Origins and Rules of Culdesac Hockey

Culdesac Hockey

Nicknames	Hiblundiiun Hockey
Characteristics
Contact	Limited
Team members	3 offense, 4 defense, 1 keeper (each side)
Mixed gender	Separate competitions
Equipment	hockey stick, raised hockey puck
Venue	Culdesac Half (Explained later on- can be indoors or outdoors)

Culdesac Hockey was first created in mid 1960s in Trinalxii, Hiblund. It was originally created by highschoolers playing floor hockey in their nearby culdesac, which was then implemented into a real game later on after these same highschoolers got their degrees. The sport was held to just a dream for a while, but after some investing, the Hiblundiiun Culdesac Hockey Association was formed in 1971. Despite the doubts that it would ever transform into a major sport anywhere, it surpassed many once top-level sports, even the original form of hockey. Today the sport is recognized as the second most respected and viewed sport in Hiblund. Unfortunately though, its sucess in Hiblund never carried over to other athletic countries, nor even neighboring nations. The only other presence it has is in Frarstizk, and its league is rarely ever mentioned there.

History

Origins

In the spring of 1962, a group of highschoolers from Ferniuswe Hir were lounging around, bored of what to do. Most of these enjoyed hockey, but hated having to arrange everything with the nearby rink, and didn't prefer floor hockey because of its lack of places to functionally play it. So, they improvised and played in one of the group member's culdesacs, and played floor hockey there.

They quickly found out, however, that the shape of using half of a culdesac and some additional rule changes has the potential to become an entirely new sport. They edited the players a team and formatting of who could be where to make the game more interesting, lower scoring, and more tactical than the somewhat luck-based ice hockey. When they added a new member to the group of friends and introduced him to the improvisation of floor hockey, he said something along the lines of, "There are a lot of contrasts between this and hockey. Honestly though, if one evaluated this and hockey without any knowledge of when they were created, he/she wouldn't be able to tell which one came first". Immediately after this was said, two of the group members thought the exact same idea.

These two took the names of Fraetlei Lellic and Elzxair Vovliksir. Even after the group had split up and gone to college, these two stayed in contact and continued to polish up the rules of the game, having mildly serious intention to actually make it a thing. Both friends majored and graduated in a business degree at Trinalxii Srevat Ulnricht, trying to eventually gather enough money from strong holds in investments as well as working at a 9-5 job to make their dream come true. After an immensely successful investment in the company LSYT, the duo began to consider their dream as an actual idea.

Founding of HCHA

The duo finished their final touches on the rules in 1967, only a few weeks after their investment success. They knew that there were plenty of hoops to go through in order to get this going. After months of arousing hype of the sport, debating the worth with sponsors and broadcasters, and building both indoor and outdoor arenas, the Hiblundiiun Culdesac Hockey Association was formed and put into full force on the 1st of May, 1971.

Due to the major doubt in the sport being creative enough to actually support a separate audience from the ice hockey fans, they were only allowed to broadcast two games the first entire regulular season, and all bets were off for the postseason. Lellic and Vovliksir decided to broadcast the debut of the games in both locations; indoor (debut of the entire league) and outdoor (debut of the second half). These games gathered much attention, as those who looked past the similarities between this and ice hockey truly enjoyed it. These ratings were varied, but the more haters began to think, the more they decided that this was in fact different than ice hockey, thus, raising the ratings.

Present day

Today, the reach of the HCHA has established itself as one of the most prominent sports leagues throughout the land, ranking second in combined viewership across all sports, even surpassing ice hockey itself by a large margin. Real-life culdesacs, and not just the ones used for the game, have seen a slight incline in popularity due to the playing of kids in the neighborhoods wanting something similar to a culdesac arena. Unlike older arenas that could hold a capacity of about 1,000 people, they have drastically upgraded into an average capacity of 20,000 which is the third-highest for professional Hiblundiiun sports.

However, outside of Hiblund, culdesac hockey is usually a minor and very little in popularity. Most other nations refer to this as a rip-off of ice hockey, and therefore never think anything of it. Yet due to the close relations between Hiblund and Frarstizk, Frarstizk makes culdesac hockey a more popularized sport. Frarstizk loves its ice hockey, and therefore was not willing to put culdesac hockey at even such near as a standard, but it makes a great alternative for those who do not wish to learn how to skate and have experience playing in their own driveways.

The HCHA is accompanied with plenty of non-overlapping minor leagues as well as the youth leagues in order to keep the sport eligible to many and to keep competition of systems relatively low.

Unfortunately, ice hockey and skating have taken the beating of this exchange, as their expected growth was stunted after the surge in culdesac hockey. Although ice hockey might have been given pros and cons from the switch (still mainly cons), skating has only seen cons. The even practice of skating is not encouraged very much by Hiblundiiun culture to begin with, and the double-pros of doing amateur ice hockey and skating sports have diminished, as it's more of just for skating sports at this point.

Rules

Objective

The main objective is to shoot the hockey puck into the net more times than the opponent using your stick. This is more difficult than in ice hockey, however, as it is more difficult to bring the puck off the ground on the rougher surface, as well as being outnumbered on offense. If opposing on defense, the goal is to take away the puck and pass it to the curb, which brings up a reset and your team is given possession. This may not go over the curb, as if it is, the possession is simply restarted with the same team.

Arena

Layout of an arena, top view

The typical arena for a culdesac hockey game is much different than ice hockey, or any other sport for that matter. Since equations for the layout are extremely precise, the image to the right will explain for its layout, rather than its size. Both indoor and outdoor matches are played with the same size and shape. Following this are the meanings for each point in the arena.

• Top curve: Curb. This is a one-foot tall wall that outlines the outermost part of the arena. This is used for, if the defense hits the puck to the curb and does not fall out of bounds, a change of possession.
• Bottom curve + Lines to the side: Neutral Curb(s). These are also one-foot tall each, but do not create any changes in the game once hit.
• Green Rectangle: Goal. The main objective of the game is to score into this. It rests in between two sides of the Bottom curve, in the center.
• Blue Line: Goal Line. No players from either team may enter this area with either their stick or any body part touching the ground.
• Red Line: Offense Line. Only one player from each team may enter this area at a time, and must be in there for less than 15 seconds.

Players

The initial non-playing ground change between culdesac and ice hockey is the number of players, which comes along with great strategy.

The number of players is done to favor the defense in a possession, to force creativeness upon coaches and players on offense. There are three on offense, four on defense, and five if you count the goaltender. So, a starting lineup ranges from five to eight different people, usually prefered to be at eight in professional leagues for low chance of burnout on both sides. This allows managers and coaches to build a defensive or an offensive based team, without worrying about what those players might do on the other side of the possession. In a HCHA team, though, each player will likely have five back-ups and two for the goaltender, resulting in a total of 45.

Instead of strategy being who is farther back when playing defense, there are many different structures to how a defense or offense can be built. Defenses can include a few different strategies, the basis of all being the 3-protect; where each offensive player is guarded by one defensive, and the extra defensive player is put inside the inner ring to protect any that might penetrate the 1-on-1 coverage. Although there are still options, the defense still is kind of limited in strategy. However, the offense has almost an infinite amount of solutions. They may remain balanced, shift prepetually, leave one in the inner ring at all times, two guard the perimeter as one tries to break through, two prepetually passing until the third gets open, and so many more options to catch the defense off-guard.

Indoor vs. Outdoor players

In the HCHA, the league switches from indoor play to outdoor play mid-way through the season, with the postseason being hosted outdoors as well. Due to this, teams in the HCHA and related leagues in the system must further play along with strategy, deciding whether to be an in or outdoor team. Professional players should be able to play as good indoors as they would outdoors, but this is not the case for a lot of players, which leads coaches making a completely separate roseter for two halves of the season. The answer might seem obvious, as more important games are played outdoors, but momentum is a huge part of the season, and you need to get to the postseason to do good in it as well. To read more about this shift and how it effects the game, consider reading the Annual Outside Debut of Culdesac Hockey.

General Rules

As just an outline to how the game is played and how consequences are dealt, here's a list of the more common rules that are followed and known by many.

Functions

• The first possession of a game is decided by a coin toss.
• Games consist of a total 60 minutes of playing time, with a 15-minute break half-way through.
• If the score is tied through 60 minutes, overtime is played, where the defense loses a player and the next team to score wins. The team who starts with possession is the one to initially start the game with possession
• Teams switch possession by the defense passing the puck to the curb, and as long as it hits without the puck going out of bounds in any way, the teams switch.
• After a goal is scored, the team who conceded the goal starts with the possession.
• If the puck goes out of bounds/hits the curb/offensive placement infraction occurs by the offense, the possession switches.
• If the puck goes out of bounds/defensive placement infraction occurs by the defense, the defense loses a player (until the possession is over) and the possession restarts.
• If the puck goes out of bounds/defensive placement infraction occurs by the defense, and the defense has already lost a player, they do not lose another player, but the next time they hit it to the curb, it does not switch possessions. If a goal is scored before the defense hits it to the curb, the "no switch possessions" rule is offset.

Penalties

• Personal fouls are treated based on severity, the minors being an extra possession or lack of one at all, moderates being a temporary loss of a player until next possession, majors being a complete expellsion of the position for the rest of the game.
  Example of personal foul: A player hitting the opponent in the shin with his/her stick.
• Functional fouls are treated the same as minor personal foul penalties, giving FFs and MPFs a similar name under "Minor Penalties".
  Example of a functional foul: A player lifts the puck up with his/her stick for longer than an extremely brief moment.
• After three minor penalties/moderate PF penalties/placement infractions, each consequence is put to greater standards, and if it is the second placement infraction for a team in one possession (at least one of the players holding at least three PI total), all PIs are given the penalty of temporary loss of a player.
• If a personal foul is further reviewed as completely unintentional but still holds up the game, there are no penalties given and the possession starts over.