Top 100 Hockey Slang Words You Must Know (With Bonus Tip)
One interesting thing about hockey is all the slang words used in the game. It keeps on getting added to each year, but below is a list of the top 100 slang words.
1. Apple: An assist
2. Bar Down: A shot that hits the crossbar and then goes into the net for a goal
3. Barn: The hockey arena
4. Barnburner: A game that is high scoring and has a number of lead changes
5. Bender: When a player is skating and their ankles are bending
6. Beauty: An extremely nice goal or play
7. Biscuit: The hockey puck
8. Blades of Steel: An old-school hockey video game released in 1987/88
9. Bottle Rocket: When a goal hits the goalie’s water bottle in the net
10. Brawl: A fight often involving multiple players
11. Brick Wall: A goalie who is making amazing saves and cannot be scored against
12. Broadway Blueshirts: A nickname for the New York Rangers
13. Bucket: A hockey helmet
14. Buds: A nickname for the Toronto Maple Leafs
15. Buzzer Beater: A goal that is scored just before the end of the period
16. Cage: A goalie mask
17. Caps: A nickname for the Washington Capitals
18. Celly: Means celebrate. Also goes with Snipes, Celly, Dangle, which means deke, score, celebrate
19. Charleston Chiefs: The team name from the cult hockey movie Slapshot
20. Cheap-shot Artist: A player who makes a lot of dirty plays, often causing injury to other players.
Top 100 Hockey Slang Words – 21 to 40
21. Cheese: A goal at the top shelf of the net
22. Cherry Picking: Usually a negative connotation of a player who stays up in the offensive zone to get a pass for an offensive opportunity instead of helping his teammates on defence
23. Chiclets: Teeth (which hockey players lose a lot of!)
24. Chirping: Talking trash to your opponents
25. Clapper: Another name for the slapshot
26. Coast to Coast: Skating with the puck from one end of the rink to the other end
27. Dangle: Deke
28. Denied: A statement made when a goalie makes a big save against a player
29. Desert Dogs: A nickname for the Arizona Coyotes
30. Disk: The puck
31. Duster: A player who sits on the bench without much playing time
32. Enforcer: The player charged on the team with being the main fighter
33. Face Wash: Rubbing your glove (often sweaty) into another player’s face
34. Fake: A player with the puck who deceives opponent’s player or goalie to think he is going one way and then goes the other
35. Fan (Fannned): A player who goes to shoot the puck and misses it
36. Filthy: An extremely great deke/fake or goal
37. Firewagon Hockey: A game that has a lot of offence, offensive chances and little defensive play
38. Five Hole: The hole that opens up between a goalie’s pad when he is going to the ground.
39. Flamingo: When a player who goes to block a shot lifts only one of his legs, making himself look like a flamingo
40. Flash the Leather: A goalie who makes a great stop with his glove hand.
Top 100 Hockey Slang Words – 41 to 60
41. Flow: Another name for great hockey hair that ‘flows’ out of the back of the helmet
42. Garbage Goal: A goal that is not ‘pretty’ and often is scored within a couple of feet of the goal through a rebound or a deflection off a player
43. Gino: A goal
44. Give-and-Go: When a player passes the puck to a teammate and then gets a pass back to beat an opponent
45. Goon: A player whose main role on the team is to be the fighter
46. Goose Egg: When a goalie gets a shutout and allows zero goals against
47. Gordie Howe Hat Trick: A game where a player gets a goal, assist and fight
48. Grapes: The nickname of longtime Hockey Night in Canada personality Don Cherry
49. Great One: The nickname of Wayne Gretzky
50. Greasy: A type of goal that is not pretty
51. Grinders: A forward whose role is more about hitting and checking than it is goal scoring
52. Handcuffed: A player who has many opportunities to score but just cannot seem too put the puck in the net
53. Hanging from the Rafters: A player’s jersey number that has been retired and now hangs up in the rafters of the home arena
54. Hanson Brothers: The brothers who play for the Charleston Chiefs in the hockey movie Slapshot
55. Holy Grail: A nickname of the Stanley Cup
56. Hot Dog: A player who is trying to show up his opponent
57. Howitzer: A really hard shot
58. Insurance Goal: Adding a goal to increase your lead so that you have more room for error
59. Jarring Hit: A hit that leaves another player shaken up
60. Johnny-on-the-spot: A player who is in the right spot at the right time to score a goal
Top 100 Hockey Slang Words – 61 to 80
61. Journeyman: A player that has played for numerous teams over a long time
62. Knuckle Puck: A puck, when shot, that does not fly in a straight trajectory but is flipping over and curling in the air
63. Lamplighter: Someone who scores a lot of goals — they are scoring and making the goal light come on
64. Laser Beam: A hard shot that goes directly where it was aimed
65. Laying on the Lumber: A player that slashes another player with his stick. This comes from the history of hockey because hockey sticks used to be made of wood
66. Light the Lamp: A term used to encourage someone to score. Essentially, let’s get a goal and make the goal light turn on
67. Lumber: Another name for a stick with its nod to old hockey sticks that were made from wood
68. Manhandle: A player that roughs up another player, and may not get a penalty for this
69. Mitts: Your hands – often referenced to someone who has nice hands and can score
70. Muffin: A really weak shot
71. Nail: To hit someone with a bodycheck extremely hard
72. Nosebleeds: The spectator seats that are at the very top of the hockey stadium
73. Office: The area behind the goalie net, was first termed for Wayne Gretzky’s play behind the net as he was said to be “set up in his office”
74. Paint: Another name for the goalie crease, as it is a different colour from the ice
75. Pest: A player that is extremely annoying to his opponents
76. Picking his Pocket: When a player steals the puck from another player
77. Pipe: A nickname for the goalposts
78. Pinch: When a defenseman comes into the offensive zone to help out
79. Playoff Beard: The tradition of growing a beard until your team is eliminated from the Stanley Cup playoffs or wins the Stanley Cup
80. Plug: A player that is not very good and does not really add to the team
Top 100 Hockey Slang Words – 81 to 100
81. Plumber: A player who is good at digging the puck out of the corners of the boards
82. Preds: A nickname for the Nashville Predators
83. Puck Bunny: A girl who likes to hang around guys who play hockey
84. Puck Has Eyes: A puck that has had several deflections before going into the net for a goal
85. Puck Hog: A player who does not pass the puck
86. Puck Luck: When the puck takes a lucky bounce for a team usually results in a goal
87. Puckhead: A person who is passionate about hockey
88. Pylon: A player (usually a defenseman) who is easy to skate around
89. Razor Sharp: A player that is on his game and is playing great
90. Riding the Pine: A player who is not getting playing time and is sitting on the bench
91. Right in the Numbers: A player who is hit from behind
92. Ring it off the Iron: When a puck is shot and hits the post and stays out of the net
93. Rink Rat: Someone who loves to come and hang out at the hockey arena
94. Ripple the Mesh: Another term for scoring a goal, a player has shot the puck and scored so that the net will move
95. Rob (of a Goal): A save by a goalie that takes away what looks like a sure goal
96. Roof: Shooting the puck to the top of the net, the mesh at the top of the net
97. Rubber: Another name for a puck, because it is made out of vulcanized rubber
98. Sens: A nickname for the Ottawa Senators
99. Sharpshooter: Someone who is an accurate shooter and scores a lot of goals
100. Shinny Hockey: A type of hockey played on an outdoor rink where players are not wearing padding so the puck is not to be raised above the shins
Top 100 Hockey Slang Words – Bonus
Sick Bay: A term used for a player that is injured (he is in sick bay) or a player who goes to have an injury looked at (he goes to sick bay)
Sieve: A goalie who cannot make a save, a reference to the sieve that drains water through it
Sin Bin: The penalty box
Snow Job: When a player stops and sprays snow into the face of goaltender as he is down on the ice
Soft Hands: A player that is good at scoring goals when he uses more finesse than power
Spin-o-rama: A hockey move which the players does a 360 spin to fake out or deke around an opponent
Stand on His Head: A goalie that is making a lot of saves and keeping his team in the game is said to be standing on his head
Stone Hands: A player that cannot score goals. He is getting chances to score he just cannot do it
Tic-tac-toe: A three way passing play that ends up in a goal
Top Shelf: When a player scores a goal into the very top part of the net hitting the mesh that basically acts as the roof of the net
Turtle: When a player drops to the ice and protects himself as another player tries to fight him
Uncork: A player that winds up and takes a powerful shot
Wheels: A player that can skate really fast
Yard Sale: When a player(s) loses several pieces of equipment during play – either from a hit or just the normal course of action
Yawning Cage: A wide-open net to shoot at. This is often referred to even when the goalie is in the net but the play has developed so that a goal looks likely
Zebra: A nickname for the referee based on the uniform of white and black stripes
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