What is offside in hockey? How does the offside rule work in the NHL?

Ice Hockey is so fast paced that it is often difficult to follow the puck, and when offside is called, you can wonder what actually happened.

Jeffrey MayJeff_DiarioASUpdate: Jul 20th, 2022 17:44 EDT

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When players or fans first get involved with ice hockey, the first rule to understand is the offside rule. Without it, the game makes little sense, often simply looking like boxing on ice.

In its origin, hockey borrowed its offside concept from both soccer and rugby, with the early game allowing only backward passes and players having to be behind the puck when it was passed. After a disastrously low-scoring season in 1928-29, the rule was adapted to allow forward passes in all zones of the ice, with immediate and dramatic results. Goals more than doubled and the fast-paced excitement of modern hockey was born.

Zones of play

There are three zones of play in ice hockey divided by blue lines: the defensive zone, which is the zone containing your goal, the offensive zone, which is the zone containing your opponent’s goal, and the neutral zone, which is the area between the other two.

In a nutshell, when on the offense, players may not enter the offensive zone until after the puck does so. So if a skater has the puck on his stick and enters the offensive zone, other players may follow. If he is in another zone and passes the puck, the offensive players must not enter the offensive zone before the puck.

A player’s position is defined by the location of his skates, and if he is found to be in violation of the offside rule, a linesman will stop play and there will be a faceoff at the nearest ice spot.