Enormously popular in North America and Eastern Europe, ice hockey continually inspires and attracts millions of spectators who turn up throughout the season to witness “The Fastest Game on Earth”.
The NHL is one of many sports that is steeped in history and has survived some of the toughest times in human history including two World Wars, the Cold War, and the Great Depression. A sport with that much history has a number of amazing facts. From player habits to odd game rules, hockey has its fair share of weird tales. Here are just five strange things you might not know about ice hockey.
Teams can referee their own games
Image source: PGAtour.com
Can you imagine a team in the Premier League assigning one of their own players to referee the match or run the line as an assistant? It would be chaos.
Well, in the NHL, if both referees and both linesmen are unable to call a match, the teams can each choose one player to act as the referee and linesman. It’s even written in the rules: “If attempts to find suitable replacements are unsuccessful and teams can’t agree on who should fill in, they shall appoint a player from each side who shall act as Referee and Linesman; the player of the home Club acting as Referee and the player of the visiting Club as Linesman.”
7 teams have never picked first
Image source: sbnation.com
In American sports, the draft is a crucial and can set the tone for the entire season. The algorithm for calculating which teams pick when is quite complicated and takes into account things like the season standings and playoff results.
You would think that in the NHL’s more than 50-year history, each team would have had the first pick at least once – but that’s not the case. The Anaheim Mighty Ducks, Nashville Predators, Calgary Flames, Minnesota Wild, Carolina Hurricanes, Hartford Whalers and Vancouver Canucks have never made the first pick in the NHL draft.
Anyone can be a goalie – literally
Image source: wbur.org
If, by some random chance, both goalies on a team suffer an injury or fall ill before the opening faceoff, a team can replace them with anyone they choose. Literally anyone.
The rulebook states that, if both goaltenders are unable to play, the team is entitled to dress and play any available goalkeeper in their place. That means a coach, manager, assistant coach, or even a fan in the stands, can pad up a get peppered with shots.
This situation has happened on more than one occasion, but teams mostly choose a coach or assistant coach to fill the void.
In the event of an emergency
Image source: usatoday.com
In November 1970 a plane carrying the entire Marshall University football team crashed leaving no survivors and the league short of a team. While it is a completely different sport, and unlikely to occur again, the NHL has a contingency plan in place in case this ever happens to an NHL team.
If five or more players on a single team are killed or disabled it would trigger a rule that allows the affected team to draft players from the other teams in the league. Each team can protect one goaltender and 10 other skaters that cannot be drafted.
The first outdoor NHL game took place in a desert
Image source: wikipedia.com
You’d think that a game played on ice would be best suited to indoor arenas or, if a match had to be played outside, to colder areas of the United States. But in 1991, the Los Angeles Kings hosted the New York Rangers in a preseason match in arguably the hottest city in America – Las Vegas, Nevada.
While it took a lot of effort to keep the ice from melting in the almost 40 degree heat, the match eventually went ahead in front of a sold out stadium.
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