Hockey For Dummies: Positions

So far I’ve talked about penalties, shots, hockey lingo and hat tricks, so today I’m going to explain the formation on the ice and what each player does on the team. First off, even if you don’t regularly watch hockey, the first thing to know is that the game is played on the ice. The rink is divided into two zones by one red line that is down the center. This is called center ice and is where the start of each period has a face off for the puck. There are also blue lines on each side of the different zones behind the red line. The space in between the blue and red lines are called the neutral zone. There is also two face off zones in each separate zone and are utilized during team penalties.

The formation on the ice consists of three forwards, two defensive men and a goaltender guarding the goalpost for each team. At full strength a team is only allowed five skaters, but can add a sixth attacker, if they pull the goalie from the post. This usually occurs at the end of the period, when a team is losing, to help them come back and score another goal. So let’s break now the three sections of positions in hockey.

There are three different positions that forwards take, a right or left wing or the center forward. By using all three, this makes a line utilize every area of the ice to have successful offense in order to get a puck past the rival goaltender.

Center Forward: The center forward is like a quarter-back in American Football, as they need to be a good skater, a top goal scorer and good during a face-off. Centers usually carry a team to success, and naturally are responsible for playing down the center of the ice. Left Winger: This forward works on the left side of the ice and needs to be a physical player that is good on the left side boards. It helps if they shoot left, but some left wingers are becoming right handed shooters. Right Winger: Like the left, the right winger plays a rough game of hockey. They focus on the right side of the center and ice. Defensemen:

Defensemen work on the right and left sides of the ice, similar to the wingers. Some defensemen are really physical players that don’t really take the puck out of their own zone, but others are more aggressive to help the offense out by scoring goals.

Being the goaltender is probably one of the tougher positions on the team, because when it comes down to it, the goaltenders often get blamed for bad loses. Good goaltenders are hard to come by, but essentially their main job is to keep pucks out of their net.