HOCKEY (also y. hook, y, apparently from hook• in allusion to the hooked club with game is played). .A game played by opposing teams of eleven 0:101, 110W (11V idea into live forwards, three half-backs, two backs. and a goa•keeper, on a ground one hundred yards long by fifty or sixty wide. The playing space is in dicated by white side lines and end or goal lines. The goals., one at each end. consist of two upright posts twelve feet apart and a horizontal bar seven feet from the ground. In front of each goal is a semicircular white line fifteen yards from it, curving Lack to a point twelve feet from each goal-post. No goal counts unless the ball was last hit. by one of attacking side, inside this semicirelo. The shape of the hockey-stick is not regulated. except that it must have no sharp edges or natal on it. and it must be able to be passed through a ring two inches in diameter. It is usually curved at the bottom end, weighs in the neighborhood of •5 ounces. The hall is an ordinary crieket-hall painted white. The play is started from the centre of the ground by a bully, i.e. one player of each side takes position on opposite suit of the hall. Each strikes the ground on his side of the ball. and then each strikes his opponent's stick three times, alternately. over the hall. Either of the two can then strike the hall. \Viten it is driven over the end lines by the attacking party, it is brought back to within 25 yards of the goal-line and started by another bully. When a defending
party hits it over the goal-lines the penalty is a tree hit by the attacking party from the corner llag. There are various penalty bullies. A goal is scored N% flit' hall been deign in a law ful manner, i.e. hy a stroke in which the stick does not rise above the shoulder, and from within the prescribed 'striking circle' between the goal posts and under the cross-bar. The kill may be caught and immediately dropped, or stopped with any part of the body ; but must not he carried. or kicked, or knocked, except with the stick. \\lien it hall passes the side lines it is rolled along the ground from the spot where it crossed by one of the opposite side to that Of the player who last, touched it. The game is usually played for seventy minutes in t WO halves, the players chang ing ends at the interval.
The game remained in an unorganized condi tion in England. its original home, until IsS:3, when the first modern rules D.(1111:141 to Shape by the Wimbledon Club. In Isse, the ilockey Association was organized, followed in rapid slicec--4111 by 111;1113' assoeiations. Ireland and NVales also have national associa tions, and since IStlt international matches have been played yearly. In the Culled States, ex c•pt as played on the ice, the game still remains imperfect ly organized.