subject: Rules And Regulation In Ice Hockey [print this page] Ice Hockey is a very popular sport in Canada and it is also the winter national sport there. Ice hockey is played on ice hockey with curved sticks and a puck. In the whole game, all players try to score by shooting the puck in the opponent team's net. Like any other sport, ice hockey also have some rules. These rules are maintained by mainly three organizations which are Hockey Canada, USA Hockey and International Ice Hockey Federation. These organization have their own set of rules. Rules of USA Hockey and Canada Hockey are used mainly in North America in amateur hockey. Rulebook of International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) is used in both amateur and professional hockey leagues.
With time new rules are introduced and some old are changed to improve the game play. At professional level rules are changed or introduced to make the game more interesting and exciting to the spectators. The rules of ice hockey Canada and USA hockey are different primarily in technical matters, like the severity of the penalties handed out for different fouls. The rules of IIHF differs because of the differences in the dimensions of the North American hockey rinks from the rest of the world. These different leagues are trying to move towards the same direction. Hockey Canada and USA Hockey are trying to make their rulebook more similar to the international rulebook, so that a standardized rulebook can be created.
Evolving separately from amateur rules is the reason of NHL being different from others. In past few years of NHL games, the low scores has started a debate on change of wide variety of rules that include enlarging the size of the goal, to make offensive zone larger, breaking ties with penalty shot shootout, eliminating two line pass and restricting where goaltender handles can handle the puck.
In IIHF rulebook there are five sections, which are ice rink, teams, players and equipment, officials and their duties, playing rules and the fifth is penalties. Since 1908, IIHF has been developing, promoting and governing the men's and women's inline and ice hockey all over the world. IIHF also handles the promotion and sponsorships of the games by using media and other methods. IIHF has about 63 member-nations. Number of members of IIHF were steadily increased during 1980s and 90s. Greece, Ireland, Brazil, Chinese Taipei, India, Thailand and Namibia are some of those countries which became member of the IIHF in last 15 years.
