Here we will explain how Ice Hockey works as a sport and how a team wins, along with the technicalities of it. As well as that we will show you how to bet on Ice Hockey; this includes the different betting markets and how they work.
Ice Hockey Explained
Ice Hockey is a game played on Ice by two teams consisting of 6 players each on the Ice at any one time. The object of the game is to get the puck (a small circle object which slides on the ice) into the opposition net. The opposition goal is 120cm tall and 180cm wide; this is a very small area to get the puck in especially as there is a rather large goaltender in the way. An Ice hockey match is played over three periods each consisting of 20 minutes, with 15-minute breaks between each period. This can change though sometimes depending on league rules. A team consists of 20 players in total, and these can come onto the Ice at any time in a rolling substitute kind of scenario as long as the total members on the Ice do not exceed 6. The winner of an Ice Hockey match is decided at the end of the 60 minutes, the team that has scored the most goals if the game is a draw then a period of overtime is played until a winning team is decided.
Ice Hockey has some strange rules when it comes to the actual playing of it. The game itself is very quick; the rules state you can have up to 6 players on the Ice at anyone time. The rink is divided into three sections, the blue line is what leads into the opposition half, the rules state no player from the attacking team can enter this area of the Ice before the puck does, if a player is in this area before the puck, this is known as offside. The puck must first travel to the neutral zone from the defending zone before going to the offensive zone; this means a player must make contact with it in the neutral zone, or this is known as an offside pass. Lastly, Ice Hockey has a system of sin bins and penalties. If a player in Ice Hockey is called for a foul that is deemed serious, then he is sent to a sin bin for a period of 2 minutes or until the opposition have scored, although longer p[enalties are given for bigger infractions. These sin bins are very common in modern hockey and teams have become adaptive and shutting teams out during these penalty periods. There is no limit to the number of players which can be sin-binned at any one time.
Betting on Ice Hockey
Betting on Ice Hockey is something not everyone will do over the years, and the reason for it is because it’s not quite as easy as other sports. On most occasions, you will have three-game line markets to choose from. The first one of these is named the ‘line’ market. This is similar to the handicap line you would find in other sports such as football or rugby. The second is called the ‘totals’ market. This is where you will choose whether there will be under or over the amount of goals in a game, the line will be different for different games with different teams. The last one is called the ‘money line’ market. This is simply choosing the outright winner of the match.
Puck Line
The puck line is a handicap line which evens out the two teams to start the game more evenly in the eyes of a bookmaker. This means one team will start with a head start, and the other will start behind already (note this is only in the bookmaker’s eyes). An example of this is one team would start with – 1.5 pucks (or goals) and the other would start with + 1.5, this means if you back the team on the minus they would need to win by two clear pucks (or goal) for your bet to win.
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Game Totals
This is where you pick the amount of goals (or pucks) there are going to be in a match. There are two different ways of doing this, it can be done by picking whether it will be under or over the shown score, or it could be within a bracket. For example, they may give you 1-2 goals, 2-3 goals, etc. Alternatively, it may be done as a two-way line with over 2.5 or under 2.5 for example; this is very similar to the football over/under line.
Team Goals
This is very similar to the game totals, but instead, it is separated between the two sides. So you could pick the home team to get over 2.5 goals in a match, which would be better odds than both teams combined.
Asian Handicap
Again this is very similar to the football market, you start with a handicap on the teams, the only difference is if it is a draw on the handicap you get a refund rather than losing.
Double chance
Here you beat on 2 of the possible three results at the end of 60 minutes; this means you can beat on the home draw, away and draw or either team to win.
Race to markets
Here you bet on which team will get to a certain landmark first, this can be on penalties or goals.
To score first or last
This is betting on either a team to score first or them to score last.
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To win a period
This is betting on a team to win a specific period in the game, to win the period they must score more goals than their opposition.
To win the most periods
Betting on a team to win the most periods in a match, for this bet to win your team must win more of the three periods than the opposition.
Player performance
Here you can bet on certain players to perform well; points are given for certain events that happen in the game. This differs between bookmakers so check. The players must play for the bets to count. Otherwise, the bet is void.
Rules
Ice Hockey is fairly straightforward to bet on, but some rules could catch you off guard if you are not careful. Read these carefully, so you do not make any mistakes when placing bets.
If a game is postponed or the venue of the match has to be rearranged, then the bet will become a void and your stake you put on the bet will be returned. If you have placed a bet on there to be odd or even goals in the match and the game ends 0-0, all stake will be returned. This is for both game totals and team goals. When betting on the score market, this does not include if the game goes to overtime. Also, beware some bookmakers count over time some don’t so you need to check with your individual bookmaker for this.
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