USA Hockey Website Review

Anyone interested in ice hockey should check out www.usahockey.com. This is a great site for fans, players, coaches and referees. It is broken down into categories ranging from Players to Education and Safety, with information pertaining to those subjects. This site includes manuals, videos, and links. There is a lot of information from safety, drills, sport education, rules, news and a ton of other options. There is also information for parents of players and what they can do to support the children playing and to reduce injuries, anger and to promote a fun environment. My favorite find was the Adult Skills Manual. This is a great reference for any players and for fans. I used this site for registration, as the leagues require an active registration to USA Hockey. I did not know and did not take the time, until now, to really look at what is available. I would encourage anyone to check out this site.

Hockey...the Sport. What is it?

Hockey...what is it? Hockey is a very tough team sport that involves skating on ice and trying to score goals. OK, a few basics. The concept of the sport is to get a hard rubber disc, called a puck, into the goal. The problem is that the puck needs to get past the goalie, a heavily padded player that is doing anything they can to keep the puck out of the goal. Each team has five players and a goalie. This includes three forwards (left wing, center, and right wing) and two defensemen (left and right). Each player wears pads for protection, ice skates, and carries a hockey stick that is made to move and shoot the puck. The player has to be skilled in ice skating and be able to "stick handle" or dribble the puck on the ice while trying to avoid the other team trying to get the puck from you. The most goals wins. Each goal that is scored awards the individual players either a goal or an assist. These points are added up and followed by hockey fans everywhere. There are many rules to protect the players and help to keep the game flow smooth. Broken rules can result in a penalty, or time spent in the penalty box, while your team plays short handed for the amount of time the penalty is for. More to come...stay tuned!