The Reason Hockey Pucks are Frozen in the NHL

A National Hockey League game can be an exciting event, but something is done to the hockey pucks that keep the games from becoming a little too exciting.

A hockey puck is made of vulcanized rubber, and rubber, as you know, is bouncy, especially at room temperature or warm. That is why the NHL uses frozen hockey pucks for all its games, so the pucks aren’t too bouncy. The pucks (or biscuits as they are sometimes known) are kept in a freezer in the penalty box at a temperature between 14 degrees Fahrenheit and 20 degrees Fahrenheit (-10 and -6.7 degrees Celsius) to ensure they are frozen before they are put into play.

NHL rules state that the home team will be responsible for keeping game pucks frozen, and they should be kept in the penalty box under the watchful eye of an official or other attendant. A home team does this by transporting fifteen pucks from their freezer to the penalty box cooler. They are even transported in a cooler. At the beginning of the second and third period of the game, fifteen more pucks are transported from the home team’s freezer to the penalty box cooler.

Things get even more specific when a puck is in play. After a puck has been used for more than two minutes, it gets replaced with a new frozen puck so that consistency is guaranteed no matter which point a player gets in the game. It’s…