Portal:Ice hockey
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The ice hockey portal
Ice hockey, referred to simply as hockey in Canada, the United States, and most of Europe including Finland, Sweden, Russia and the Czech Republic, 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. Though played on six continents, ice hockey, as a participatory and as a spectator sport, is most popular in nations in which the climate is sufficiently cold as to permit natural, long-term seasonal ice cover; Canada, the Czech Republic, Finland, Slovakia, Sweden, Russia, and the United States have dominated international competition, claiming 47 of the 48 gold and silver medals awarded in the men's and women's competitions at the Olympic Winter Games.
Ice hockey is one of the four major North American professional sports, represented at the highest level by the National Hockey League. It is the official national winter sport of Canada, where seven of the 32 NHL franchises are based; Canadian-born players, though, outnumber American-born players in the NHL by a factor of three (30 per cent, additionally, come from outside North America).
The sport is played on a hockey rink. During normal play, there are six players, five positional players and one goaltender, per team on the ice at any time, each of whom is on ice skates. The objective of the game is to score goals by shooting a hard vulcanized rubber disc, the puck, into the opponent's goal net, with the goal nets placed at opposite ends of the rink. The players may control the puck using a long stick with a blade that is commonly curved at one end. Players may also generally redirect the puck with any part of their bodies, but the kicking of the puck into the goal is prohibited.
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Luc Bourdon (February 16, 1987 – May 29, 2008) was a Canadian professional ice hockey defenceman who played for the Vancouver Canucks of the National Hockey League (NHL) and their American Hockey League (AHL) affiliate, the Manitoba Moose, from 2006 until 2008. After overcoming childhood arthritis, he was selected third overall in the 2003 Quebec Major Junior Hockey League (QMJHL) draft and played for the Val-d'Or Foreurs, Moncton Wildcats and Cape Breton Screaming Eagles, spending four seasons in the QMJHL. The Canucks drafted Bourdon with their first selection, tenth overall, in the 2005 NHL Entry Draft. Noted as a strong defenceman who could contribute on offence, Bourdon represented Canada in three international tournaments, winning two gold medals at the IIHF World U20 Championship and a silver medal at the IIHF World U18 Championship. Bourdon died at the age of 21 near his hometown of Shippagan, New Brunswick, when his motorcycle collided with a tractor trailer. (more...)
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| “ | How would you like a job where, every time you make a mistake, a red light goes on and 18,000 people boo? | ” |
| — Jacques Plante | ||
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Daniel Alfredsson (born 11 December 1972, Gothenburg, Sweden) is a professional Swedish ice hockey player. He is pictured above in 2006 acting as the Captain of the Ottawa Senators of the National Hockey League. He began playing Right Wing for the Detroit Red Wings at the beginning of the 2013-2014 season.
Did you know ...
- ...that HC Dynamo Moscow were the sole club from the Russian Hockey Super League (RHSL) to reach the 1998 European Hockey League final?
- ...that the Saint Mary's University (pictured) (Halifax, Nova Scotia) Huskies reached the final of the Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS) ice hockey championship in four consecutive seasons between 1970 and 1973?
- ...that the Middlebury College Panthers, have won five women's ice hockey national championships?
- ...that Jim O'Brien played defense before switching in university to "play as a power-forward centre-ice man"?
