TACTICS
Checking
- Stick checking, sweep checking, and poke checking are legal uses of the stick to obtain possession of the puck.
- Body checking is using one's shoulder or hip to strike an opponent who has the puck or who is the last to have touched it.
Offensive Tactics
- Offensive tactics include improving a team's position on the ice by advancing the puck out of one's zone towards the opponent's zone.
- NHL rules instated for the 2006 season redefined offside to make the two-line pass legal.
- Offensive tactics are designed ultimately to score a goal by taking a shot. When a player purposely directs the puck towards the opponent's goal, he or she is said to "shoot" the puck.
- A deflection is a shot which redirects a shot or a pass towards the goal from another player, by allowing the puck to strike the stick and carom towards the goal.
- A one-timer is a shot which is struck directly off a pass, without receiving the pass and shooting in two separate actions.
- Head manning the puck, also known as cherry-picking or breaking out, is the tactic of rapidly passing to the player farthest down the ice.
- A delayed penalty call occurs when a penalty offense is committed by the team that does not have possession of the puck.
- In this circumstance the team with possession of the puck is allowed to complete the play; that is, play continues until a goal is scored.
Fights
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- Enforcers and other players fight to demoralize the opposing players while exciting their own, as well as settling personal scores.
- A fight will also break out if one of the team's skilled players gets hit hard or someone gets hit by what the team perceives as a dirty hit.
- The amateur game penalizes fisticuffs more harshly, as a player who receives a fighting major is also assessed at least a 10 minute misconduct penalty (NCAA and some Junior league) or a game misconduct penalty and suspension.
