How Many Periods in Hockey Game? How Long is Each? (NHL & Recreational)

Imagine constantly playing the whole game without a break or watching a continuous game where the players are so tired that they want it to end! What thrill would such a game provide? Tiredness and tiring faces would not be any pleasure.

So, how many periods in an ice hockey game are played? An ice hockey game comprises three periods of 20 minutes each with two intermissions of 15 minutes between each period. During the regular season and playoffs, if an ice hockey game is tied at the end of the second and third periods each, it will be decided by either a 5-minute or 20-minute overtime period with a first period only. If a hockey game is still tied in the overtime period, it will be followed by a shootout.

Let’s take a breakdown of how many quarters and half hours and how many periods in most sports in hockey to understand why hockey has periods and half hours rather than halves and quarters, how many periods in hockey and most team’s sports (with few exceptions), and how real-time games play into NHL.

Were NHL hockey games always three periods long?

The key reason behind the three-game periods is the ice quality. NHL officials noticed local ice rink surfaces get down when playing 30 minutes long. Snow building and ice chips are often there; how many professional hockey games the periods are, affecting the puck’s smooth flow and players’ pace also, typical hockey game slows down.

Therefore, they decided to divide the NHL’s two 30-minute additional overtime periods into three 20 minutes playoff overtime periods. It is beneficial for the ice to resurface with Zamboni after every additional overtime period of regulation time of 20 minutes instead of playoff overtime periods of 30 minutes.

The poor quality of snow in rinks, with ice chips and little snow mounts, makes the ice hockey game move very slowly as the puck’s smooth travel turns bouncy because of friction. Also, players face difficulty in skating as their overall game speed becomes slow, and they have high chances of injuries. At a minimum, the ice chips can make the player trip and fall on the ice unexpectedly. Further, a player’s skate can get trapped in the chips giving them severe injuries like sprains, ACLs / MCLs, etc.

Note that each overtime period only lasts for 20 minutes. Still, in actuality, a more typical hockey game or playoff game is, the players playing time on the ice goes from the sudden death overtime periods, the period lasts a three to five-minute period, structured about 40 or 45 minutes, including all stoppages, penalties, timeouts, goals, injuries, and more.

So, NHL brought the 15-minute intermission between each period to resurface the ice (the intermission and ice resurfacing part is explained below).

Other sports than national hockey association on the local ice rink resurfacing has many other sports for different reasons, most sports such:

• Players break and team plan – Players and coach discuss and plan different game strategies in a break.
• Audience time (for food and drinks) – In this short free time, spectators can go get some food and drinks for energy to enjoy the rest of the match.
• Marketing – Fans who watch matches on their televisions at home. The NHL uses this break for advertising and marketing their sponsors in addition to the TV Timeouts time.

So, now you get why an ice hockey game is played and has three rounds or periods, not three rounds or two halves.

Does hockey ever have two halves or four-quarters?

Other major junior leagues other than amateur major junior leagues, there is another example of a national hockey league game where you can see two halves instead of three periods – the All-Star NHL game.

The NHL-level All-Star game is different from other NHL regular season games in how many periods. The All-Star game is played in three skaters vs. three formats rather than in five vs. three skaters in five formats and is played in 40 minutes, not in 60 minutes. This means they only have two periods of typical NHL-level professional hockey games, not three.

This is done to make the team get scores to win and create a game-scoring atmosphere for the team and the players where they play well and the team can score many goals. Whether they play good or bad, NHL makes all its efforts to make the team get maximum, and whichever team scores wins in games in either way possible and not just make hockey period a regular showcase game.

Additional Periods: Overtime

If whichever team scores and wins an entire regular season game or playoff game is tied up at the end of regulation, then there will be additional 5 minutes of overtime added to the game.

Between the entire third period and fourth period, the two fifteen-minute intermissions and the 5 minutes additional, there will be no gap given of the intermission to clear ice, and the game will resume within 5 minutes.

When none of the team scores, three skaters on the team score in the first period or the first team or overtime period, and the game is still tied, the play will be followed by a shootout.

When the play the game ends and the game moves to the shootout, the Zambonis will quickly move onto the ice and will resurface the ice around it. There are two Zambonis for each arena. Both will swiftly lap the ice surface down the center to smooth the shooting areas for hockey players. Hence, making it easy for hockey players to make professional shoots with smooth skating.

In the case of playoffs, structure the regulation time when the game is tied at the end of 3 periods. There will be an entire 15-minute intermission between the sudden death overtime period, the first three-period structure, the third overtime, the three-period structure, and the first overtime period because the playoffs overtime period lasts for many periods of 20 minutes.

This sudden death in the format of playoff games will keep on unless one team scores which are called sudden or sudden death overtime periods. This sudden death also happens more in professional hockey games and often in the Stanley Cup playoffs.

How long does a period take to play in real time?

Here is how a full game ends in how many period in hockey professional hockey game’s periods would flow:

Time	Event
07:00 PM	National Anthem
07:05 PM	Puck Drop to start 1st Period
07:45 PM	First Intermission
08:00 PM	Puck Drop to start 2nd Period
08:40 PM	Second Intermission
08:55 PM	Puck Drop to start 3rd Period
09:35 PM	Game End

NHL games with the most overtime periods

Here are the NHL games in the regular season with the most overtime periods played by the first team in the regular season game in history

Date	Teams	Score	Overtime Length	Total Periods
April 3, 1933	Toronto vs Boston	1-0	104 minutes 46 seconds	9
March 24, 1936	Detroit vs. Montreal Maroon	1-0	116 minutes 30 seconds	9
May 4, 2000	Philadelphia vs. Pittsburgh	2-1	92 minutes 1 second	8
April 24, 2003	Anaheim vs. Dallas	4-3	80 minutes 48 seconds	8
April 24, 1996	Pittsburgh vs. Washington	3-2	79 minutes 15 seconds	7
April 11, 2007	Vancouver vs. Dallas	5-4	78 minutes 6 seconds	7
March 23, 1943	Toronto vs. Detroit	3-2	70 minutes 18 seconds	7
May 4, 2008	Dallas vs. San Jose	2-1	69 minutes 3 seconds	7
April 18, 1937	New York Islanders vs. Washington	3-2	68 minutes 47 seconds	7
March 28, 1930	Montreal Canadians vs. New York Rangers	2-1	68 minutes 52 seconds	7

Frequently Asked Questions

Conclusion

This is all about the hockey periods. All the queries about the two and three periods, two halves and four quarters, the intermission between the first and second periods, fourth period, first and second periods, second period and third period first, second and third periods, and the regular season and playoffs intermission pattern are clear to you. And hopefully, you get the actual game structure.