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So how long is a hockey game? For most situations, a hockey game lasts two to two and a half hours long. This assumes that you are watching or playing in a standard game which includes three 20 minute periods along with an intermission break in between. If the game includes TV timeouts like you see in many higher leagues, you could expect the game to be closer to three hour range without overtime.
If you are in the mood for more details on the average lengths and why the game requires this sort of time investment then read on!
Regulation and Overtime in Professional Leagues
Hockey is like most professional sports in that the games are controlled by a clock.
Only a few sports, like baseball and tennis, are not over until someone actually wins the game. In baseball, someone should win within nine innings and in tennis, men must win the best of five sets while women must win the best of three. With baseball and tennis, games can continue indefinitely until someone wins.
After the first and second periods, players are given 17 minutes to rest and get ready for the next period. Also during the 17-minute intermissions, the ice is cleaned by a Zamboni so that players have a safe surface upon which to continue the game.
With a game like hockey, if the game is tied, then extra time is put on the clock. This is similar to basketball and football.
Also, in these professional sports – hockey, basketball, and football, the clock is stopped when the referees blow their whistles. So, most hockey games actually take much longer than the 60 minutes that are set aside for playing.
Stopping the Clock in an NHL Game
There are only a few instances that stop the clock. They include:
- When a penalty is given
- When a player is hurt
- When the puck leaves the rink
- When a timeout is called
- When the goalie does not return the puck to the ice
After these stoppages, players have a face off. Then, the clock starts back up again.
Regular-season NHL Overtime Rules
If the game is still tied when the 60-minute regulation game is completed, the game then goes into overtime.
Regular season overtime is different than playoff season overtime. During the regular season, overtime is five minutes.
During the regular season, if a team does not score in the five minutes of overtime, that’s it. The game will then be determined by a three-player shoot-out.
Eventually, someone will win, but the shootout could last for a long time. The longest shootout lasted 20 rounds!
NHL Playoffs Overtime Rules
Shootouts do not exist in playoff games. Instead, each overtime period is 20 minutes with a 15-minute intermission if a team does not score in the overtime period then a new overtime period is played. The game is over as soon as a team scores a goal.
Even though hockey games are 60 minutes of regulation game play, most games last much longer than 60 minutes. From the drop of the first puck until the game is over, the average game lasts slightly more than two hours.
What happens when the game is televised?
Commercial breaks have rules, too.
The NHL Commercial Coordinator makes sure that advertisements do not break these rules. Commercials are fit into the games, but when there are goals or icing calls, commercial breaks are not allowed.
Other League Time Lengths
The time in other hockey leagues vary.
For example, USA Hockey clarifies that the maximum length of the game is 60 minutes with three periods that last 20 minutes. They also have intermissions that last 15 minutes. However, if a USA Hockey game needs to be shorter, it can be. They simply cannot exceed 60 minutes.
The youngest youth leagues have shorter game times.
Pee Wee C
The Pee Wee C leagues start with a 15-minute period, then the second and third periods are 20 minutes each. The game shouldn’t exceed 90 total minutes. The Pee Wee League does all time outs.
Atom
The Atom leagues have three 15-minute periods.
Novice
The Novice division includes two 15-minute periods with a third that lasts 20 minutes. No timeouts are allowed in the Atom or Novice divisions.
There are a few unusual rules in youth hockey that do not happen in professional leagues. For example, if there is a mercy-rule game happening, the clock will continue to run without stopping in the third period.
States get to decide how to run their high school games, and many will have three 15-minute periods. The same standards apply for mercy-rule games, with the clock running without stopping.
In Conclusion – Hockey Game length
As you can see the length of time it takes to complete a hockey game can include many different factors. However in general, if you are looking at any sort of professional leagues then you can expect around a 2 to 2.5 hour time investment.
Are you wondering, how long is an ice hockey game? We have the answers for you! What is the official playing time? How long are the intermissions? What is the average total time of a game? What determines the length? How long were the longest games in history? Let’s dive right into it!
How long is the NHL ice hockey game?
The official playing time of ice hockey game is 60 minutes (three 20-minute periods). If it’s tied after 60 minutes, the play continues with overtime. The total average time of NHL game is 2 hours and 30 minutes (including stoppages and intermissions). It might be much longer if overtime is played.
In the regular season, the play continues with 5-minute sudden-death overtime followed by shootouts. In the NHL playoffs, the play continues with 20-minute sudden death periods until one team scores (no shootouts). The sudden death rule means that the game ends immediately after one team scores.
The intermissions between periods are 18 minutes long with no intermission before overtime and shootouts in the regular season and 15 minutes intermissions before every overtime period in the playoffs.
How long are hockey games outside of the NHL?
The rules for the different leagues are quite similar, however, there are some differences, let's have a look at them:
How long are international ice hockey games (Olympics, World Championships, etc.)?
The rules for international hockey (IIHF – International Ice Hockey Federation) are the same as in NHL – three 20-minute periods. The only difference is that the intermissions are only 15 minutes long.
How long are hockey games in other professional leagues?
The rules for most other professional leagues are the same as international rules. Three 20-minute periods and 15-minute intermissions.
How long is a college ice hockey game?
Most minor leagues have the same rules as NHL – three 20-minute periods. The games are a little shorted just because of usually shorter intermissions and no commercial breaks.
How long is a minor league ice hockey game?
Most minor leagues have the exact same rules as NHL – three 20-minute periods with 18-minute intermissions. Followed by overtime and shootouts.
How long are high school and youth ice hockey games?
Most high school and youth hockey games are played for three 15-minute periods with 2-minute intermissions. The total time usually doesn’t exceed 1 hour and 30 minutes.
How long are recreational or kid’s hockey games?
At the recreational level and kid’s level, the game is usually played at runtime, which means that the timer doesn’t stop, when there is a whistle. The clocks run the whole time till the end of the period (except for some special occasions such as serious injury or technical problems with the rink).
This means, that recreational games usually last between 1 hour 15 minutes and 1 hour 30 minutes in total time.
How does the hockey game last in real-time on average?
The average total time of a National Hockey League game is around 2 hours and 30 minutes. This includes:
- Three 20-minute periods of play
- Two 18-minute intermissions
- Game stoppages (the game clock stops after every whistle).
- Commercial breaks
- Potential injuries and technical problems
The vast majority of the games last between 2 hours and 20 minutes and 2 hours and 45 minutes.
The game can last much longer if it goes to the overtime, especially in the play-offs. The longest game ever played in NHL lasted 176 minutes of playing time (six overtime periods), which was around 6 hours of total time.
2 hours and 30 minutes is the most common scheduled time for broadcasting hockey games.
What determines the length of the hockey game?
1) Playing time
The first important factor is playing time. The vast majority of games last 60 minutes of playing time, however, it might be less on some occasions. High school and kid’s games are shorter.
2) Length of intermissions
NHL and AHL games have 18 minutes long intermissions, other leagues usually have just 15 minutes intermissions. High school and kid’s games usually have just very short intermissions.
3) Commercial breaks
Commercial breaks are another factor, which prolongs the game. They are in all NHL games and in most other broadcasted games. NHL has three 2-minute commercial breaks each period, which makes it a total of 18 minutes of commercials during the game.
4) Whether the game goes to overtime
During the regular season, the game can go to overtime and shootouts, which might prolong the game by up to 30 minutes. It might be even much more during the playoffs as there are no shootouts. The longest games ever played took around 6 hours before the overtime goal was scored. Many fans in the building fell asleep. However, these are extremely rare, the vast majority of games are decided during the first or second overtime. Yet, even one overtime can prolong the game by up to one hour (including intermission).
5) Game flow (stoppage time)
Game flow has a great impact on the time as well. There are games, which are very fluent and referees almost never need to whistle. On the other hand, there are games with so many scrimmages, penalties, icings, offsides, etc., that there are just so many stoppages, which prolong the game significantly.
6) Potential injuries
Ice-hockey is a hard-fought game and injuries happen. Most of the time, they don’t prolong the game much because the injured player just goes to the locker room and the game can continue. However, once in a while, there is a more serious injury that the player needs to be taken out of the rink on a stretcher, which prolongs the game.
7) Potential technical problems
Once in a while, there are some technical problems such as broken glass, melted ice, broken timer, etc. These can also prolong the game.
8) Pregame ceremonies
There are also pregame ceremonies during some games, which delay the start of the game by a few minutes.
How long is overtime?
If the game is tied after 60 minutes of play at the end of regulation time, the game continues to overtime. The extra time is played with the sudden-death rule, which means that the game ends immediately after one of the teams scores a goal. There are a few different rules for overtime:
NHL – Regular season
- 5-minute overtime
- Played 3 on 3
- Followed by 3 shootouts
NHL – playoffs
- 20-minute overtime periods
- 15-minute intermissions
- No shootouts (there could be infinite overtime periods until one team scores a goal).
IIHF (Olympic Games and World Championships)
- Preliminary round – 5-minute overtime followed by shootouts
- Play-offs except for the gold-medal game – 10-minute overtime followed by shootouts
- Gold-medal game – 20-minute overtime followed by shootouts
All playoff games on IIHF tournaments are played 4 on 4.
How long are intermissions?
The important note is that the intermission timer starts when the last official (referee) leaves the ice. How long are the intermissions?
NHL
- The NHL intermissions between periods are 18 minutes long (it used to be 17 minutes, but they changed it to 18 minutes a few years back).
- There are no intermissions before overtime and shootouts in the regular-season games.
- There are 15-minute intermissions before overtime periods in the playoff games.
IIHF (Olympic Games and World Championships)
- The intermissions between periods on IIHF tournaments are 15 minutes long.
- There are 3-minute intermissions before overtime (except the gold medal game).
- There is a 15-minute intermission before overtime in the gold medal game.
Commercial Breaks
Commercial breaks are another factor, which prolongs the game. In the NHL game, there are three 2-minute commercial time-outs during each period. These are taken at the first stoppages of play after the 14:00, 10:00, and 6:00 marks in each period.
The commercial breaks can’t be taken in these situations (they are postponed to the next stoppage):
- after a goal
- after an icing
- during power-play
- during the last 30 seconds of the first and second period
- during the last 2 minutes of the third period
- during video review
The commercial breaks are also used for cleaning the snow from the important zones of the ice (goal creases, in front of the benches and penalty boxes, around the circles).
The longest hockey games ever in NHL history
The longest hockey game ever played lasted whopping 176 minutes! It happened in the early hockey era in 1936 between Detroit Red Wings and Montreal Maroons. Mud Bruneteau was the lucky goal scorer. He scored in the 6th overtime period (9th total period).
The longest game of hockey in the modern post-expansion era lasted 152 minutes and happened in 2000 between Philadelphia Flyers and Pittsburgh Penguins. Keith Primeau scored in the 5th overtime period (8th total period).
List of the longest hockey games in NHL history:
| 176:30 | March 24, 1936 | Detroit | Montreal Maroons | 1:0 | Mud Bruneteau |
| 164:46 | April 3, 1933 | Toronto | Boston | 1:0 | Ken Doraty |
| 152:01 | May 4, 2000 | Philadelphia | Pittsburgh | 2:1 | Keith Primeau |
| 150:27 | Aug 11, 2020 | Tampa Bay | Columbus | 3:2 | Brayden Point |
| 140:48 | April 24, 2003 | Anaheim | Dallas | 4:3 | Petr Sýkora |
| 139:15 | April 24, 1996 | Pittsburgh | Washington | 3:2 | Petr Nedvěd |
| 138:06 | April 11, 2007 | Vancouver | Dallas | 5:4 | Henrik Sedin |
| 130:18 | March 23, 1943 | Toronto | Detroit | 3:2 | Jack McLean |
| 129:03 | May 4, 2008 | Dallas | San Jose | 2:1 | Brenden Morrow |
| 128:52 | March 28, 1930 | Montreal Canadiens | NY Rangers | 2:1 | Gus Rivers |
| 128:47 | April 18, 1987 | NY Islanders | Washington | 3:2 | Pat LaFontaine |
| 125:43 | April 27, 1994 | Buffalo | New Jersey | 1:0 | Dave Hannan |
| 121:09 | March 27, 1951 | Montreal Canadiens | Detroit | 3:2 | Maurice Richard |
| 120:40 | March 27, 1938 | NY Americans | NY Rangers | 3:2 | Lorne Carr |
| 119:32 | March 26, 1932 | NY Rangers | Montreal Canadiens | 4:3 | Fred Cook |
How long before the game should fans arrive?
The good rule of thumb is to arrive around 45 minutes before the scheduled game time. Why this early? Well, you can arrive last minute, however, there are many things you might need or want to do before the game such as:
- Find your seat.
- Use a restroom.
- Buy some food and drinks.
- Buy some souvenirs.
- Look around the arena.
You might arrive even a little bit earlier if you would like to see warm-ups. These usually start 30 minutes before the scheduled game start and last 15 minutes. Therefore, for instance, if the scheduled game start is at 7:00 pm, the warm-ups are between 6:30 pm – 6:45 pm.
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