move that led to the goal started from a different situation that was not whistled, from an illegal pass with the hand or by lifting a stick above shoulder height, from hitting the puck on the defensive net behind the goal (which was should stop the game) or that, in the opinion of the coach, illegal interference with the goalkeeper was involved in the goal. The second situation is if his team's goal is disallowed and, in his opinion, the goal is legal due to those cases, which, in his opinion, were whistled unjustly. Other cases cannot be appealed to a coach - for example, cases in which there is a dispute as to whether the puck crossed the goal line cannot be appealed to a coach, but only to an initiative check by the video referees.

If the appeal fails and it turns out that the judges were right, or the video footage is not conclusive enough to contradict their original decision, the original decision remains, and the coach's team that failed to appeal the judge's decision will receive a minor penalty - that is, it will play at a numerical disadvantage for 2 minutes or until its opponent scores a goal.

The possibility of appealing a coach was copied from the NHL for cases of deviation or interference with the goaltender to the major tournaments of international ice hockey, starting with the PyeongChang Olympics (2018)