Ice hockey, often referred to simply as hockey, is a team sport played on ice. It is a fast paced and physical sport. Ice hockey is most popular in areas that are sufficiently cold for natural, reliable seasonal ice cover, though with the advent of indoor artificial ice rinks it has become a year-round pastime at the amateur level in major metropolitan areas such as cities that host a National Hockey League (NHL) or other professional-league team. It is one of the four major North American professional sports, and is represented by the National Hockey League (NHL) at the highest level, and the National Women's Hockey League (NWHL), the highest level of women's ice hockey in the world. It is the official national winter sport of Canada, where the game enjoys immense popularity. Only six of the thirty NHL franchises are based in Canada, but Canadian players outnumber Americans in the league.

While there are 66 total members of the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF), Canada, the Czech Republic, Finland, Russia, Slovakia, Sweden and the United States have finished in most of the coveted 1st, 2nd and 3rd places at IIHF World Championships. Of the 63 medals awarded in men's competition at the Olympic level from 1920 on, only six did not go to the one of those countries, or a former entity thereof, such as Czechoslovakia or the Soviet Union. Only one of those six medals was above bronze. Those seven nations have also captured 162 of 177 medals awarded at 59 non-Olympic IIHF World Championships, and all medals since 1954. Likewise, all nine Olympic and 27 IIHF World Women Championships medals have gone to one of those seven countries.

History

Games between teams hitting an object with curved sticks have been played throughout history; 4000 year-old drawings at the huge tombs in Egypt depict a sport resembling field hockey. The 1366 Statutes of Kilkenny in Ireland mentions "the plays which men call horlings, with great sticks and a ball upon the ground, from which great evils and maims have arisen", which was forbidden so that men would be fit and able to defend the land.Statutes of Kilenny, 1366. Enacted in a parliament held in Kilkenny, 1367, before Lionel Duke of Clarence, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. The 1527 Galway Statutes, also in Ireland, made reference to "the horlinge of the litill balle with hockie stickes or staves." The etymology of the word hockey is uncertain. It may derive from the Old French word hoquet, shepherd's crook, or from the Middle Dutch word hokkie, meaning shack or doghouse, which in popular use meant goal. Many of these games were developed for fields, though where conditions allowed they were also played on ice. Seventeenth century Dutch paintings show townsfolk playing a hockey-like game on a frozen canal.