Ice hockey

Ice hockey, known simply as hockey in Canada and the United States, is a team sport played on ice. It is one of the world's fastest sports, with players on skates capable of going high speeds on natural or artificial ice surfaces. The most prominent ice hockey nations are Canada, United States, Russia, Sweden, Finland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Belarus, Ukraine, and Switzerland.

Equipment

The hard surfaces of the ice and boards, pucks flying at high speed (over 160 km/h at times), and other players maneuvering (and often intentionally colliding) pose a multitude of inherent safety hazards. Besides skates and sticks, hockey players are usually equipped with an array of safety gear to lessen their risk of serious injury. This usually includes a helmet, shoulder pads, elbow pads, mouth guard, protective gloves, heavily padded pants, a 'jock' athletic protector, and leg guards. Goaltenders wear masks and much bulkier, specialized equipment designed to protect them from many direct hits from pucks.

Related Topics:
Skates - Sticks - Helmet

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Youth and college hockey players are required to wear a mask made from metal wire or transparent plastic attached to their helmet that protects their face during play. Professional and adult players may instead wear a visor that protects only their eyes, or no mask at all; however, some provincial and state legislations require full facial protection at all non-professional levels. Rules regarding visors and face masks are mildly controversial at professional levels, as some players feel that they interfere with their vision or breathing and/or encourage carrying of the stick up high, in a reckless manner, while others believe that they are a necessary safety precaution.

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In fact, the adoption of safety equipment has been a gradual one at the North American professional level, where even helmets were not mandatory until the 1980s.

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