How many periods in hockey? Explaining how NHL games work

When it comes to the format of team sports, a majority of competitions are split up either into quarters or halves. 

Football, basketball, women’s college basketball and lacrosse are all examples of sports that utilize quarters to break up a contest. Soccer and men’s college basketball divide a game into two halves. 

There are other concepts, such as innings in baseball, holes in golf, games/sets in tennis and rounds in boxing/MMA.

However, when it comes to the sport of hockey, it may have one of the most unique formats of all — periods. The NHL uses a system that is not found in any other discipline outside of floorball, which is a variation of hockey. 

Here is more to know about the concept of hockey and how it’s used in the NHL. 

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How many periods in hockey? 

There are three periods that make up a hockey game — the first period, the second period, and the third period. 

This has been the structure for the sport since its creation. 

How long is a period in hockey?

A period in hockey at the NHL level is 20 minutes long. That means, in total, two teams are playing for 60 minutes in regulation in order to determine a winner. 

There is typically a 15-minute intermission in between the first and second periods, as well as the second and third periods. 

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How many quarters in hockey?

Hockey does not use quarters. Instead, it uses periods. 

While a majority of other sports split up the contests into four quarters or two halves, hockey uses three periods instead. 

NHL overtime rules

Like any sport, sometimes regulation is not enough to determine a winner, and overtime is needed. These are additional periods added on in order to break a tie. 

The full section of the NHL rulebook on overtime can be found here.

NHL overtime rules for preseason and regular season

• Teams play a five-minute overtime period of 3-on-3 hockey
• The OT period is played sudden-death style, so the first team to score wins
• After the five minutes, if no one has scored, the game goes to a shootout
• Each team selects three shooters to go for the three rounds of the shootout. Each team shoots once per round
• The team with the most goals scored after the three rounds wins the game
• If the teams score the same amount of goals in the three rounds, then it goes round by round until one team scores and the other does not

NHL overtime rules for playoff games

• If the game is tied after regulation, the teams will play another full 20-minute period of overtime at 5-on-5 hockey
• It is once again sudden-death style, so the first team to score wins the game
• If no one scores in the first OT period, the game continues into a second, and a third, and so on and so forth until a team scores to win it

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