going to your first nhl game

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Are Ice hockey arenas cold? (and What should I wear?)

Ice is cold right?

And, to keep ice doesn’t the temperature of the building need to be cold as well? Well, not quite.

An NHL arena temperature is most like a movie theatre – it’s a little on the chilly side but not cold.

There is special technology under the ice to keep the ice frozen so the building doesn’t have to be.

So bring a sweater – or better yet, a hockey sweater!

Highly Recommended: If you are going to your first NHL game go early enough to watch the players warmup for the game.

What is an NHL warmup? 45 minutes before the game the players will come out and skate and take shots on the goalies.

No matter where you purchased your ticket fans are allowed to come up to the glass and watch the warmup.

This will give you an up close view of how big, fast, and how hard they can shoot the puck. It is amazing!

The official number of minutes in an NHL game is 60 minutes. But how long do they really take.

The real time for each game will be about 2 hours and 30 minutes with all of the anthems, intermissions, and possible overtime.

To see a full walk through of an NHL evening we have you covered in our post about NHL game lengths.

For those new to hockey it sure can be confusing, but with a little bit of understanding it doesn’t have to be.

To understand and appreciate what is going on in a hockey game you need to understand 5 basic rules:

Icing: You are not allowed to shoot the puck down the ice to waste time
Offside: You are not allowed to skate past the other team’s blueline before the puck goes over it
Faceoffs: This is how the play is started after a whistle
Penalties: If a player does something against the rules they have to go sit in the penalty box and their team plays shorthanded
Line Changes: Players are allowed to switch with our players on their team bench while the play is happening