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Question about ice hockey

spaceyourbass

Bluelighter
Joined
Apr 7, 2008
Messages
1,749
Is it true that ice hockey players can only play about 3 or 4 minutes of game time before they have to rotate out? I was told by a female hockey player at the collegiate level that this is true. What about the NHL?
 
truth be told, they're not even gonna play that long between breaks. sometimes coaches will change lines after as few as 20 seconds if they're trying to keep their skaters fresh. a normal shift will last around 45 seconds to a minute, which sounds short, but given the bursts of speed, the physicality of the game, and the overall stress you put your body through in those short times... it's plenty lengthy. a good forward will typically get around 20 minutes per game and a good defenseman about 23+ minutes so you have to take into consideration how often they're on and off the ice. that's typical of the NHL and most other leagues.
 
that IS a shame! if there wasn't a team in columbus, there would literally be about 10 games a year on tv for me (NBC's second half of the season game of the week). i resorted to NHL center ice a couple years ago and still have it to this day, but i wish i'd have known at the time that there are places all over the interwebz that you can get live feeds for free. two good things about nhl center ice though... if you do it online, you can get HD and there's a section where the stats are updated instantly. :)
 
truth be told, they're not even gonna play that long between breaks. sometimes coaches will change lines after as few as 20 seconds if they're trying to keep their skaters fresh. a normal shift will last around 45 seconds to a minute, which sounds short, but given the bursts of speed, the physicality of the game, and the overall stress you put your body through in those short times... it's plenty lengthy. a good forward will typically get around 20 minutes per game and a good defenseman about 23+ minutes so you have to take into consideration how often they're on and off the ice. that's typical of the NHL and most other leagues.

Yea that's what I meant, are they only able to skate so long physically, not the rules or anything. I could only imagine trying to skate hard with all those pads on. Gotta love hockey...the only sport besides boxing and shit where you just have to sit down for a few minutes for fighting.
 
yeah. to be honest, i'm not sure if there's a rule limiting length of shifts, but i would assume not since it's something that would literally NEVER come into play. you'd have to have a player of hurculean strength to withstand a 4 minute shift against NHLers. besides that, even the best of the best will quickly become inefficient when left on the ice too long.
 
Yeah, around 40 seconds is probably the average length of a shift. It's really exhausting to skate as hard as you can, stop, change directions, collide with guys at full speed, etc... covered in an unbelievable amount of equipment. When I played growing up, the shift length was a bit longer in the early years but quickly shrunk as I got older.
 
I'm pretty sure there's no limit on the length of a shift.

Players are fitter now and go harder because of it. Actually, the shifts in pro hockey are shorter than they used to be...and the game is much faster. Part of that is due to strict officiating - referees penalize players who hold or impede other players. So basically, they're just flying around out there. The way the officials used to call the game permitted a lot of holding, etc. Not any more, so it's full speed ahead and most players are going all out for about 40 seconds, as BollWeevil suggested. Maybe a bit longer, but not so much, especially for the forwards.
 
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