How an ice hockey game works

1. Two teams of six, five skaters and a goalkeeper, try to shoot a rubber puck into the other team's goal with their sticks. Players change on the fly during play.
2. Play starts and restarts with a face-off: an official drops the puck between two opposing players' sticks.
3. Attackers must not enter the attacking zone, past the blue line, ahead of the puck; that is offside.
4. A foul usually sends the player to the penalty box for two minutes with no substitute, so their team plays a player short. The team with more goals wins.

How long

Three periods of 20 minutes of actual play, with the clock stopped at every stoppage. In international group games a tie goes to five minutes of three-on-three sudden death, then a shootout.