Field hockey is a team sport in which a team of players attempt to score goals by hitting, pushing or flicking the ball with hockey sticks into the opposing team’s goal. Its official name is simply hockey, and this is the common name for it in many countries.
Hockey has several regular international tournaments for both men and women. These include the Olympic Games, the Commonwealth Games, the quadrennial Hockey World Cups, the annual Champions Trophies and World Cups for juniors.
The International Hockey Federation (FIH) is the global governing body. It organizes events such as the Hockey World Cup and Women’s Hockey World Cup. The Hockey Rules Board under FIH produces rules for the sport.
Many countries have extensive club competitions for junior and senior players. Despite the large number of participants—hockey is thought to be the field team sport with the third largest number of participants worldwide (the first being association football and second being Cricket)—club hockey is not a large spectator sport and few players play as full-time professionals. Hockey is a sport played internationally by both males and females however in some countries, such as the United States, is predominantly played by females.
In countries where winter prevents play outdoors, hockey is played indoors during the off-season. This variant, indoor field hockey, differs in a number of respects. For example, it is 6-a-side rather than 11, the field is reduced to approximately 40 m x 20 m; the shooting circles are 9m; players may not raise the ball outside the circle nor hit it. The sidelines are replaced with barriers to rebound the ball.
Traditional grass pitches are far less common in modern hockey with most hockey being played on synthetic surfaces. Since the 1970s, sand-based pitches were favoured as they dramatically speed up the pace of the game. However, in recent years there has been a massive increase in the number of “water-based” artificial turfs. Water-based synthetic turfs enable the ball to be transferred more quickly than on the original sand-based surfaces and it is this characteristic that has made them the surface of choice for international and national league competitions.
The game is played between two teams of up to sixteen players, eleven of whom are permitted to be on the pitch at any one time. The remaining five players, the substitutes, may be substituted in any combination, from one to five, an unlimited number of times in the course of a game. Substitutions are permitted at any point in the game, apart from between the award and end of a penalty corner; the only exception to this rule is for injury or suspension of the defending goalkeeper.
Players are permitted to play the ball with the flat of the ‘face side’ and with the edges of the head and handle of the hockey stick with the exception that, for reasons of safety, the ball may not be struck ‘hard’ with a forehand edge stroke, because of the difficulty of controlling the height and direction of the ball from that stroke.
The flat side is always on the “natural” side for a right-handed person swinging the stick at the ball from right to left. Left-handed sticks are rare, but available; however they are pointless as the rules forbid their use in a game. To make a strike at the ball with a left to right swing the player must present the flat of the ‘face’ of the stick to the ball by ‘reversing’ the stick head, i.e. by turning the handle through approximately 180°(while a reverse edge hit would turn the stick head through approximately 90° from the position of an upright forehand stoke with the ‘face’ of the stick head.
The match is officiated by two field umpires. Traditionally each umpire generally controls half of the field, divided roughly diagonally. These umpires are often assisted by a technical bench including a timekeeper and record keeper. Field players may not play the ball with their feet, but if the ball accidentally hits the feet, and the player gains no benefit from the contact, then the contact is not penalised. Although there has been a change in the wording of this rule from 1 January 2007, the current FIH umpires’ briefing instructs umpires not to change the way they interpret this rule.
The teams’ object is to play the ball into their attacking circle and, from there, hit, push or flick the ball into the goal, scoring a goal. The team with more goals after two 35-minute halves wins the game. The playing time may be shortened, particularly when younger players are involved, or for some tournament play.
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