Beginners guide to hockey 

Hockey is celebrated in many diverse parts of the world, including parts of Europe (most notably Norway, Sweden, and Scandinavia), Russia, the U.S., and Canada, despite its taxing physical nature. To play the game, a team of 22 players is needed, though they are allowed to rotate 6 players in play at a time. Three twenty minute periods comprise the game, and a twenty minute overtime period as well, until there is a goal scored. Because there are no late game ties allowed in the NHL, this applies if the game tied in the last period.

Traditionally, the game of hockey had a pretty lax regulation system, wherein the referee was in the audience instead of in the field.  They watch the players, confer calls between themselves and league officials, who are also sitting on the sidelines as well.

A change of behavior has caused an entirely different type of league with stricter regulations and that has caused an penalty box to be added to the game. Depending upon the referees calls, this means that the player who breaks the league rules will be sitting out the rest of the period, or sitting out the rest of the game.

 These are actually points that are added to the rival team's score. The early days of hockey featured 30 whole players on a team, but today's sport has far fewer - the players that do play the game are, however, showing more and more aggression on the ice between each other. Not only do the rival team members fight each other, but so do fellow players, and the referee can wind up in the midst of a fight as well.

The referee is busy trying to break them up as some of the brawls can get bloody because they usually have fist fights and it would be assault with a weapon if they used a stick or even their helmets. To give a good idea about how intensive the hockey players can be in their brawls, consider that many such fights have resulted in breaking the rink side protective glass.

Fighting on the ice that exists in present day hockey has been known to result in many injuries, cuts and bruises foremost amongst them. Fights have been known to begin over certain calls made by the referees that the players think are unfair, or because a team member from the opposite team is taunting them.

Locker rooms are usually the place that players go - or are sent to - to calm down and so they will not get too worked up in a fight. Temperaments are naturally prone to anger in hockey, to accompany the high energy the sport requires. Though it can in fact be very difficult to not get angry, when it comes to referee fighting, that's an entirely different matter.