I rented Miracle recently and really enjoyed it, but it left me with a few questions:
The movie showed a player heating the bottom edge of his wooden stick with an acetylene torch, immediately prior to wrapping tape around it. Why is this done? (Wouldn’t heating the wood this way make it more brittle?) Was this guy preparing a brand new stick, or is this done prior to every game, or what?
Coach Herb Brooks activated a system of rapid shift changes (player substitutions) in the third period of the USA-USSR game – so that the USA’s younger and fresher “legs” could better out-skate the Soviets. At one point, the coach yelled something about “every 30 to 40 seconds” – although I’m not sure I’m recalling that correctly. How do the players on the ice know when to come back to the bench? Do staff shout out their names or numbers, or hold up cards, or what? In a very noisy arena, could the players even hear that? Are the players expected to glance at their bench every few seconds to catch a signal? And isn’t every 30-40 seconds an awfully short time on the ice (so that you’d be spending a disproportionate time on the exchanges)?
Comparing the hits depicted in the movie (body slams into the ice, “boarding” slams into the boards, one hit pitching a player into and over the goal apparatus, and a very hard hit on goalie Jim Craig) to the descriptions of penalizable actions as defined in the rulebook, it seems that most of the game violence could have been called by the ref. (I.e., if you body-slam into someone after taking two or more steps in his direction, that’s apparently “charging,” even if the hit player had the puck. Another example – goalies are supposed to enjoy a safe zone in front of their goal… but no penalty was shown being called for the hit on Craig. Needless to say, all such penalty calls are to be made “at the discretion of the referee”.) What, if anything, constitutes the level of roughness or a personal foul (aside from slashing – that was in the movie) that a real-life ref will call?
Thanks in advance to Doper hockey fans for your answers!
As St. Urho said, a player can adjust the curve of the blade by heating it. Some players will adjust the curve to their liking, which might be an illegal curve (whether it’s intentional or not). When I played in high school, the general rule was if you could roll a dime under the curve, when the stick was flat on the ground, then it was illegal. Referees have some kind of measuring tool that they use if a team challenges the curve of an opposing player’s stick.
A one minute to 1:10 shift is about as long as someone can be out there and still have “gas in the tank.” The constant motion and pumping of legs is extremely tiring. Checking can be a huge drain too, sometimes even more so when you’re the one giving the hit.
Players can usually tell when they need to come off, and you don’t always just leave the ice as soon as you would hit the 30 or 40-second mark. For example if the opponent is providing pressure in your defensive zone, then you can’t just leave the ice. If players get really tired, they will try to “ice” the puck (shoot it all the way down from behind the center line). Most of the time players won’t change in the offensive zone either. Changes usually occur when the players are going through the neutral zone and then “dump it in” (to the offensive zone) which gives the players a chance to change without having to worry as much about leaving an uneven breakaway.
Comparing the hits depicted in the movie (body slams into the ice, “boarding” slams into the boards, one hit pitching a player into and over the goal apparatus, and a very hard hit on goalie Jim Craig) to the descriptions of penalizable actions as defined in the rulebook, it seems that most of the game violence could have been called by the ref. (I.e., if you body-slam into someone after taking two or more steps in his direction, that’s apparently “charging,” even if the hit player had the puck. Another example – goalies are supposed to enjoy a safe zone in front of their goal… but no penalty was shown being called for the hit on Craig. Needless to say, all such penalty calls are to be made “at the discretion of the referee”.) What, if anything, constitutes the level of roughness or a personal foul (aside from slashing – that was in the movie) that a real-life ref will call?
Thanks in advance to Doper hockey fans for your answers!
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Penalties are pretty subjective. You can usually spot the really blatant penalties, but most of the time it’s a grey area. Refs (at every level) will develop reputations for being lenient or tough. Other times, refs will do something that goes against their normal style, it just depends on their feel for the game. If they feel like a game might be getting out of hand, then they’ll crack down to try to limit retaliation.
As big of a hockey fan that I am, I still haven’t seen Miracle. (Just haven’t had time, but I liked the commercials.) I wasn’t around to see the real 1980 Olympics, so I don’t have any memory of that. I might guess that some of the hits were made a little more dramatic than in real life. As for charging, you’re not supposed to be moving your feet before you hit somebody, you kind of need to coast into them (though it’s much faster than coasting). If you were to hit someone that didn’t have the puck, you could also get called for interference.
The front of the goal is usually a busy place, with the screens and the pushing … if play ends in front of the net then there will probably be at least a little pushing going on when players converge on the net looking for a potential rebound.
Hockey season is only three months away, so check out a game every now and then, or if you can see one in person, that’s even better. Seeing a real game would give you a better idea of how things work.
I quoted the OP and forgot to delete all of it, so don’t let that confuse you on my previous post.
Nametag, in my experience, wood sticks will have a kind of fiberglass blade that still looks like wood, but is some kind of composite (?) to make the blade stronger. I don’t know if I’ve ever encountered a completely wooden stick. I would have thought that the technology for a fiberglass/wood stick would have existed in 1980, but I wasn’t around.
To answer #2, hockey teams are divided into “lines”. It’s been a long time since I was into hockey, but I believe that the average “line” is three players - three for the front, then the two defensemen in the back (who have their own lines), plus the goaltender. The “lines” are typically created for a specific purpose. For example, if you have three really good offensive players, you put them in the same line to increase your scoring chances on a power play. On the other hand, you might have a line that consists of good defensive players for use later in the game if the score is tight. Of course, as a rule the lines switch out all the time - you wouldn’t want your best offensive guys on the ice all the time would you? - they’d tire too easily. IIRC, players can be on multiple lines, so coaches can have as many lines as they have combinations of players (if they so schhose)
Now, these “lines” almost always play together. So the coach can say something like “line 1 go in” and when line 1 has been out for the length of time the coach wants them to be, he calls for another line. Those players stand up as a signal to other players to swap out. When you’re playing the game like Brooks was - switching every 30-40 seconds - the line simply goes out and plays for around 30 seconds, then “dumps” the puck into the defending teams side of the ice. That way, the other team has to chase the puck into their own zone, rather than head towards your net - which give you time to switch out your players.
As I say, I haven’t watched hockey in years, so some of the specifics might be off, but the gist of what I’m saying should be correct.
Typically, you have three sets of forward and occassionally use the fourth set. So, you have four ‘lines’, and you really count on the top three, using the fourth less often.
Defensemen are matched in pairs, so they don’t match the forwards all that much. (The Soviets however used to switch all five as one big unit).
After a minute, you’re toast…and you have some leeway, but not much.
To shorten your shift, typically you know their are four lines being used at some point as a strategy… you also instinctively get off before total exhaustion…typically you would peel off from play at a safe time, whereas when you were pushing yourself to 1:10 you might not. So, it’s easy to get to the bench after 40 secs, especially when you know your body like it’s …well…your body.
Assuming your talking about the 1980 Soviet Olympic team: in hindsight, do hockey analysts consider this to have been a strategic error?
Not having grown up on hockey, this is one of the subtleties of which I was not aware. I thought there were guys (esp. superstars) who regularly played 50+ minutes game in and game out.
1)a)The stick may be heated to change the curve on the blade to either increase or decrease it. Refs have a little measurement tool to check if the stick is legal, but you hardly see this come into play because most players just follow therules. “wooden” sticks were often reinforced by fiberglass and even soem with carbon as the 80s approached.
b) Now players using carbon-composite shafts on their hockey sticks can swap out broken “wooden” blades using the torch. The blades are held in the shaft with glue and the torch is used to heat the glue.
c) Some players like to heat the blad before or after they put the tape onto the stick so that it stays better. I personally don’t like to, but it is done.
2)Shifts changes are often made be the coach yelling, players signaling that they’re tired, whistles that are unrelated, or visual cues of the players for the next shift getting ready to hop over the boards. Often it is a combination. Despite the sound that may be heard by the spectator, the coach’s voice may still be heard on the rink. Maybe players just listen for it or it’s something with the rink acoustics, but it works.
Some players are known to stay on the ice for very long shifts or even to double shift during key times in the game, such as the penalty kill, powerplay, overtime, or the closingminutes of the game. For the most part, the short shifts of under a minute are employed by coaches because they allow the players to exert themselves without getting overly tired. Figure that they go for like 40 seconds and then rest for 80. This is varied depending on the ice situation, as mentioned above. Usually players try to get the puck into their offensive zone before changing, so they do not get caught on a line change, giving the other team an odd man rush.
I don’t believe that charging, boarding, and interference were introduced until post 1980, but I could be mistaken because i wasn’t around in 80. The refs will use discretion when calling the penalties and sometimes left them go roughly evenly for both teams to keep it fair, but allow for the flow of the game. Note: Refs will only let some minor infractions go…if it’s something serious or very blatent, they will call it(most of the time). By letting the game flow, it can add to the speed and intensity, making the game more enjoyable for both the players and the fans. With the added intensity, who knows, maybe you’ll even get a chance to see some fisticuffs.
Note that Team A can request that the ref measure the stick of a player on Team B. If the stick is illegal, the offending player is assessed a penalty. If it is legal, Team A receives a penalty for delay-of-game (or something). I think this is the reason you don’t see it often - unless you are absolutely sure a players stick is illegal, you don’t want to risk a penalty.
Players also used to steam wooden sticks to alter the curve.
A superstar player will, depending on the importance of the game, see 20-25 minutes of ice time. Defensemen usually average more ice time than forwards.
Given the tremendous success of the Soviet team, no. The 1980 loss was a pure fluke. The Soviet system generally worked extremely well.
The American team played extraordinarily well in Lake Placid, especially offensively; they simply outworked the opposition in the offensive end and played far more aggressively than opposing scouts had believed they would. They scored 7 goals against the Czechs, which should have served as a warning of things to come; they then scored four goals against Germany in the last 22 minutes of that game. Herb Brooks had all four lines attacking at every opportunity, which was unexpected and disorienting for the opposition. Since it’s just a six or seven game tournament, it worked; it’s hard for your opponent to change strategy in less than two weeks.
But it’s worth noting that the Soviet-USA game was simply a classic example of a goalie stealing a game. Jim Craig was excellent; Vladislav Tretiak gave up two weak goals in the first period , including a horrible rebound on Mark Johnson’s game-tying, end-of-the-period goal; without that goal the USA probably doesn’t come back to win the game. While Soviet coach Tikhonov has been criticized for yanking Tretiak, his replacement wasn’t any worse. The Soviets were beaten by Jim Craig.
(There is an amusing story about this; years later Johnson ended up playing for the Devils with Slava Fetisov, fameed Soviet defenceman. The first thing Johnson said to Fetisov was “Why did you pull Tretiak in that game?” Fetisov replied, “Coach crazy.”)
Not even close to that amount. Your best forward plays around 22-25 mins, your worst maybe 8-10. Defence usually play more, as generally there is only 6 of them compared to 12 forwards. Your best D-man plays around 30 mins, never more then 40 and very very few would play 40. Your worst around 10-12 mins.
To clarify about ice time, hockey is definitely one of the most grueling sports out there. Most players lose a considerable amount of weight during the course of a season, despite consuming a lot of calories every day. Doug Gilmour, when he was playing for the Maple Leafs in the early Nineties, claimed to eat two pasta meals every game day, and yet lose about 20 pounds over the course of a season (more than 10% of his body weight, as he was a fairly small guy). Even the really big players are rarely more than 230 lbs (Chara of Ottawa being the one exception I can think of off the top of my head: 6’9" and 260 lbs).