Do you understand how to read hockey statistics?Few people are able to understand and interpret hockey statistics unless they are very passionate fans of the game.  If you are a hockey fan and you don’t understand what hockey statistics and the terms they represent mean, you might be surprised to find out that it isn’t hard to learn.  Most of these terms are logical and easily apply to the game rules you already may know.  Understanding these statistics may even increase your enjoyment of the game of hockey because you will know how to evaluate the performance of any hockey team.  It doesn’t matter if it is a National Hockey League team or a youth girl hockey team.  The statistics and terms involved are the same.  Here is a brief description of hockey terms and statistics currently being used in the game of hockey in North America.

G and A are two hockey terms that are familiar to many fans because they stand out and often are mentioned during hockey game broadcasts.G stands for goals, and A stands for assists.Along with A and G is PTS that means scoring points.  PTS comes from adding goals and assists.  PIM tells you the penalty minutes that a player has spent in the penalty box.  GP refers to how many games were played, and TOI indicates how many minutes a player has played in games.Both PPG and PPA give you information on performance.  These statistics tell you how many goals and how many assists a hockey player is averaging currently in the games he has played.  You can also take a look at SHG and SHA which mean, shorthanded goals and shorthanded assists.  These terms tell you how many assists and goals a player made when his team was shorthanded, meaning they had less men on the ice than their opposing team due to penalties.

Goaltenders also have their own statistics and terms.  They are similar to the other players, but there are a few differences.GA is an important statistic for goalies and one they keep a close eye on to compare themselves to other goaltenders.  GA means goals against or how many goals the goalie has let into the net.  SOG describes the number of shots on goal.This statistic indicates how many shots the opposing team had on net. SV indicates an addition of all the shots that a goalie stopped.

In general, statistics for hockey teams are similar to most other sports.  They are fairly straightforward.  Like most other sports, W means win, and L is for losses.  T indicates ties that a team has made.  You can determine that from GP, or games played.GF and GA are both important statistics to determine the goals that a hockey team has scored to that point in time and the goals against a team.  Again, these hockey terms apply to professional teams, canadian women hockey, and youth hockey, like girls hockey.  As you can now see, hockey statistics are not difficult to learn and understand.  You just need to get familiar with the hockey terms, numbers and abbreviations.

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