How big is an NHL rink and why are other rinks different?

There are four major sports in North America. Ironically, they all play on very different surfaces. NBA Basketball is played on a hardwood court. NFL Football is played on grass or field turf. MLB Baseball is played on a mixture of grass and dirt. Hockey is the only sport that needs intervention to keep the playing surface up to grade. Hockey around the world is played on ice. Not just any ice. There is a very specific sheet and size of ice that provides the optimal hockey experience.

Ironically, that optimal experience is different depending on where you are. Let's start with the NHL. The dimensions of the ice surface have to be perfect. All the lines need to be perfectly balanced, as do the circles and the dots littered across the ice. Every season, the arenas do an incredible job putting the ice sheet together before the season, meticulously measuring each and every inch.

At the end of it, an NHL ice surface measures 200 feet from one endboard to the other. There are 85 feet of ice between the players' bench and the penalty box. This is where there's a big difference between NHL ice and international leagues, but we'll get to that in a moment. The goals are 178 feet apart, meaning they sit 11 feet from the endboards. This leaves a ton of space for players to make moves, take big hits, or deke their opponents out of their skates.

International play, whether that is one of the European leagues like the SHL, the Russian league, the KHL, or when the Olympics are played outside of North America, uses a wider ice surface. Playing with a little more than 98 feet of width on the ice really opens up the game, makes it harder to slow down offenses, de-emphasizes hitting, and provides an interesting strategy for coaches.

The change in ice surface does take some getting used to one way or the other. We see when the Olympics are in certain countries, those who are used to playing on that ice surface usually play with an advantage. The Russians took home gold in Pyeongchang, which used the bigger ice surface in 2018. Canada did take home gold in 2014 in Sochi, but Finland and Sweden took home silver and bronze. Canada won on its home ice in Vancouver, which was of course the same size as NHL ice. Sweden won in Turin. Canada won in Salt Lake City. Since the domination of the Soviet Union on the sport ended, the home ice seems to matter a lot to who takes home medals.

This also impacts rookies and veterans who attempt to go one way or the other. It's well known that rookies drafted out of Europe or Russia take longer to develop because it takes time to get used to how quickly defenders close on offensive players. While already getting used to the speed of the NHL, players are missing close to 15 feet of space to move and pass. It's literally ruined some very promising careers because those players couldn't adjust. More often than not, those players go back across the Atlantic Ocean to continue their careers.

There you have it. Size matters, especially when it comes to ice. Basketball courts, baseball fields (although outfields can be different), and football fields are the same size in every country (outside of some unique leagues like the Arena Football League). However, in hockey, it depends on which hemisphere you're in to know how big the ice will be.