Table hockey?

Table hockey is a game played on a table rink with thin rills on which players move.

The players are, depending on a table hockey brand, attached to the metal rods under the table with screws or springs.

When turning the rods, the players turn, and moving them to and fro the players slide and change positions.

Table hockey as a game begins to develop somewhat in the 1930's in Canada and today it is played in more than twenty countries worldwide. There is also the world table hockey federation - ITHF (something like FIFA in football) that organizes world championships and leads the world ranking list.

There are several table hockey manufacturers and different table dimensions that largely depend on the manufacturer itself. The ITHF has taken a Swedish brand STIGA and its PLAY-OFF table as an official table used on world championships and national chamionships of some countries. In that way all the players, regardless the country they are from, play under same conditions.

STIGA produces two more brands of tables - RED LINE and STANLEY CUP.

RED LINE is a simplified version of PLAY-OFF that has no transparent protective shield, so it is good for training, while at tournaments it might cause some trouble with a puck out of a game.

STANLEY CUP is basically the same as PLAY-OFF, only it has the NHL players, and one of them holds a stick in the opposite direction which, in fact, is not such a big difference.

As was mentioned earlier, there are other table hockey manufacturers, but they mostly have different players' positions and game dimensions so they are not used in the official ITHF competitions.