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Ice Hockey Betting Guide: A short introduction to the fastest game on earth

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Betfair's Mike Robb gives us a short introduction to the NHL, how it all works and what to look out for...

Introduction
The NHL is the world's most prominent ice hockey league. The regular season runs from September through to April, during which time 30 teams from the USA and Canada compete to secure a place in the post-season playoffs with the ultimate aim of winning the Stanley Cup.

What other leagues are there?
The NHL is widely regarded as the biggest league in the world. However, Betfair offers 15 other leagues from 12 countries around the world to bet on, from 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 disk that acts as hockey's football), the basics of the game are relatively easy to get your head round.

Each game consists of three 20-minute periods and if the game is tied at the end of these a period of sudden-death overtime is played. If the game remains tied after overtime then a penalty shootout takes place, and so ties are not possible in the regular season of the NHL.

One thing that often frightens people is the speed at which the game is played. This is true of the action on the ice itself, but also things like how quickly line changes occur. It is very different to anything we are used to over here and so 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 though, 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.

What can you bet on?

• The Money Line: who will win the game? The money line covers the game as a whole, including overtime and any penalty shootouts if it is a tie at the end of normal time.

• Regular Time Match Odds: regular-time match odds is the same as a standard match odds market in soccer, for example. You can back or lay either team to win as well as the tie.

• Regular Time Goals: how many goals will be scored in total during the three regular time periods of the game? On Betfair this is always under or over 5.5 goals with unders almost always the odds-on favourite, though this is not always the case in a game such as a local derby or those with a heated history.

• Handicaps: the handicap on Betfair is usually +1.5 goals to the side deemed weakest. Important things to consider when betting on this market include home advantage, starting line-ups (are there any star players injured or being rested?), how tired or fresh each team is, and form. It is often possible to back teams to beat the handicap if you correctly analyse all these features from both teams' perspectives.

• Long-term markets: Betfair has markets for the Stanley Cup winner as well as the Eastern and Western Conference winners. As is always the case the outright winner year-on-year is extremely difficult to call but these markets are good if you back a team you think will do well at a big price and then lay the bet later in the season.

In-Play Betting

• Don't overreact: top teams can often pull back seemingly large deficits fairly quickly, so if they go two goals down early in the match it's not the end of the world. Conversely, if you know a team has just had one of those 'nightmare starts', the backing a strong team to win from two goals down can offer extremely attractive odds.

• Information sources: be wary of where you are getting your score updates, timings and other in play data from. If you are working off data on a website, such as NHL.com or ESPN.com, for example, you can be sure that someone is watching the game live and with a faster source of information than you. This need not be a big deal - just be careful leaving up bets for too long, especially in the closing stages of a game where late goals can make all the difference.

• This game is QUICK: as was touched on earlier, this game really is fast. The old saying "blink and you'll miss it" really does apply here. This, however, is a positive in that ice hockey offers a really dynamic and volatile betting platform from which the savvy punter can take advantage. This being so, the previous point about information sources is especially important, but that aside if you can see a goal coming or a penalty being given, resulting in a power play, then you can pre-empt the market and trade yourself some profit.

Other important points/tips

• Schedule: make sure you have a look at the fixtures to see whether or not one of the teams is playing consecutive nights, how far they've been travelling, time zone issues, etc. Sometimes teams play two or more long road trips back-to-back and this should automatically make you weary of their chances.

• All winning (and losing) streaks must come to an end: although this is true of any sport, it is especially true of ice hockey. Form tends to be much more erratic in the NHL, even amongst the top placed teams. If you think one team has better players and, therefore, a better chance of winning than the other, do not necessarily let the form book put you off. It is often attractive to back the teams whose prices are higher than they should be on account of bad form.

• The clock stops when the puck is not in play: this is a simple but enormously important point to remember. Unlike in soccer, for example, when the clock keeps going when there is a break in play, the clock in ice hockey is stopped. Thankfully this is easy to get your head round just by watching the clock on the TV, but it might take you a few games to get used to.

Useful links:
www.nhl.com - the best site for news, results, fixtures, rules and generally everything you could need to keep in touch with goings-on in the NHL

http://sports.yahoo.com/nhl

http://sports-ak.espn.go.com/nhl/index

http://www.eurohockey.net/ - worth visiting if you are betting on European leagues. Not a pretty site but has good information and links to the sites for each national league

• US Sports
• NHL