| 1.The first player to wear protective headgear was George Owen of the Boston Bruins in 1928. 2.The last helmetless player, the St. Louis Blues’ Craig MacTavish, retired in 1997. 3.The speed of a puck hit by the best shooters travel at slightly more than 100 miles per hour. 4.On a relatively long-distance shot, 60 feet away from the goal, the goaltender will have 0.45 seconds to react. 5.In 1945, Californian Frank Zamboni designed a machine to quickly resurface ice. Today, the Zamboni machine is a fixture at rinks around the world. It scrapes off ice chips created by skaters’ blades, then lays down a coat of hot water that creates a new surface in about 10 minutes. 6.A hockey puck is 1 inch thick, 3 inches in diameter and weighs about 6 ounces. 7.The January 1968 death of the Minnesota North Stars’ Bill Masterson provided the act for widespread use of helmets. In 1970, plastic foam helmets became mandatory for players in college and junior leagues. In June 1979 a rule was passed requiring all new NHL players to wear helmets. Veterans accustomed to playing without a helmet could choose to continue to do so. 8.In May 2002 Slovakia's national ice hockey team won its first-ever gold medal at the world championship by beating Russia four to three in the final game. 9.The ice for pro hockey games is usually 3/4th of an inch thick, and kept at a temperature of 16 degrees Fahrenheit. (Thicker, warmer ice is typically a bit slower, and are used normally for ice skating). 10.Some hirtorians say that the first hockey game ws played in Montreal, Canada, in 1879 between two teams composed exclusively of McGill University students. 11.The first governing body of hockey was the Amateur Hockey Association of Canada, organized in 1887. 12.The first professional hockey league was the International Hockey League, which operated in northern Michigan in 1904-1906. 13.The National Hockey League was founded in 1917 and consists of 30 teams. 14.In the history of the National Hockey League, seven goalies have been credited with a total of 9 goals. Philadelphia's Ron Hextall (1987, 1989) and New Jersey's Martin Brodeur (1997, 2000) each scored twice. The first was New York Islander Billy Smith in 1979. The most recent was San Jose's Evgeni Nabokov in 2002. |
| Hockey Facts |
| Here's a rather small but nifty page on hockey facts. |
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