Hockey Play Hockey Rules Hockey Strategy Hockey Glossary
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Hockey strategies vary from team to team and the skills of their players. One of the key skills or team building strategies today is team speed. Hockey is becoming a faster and faster sport where speed is king and wins a lot of games.
Defensive Hockey Strategies
The number one and best defensive hockey strategy is to have a good, hot goalkeeper in goal. Beyond that there are a number of other good tactics teams and players can take to keep the other team from scoring.
All of the players on the defensive hockey team are responsible for defense. Defenders need to stay between the player with the puck and goal. They can block shots with their hockey sticks or bodies. Defensemen try not to let any goal shots through to the goaltender if they can help it.
All hockey teams take advantage of the check for defense. Forwards do a lot of Fore-checking, which is checking players in the other hockey team's zone. They also backcheck or check while the other team is trying to advance the puck up the ice. These strategies help slow down the offense and give the defensemen a change to come in and take the puck.
Defenses use the offside rule and icing rules to their advantage whenever possible.
Some hockey defensive strategies have become so stifling that the rules have been changed to keep the game exciting and to keep offenses scoring goals. One example of this is the trap defense used by the New Jersey Devils in 1995 to win the Stanley Cup Championship.
