If you haven’t been able to tell from previous posts, I really love hockey. Specifically, the Detroit Red Wings.
In fact, as I write this, I’m wearing a Red Wings sweater while watching them play the Pittsburgh Penguins. (We won.)
However, it wasn’t always this way. In fact, I used to really dislike hockey.
The NHL season goes from October to June, and each team typically plays three times a week. That meant I lost my boyfriend for three nights per week for a solid nine months out of the year while he watched the games with his roommates.
“You realize you could watch it with us, right?” he asked me one night.
But why would I watch the sport with them if I didn’t know any of the rules?
Once Sean taught me the basics, we started watching together and it became our “thing.”
Now I’m obsessed, and wanted to bring this appreciation to more people by offering some hockey fundamentals.
These are really important to understand, because it provides a basic understanding of what you can and cannot do during the game.
These fifteen are the most common penalties; there are many more, but you can see any of these several times in any given game.
I’ll show two GIFs per penalty: one of me demonstrating the hand signal the referees use, and another one with an example from an NHL game.
Please note that these explanations are the very general definitions of the penalties; there are a lot of clauses that change the rules in specific instances, so take these with a grain of salt.
Boarding

Charging

Cross Checking

Elbowing

High Sticking

Holding

Hooking

Interference

Kneeing

Misconduct

Roughing

Slashing

Spearing

Tripping

Unsportsmanlike Conduct

What do you think? Could you learn to love hockey? What don’t you understand about hockey?
I love this post so much.. it’s a shame the blackhawks are such troublemakers…
I dislike the Blackhawks so much.
Hi! I found you from TriStyle! & I LOOOOOOVE hockey!! I work on a hockey show so its kind of my whole life 🙂 I’m a Rangers fan, but I like the Wings. I’m a bit Nyqvist fan 😀 Great post!!
Thank you! I’m so glad to hear that there are other blogging hockey fans! Nyquist is definitely my favorite. I’m a season ticket holder with the Wings’ AHL affiliate, and my boyfriend and I each have jerseys with his name and number on it. We were supposed to meet him / have him sign our jerseys, but he got moved up to the Wings TWO DAYS BEFORE. We were so bummed.
And as long as you’re not a Blackhawks or Bruins fan, I don’t mind. I love Lundvist, and I was rooting for the Rangers to win this year! (Sorry, Angela.)
awww the Griffins are awesome. I’ve actually been dying to check them out! Did you go to the winter classic last year? it was insane!! One of the best games i’ve seen in terms of environment!….
I did! My first-ever blog post is actually about it 🙂 https://www.andpossiblydinosaurs.com/the-2014-winter-classic/
Angela directed me to this post. It’s really good! Seriously enjoyed reading about all of the penalties and being provided with visual examples of them. 🙂
Thank you so much! 🙂