14 Ice Hockey / Betfair Education / 25 March 2008 / Leave a comment

The NHL is widely regarded as the biggest league in the world, it is watched worldwide like many of the US sports.

What other leagues are there?

In addition to NHL, Betfair offers markets on 15 other leagues from 12 countries. The game is especially popular in Eastern European countries such as the Czech Republic ELH to the Russian Superliga, and not to forget the UK's Elite League. As a result there is seldom a shortage of games to bet on.

The Game

Apart from the fact that you need ice, skates, sticks and a puck (the little rubber black disc that acts as hockey's football), the basics of the game are relatively easy to understand.

A game consists of three 20-minute periods. If the game is tied at the end of these a period of sudden-death overtime is played. A game which remains tied after overtime is settled by a penalty shootout. Ties are not possible during the regular NHL season.

The daunting aspect of ice hockey is the sheer speed at which the game is played. This is true both of the action on the ice itself, but also how quickly team line-ups change during play. Ice hockey is different to any sport most people are used to watching. Ice hockey offers a welcome change. It can be quite daunting at first but after watching a couple of games you will start to get used to it, so persevere.

Some of the rules are tricky to understand initially, but the NHL site offers good explanations of it all: www.nhl.com/rules/index.html. The illustration videos are particularly helpful in understanding offside, icing, two-line pass and the ins-and-outs of power plays.