4th Street Hockey v3 - Information Page

How to Play the Game!

Players come in two types; skaters and goalies. Skaters have the following appearance:

while goalies look like this:

You’ll notice that the goalie card is reminiscent of a rainbow, and in fact, that sequence of colors (remember “ROY G BIV” from junior high science?) is used in determining whether a goal is scored on shot attempts.

Play results are found by:
 Finding a “puck-action”…either a pass attempt, skate attempt, dump/clear, ice, penalty, injury,
weird play, or shot attempt.
 Determining a player “matchup”, if applicable. That is, a one-on-one battle between the skills
of the player in possession of the puck and the player defending him.
 Determining who wins the matchup.
 Reading the result of the play off the player who won the matchup.
Six dice are used to play 4th Street Hockey. The following symbols are used to differentiate between
the six dice:

The two d10 (one colored, one white) are normally “combined” in the ordered “colored-white”. For example, a colored “8” and a white “2” would be combined to read “82”.

The d6p is an independent die used solely to identify the defender in a matchup.

The d20 is used to determine who wins a matchup. A range for the d20 will be generated on virtually every play.

The two d6 are used in a few different ways:
   Sometimes added together to give results ranging from “2” through “12”. These are used after a matchup has been resolved in order to find the actual play result on a player.
   In the advanced game, one of the d6 is sometimes used by itself to help identify the visiting player on loose puck actions. For this reason, one of the d6 has white spots and the other has black.
   During the shot process, the d6 are combined, similarly to how the d10 are, in the order black-spots white-spots.

Skaters are identified in two ways:
…by number:
 1=left wing (L)
 2=center (C)
 3=right wing (R)
 4=left defenseman (D)
 5=right defenseman (D)
 6= 6th skater (when pulling the goalie)

Throughout the game, player numbers will appear in two ways, “➁” and “➋”. An open number “➁” refers to a player’s teammate, while a solid number “➋” refers to a player’s opponent. In these examples, both numbers (“2”) represent a center.

…and by “recipient” value, which is located in parentheses next to a skater’s “G” (goals) stats. (the player shown on page 2, Mark Bollinger, has a recipient value of “11”.) Recipient values are used when a player attempts a pass…it designates to which skater the puck is intended. The skater with the highest recipient value on the ice (excluding the player with the puck) is identified as the “Ⓐ” skater. The skater with the next highest is the “Ⓑ” skater, etc. In the case of a tie, break it by using the player with the lowest position value (e.g., player “②” and player “④” both have recipient values of 8, which is the second-highest on the ice. Player “②” will be designated as recipient “Ⓑ” because his number is smaller. Player “④” will then be designated as recipient “Ⓒ”.)

Defense and Offense

The “offensive” team is the team in possession of the puck, regardless of where the puck is located.

The “defensive” team is the team without possession of the puck. In cases where neither team has possession, the “offensive” team is considered the team that most recently held control of the puck.

The Rink

The rink takes on a slightly different appearance, depending upon which team has control of the puck.  The defensive zone is split into three sections; left, middle, and right. The neutral zone is likewise split in to three sections; left, middle, and right. While the offensive zone is split in to three sections (again, left, middle, right), it is also divided in to three different depths, or levels (one, two, and three) so that the offensive zone has a total of nine different sections, labeled “L1” (left-one) through “R3” (right-three).

A team protecting the goal on the left side of the rink will see the rink as follows when it is in possession of the puck (in other words, while it is the offensive team):

while the team protecting the net (the defensive team) on the right end of the rink will see the rink as follows:

Note that the center line does not separate any zones, nor do the backlines. When playing defense, the defending coach must choose whether to place from 1 to 3 forecheckers in his offensive end (provided the puck is located there). For the purposes of this game, defenders who are not forechecking are located in the “neutral/defensive” zone.

A second set of labels reside in each of the three sections of the ice, all of which are printed in parentheses and range from 1-20. These are used to identify the area on the ice where a loose puck is collected.

Lines

The game may be played with individual players skating on and off the ice, or with line shifts.  Normally, each team will have six players on the ice…5 skaters and 1 goalie. Skaters include forwards (centers, left wings, right wings) and defensemen. Teams normally would have three forwards (one left wing, one center, one right wing) and two defensemen on the ice at a time.

The basic game uses line shifts, which is the easiest way to track player usage. Place the players in columns on either side of the rink, with the left wing or “L” (position “➀”) at the top of the line, and the right defenseman (position “➄”) at the bottom of the line. The second line would be placed outside the first. The third line placed outside the second, the fourth line placed outside the third, and so on.  The goalies are placed underneath the rink. See the illustration below.

 In the basic game, 3 lines are sufficient. If you want, you can always add more, or even use specialized sets of players on the power play or penalty kill.

You may choose to (or be forced to) play different combinations of players because your team may not have enough who play a particular position. For example, there may be a surplus of right wings (position “R”) but only one or two left wings (position “L”) on a team. Defenseman may play either position “➃” or “➄”.

If playing a position for which he is not rated:
   Penalize a forward (LW, RW, C) 1 point on his “PS” and “SK” ratings if he is playing another forward position for which he is not rated.
   Penalize a forward 5 points on his “DF” and “CH” ratings if he is playing as a defender.
   Penalize a defenseman 1 point on his “PS”, “SK”, “DF”, and “CH” ratings if he is playing a forward position.

Use a minimum rating of “1” in all of the above cases.

Time

Below the hockey rink is the game timer, slotted into minutes and seconds as shown below:

One pawn is placed on the minute marker (at “20” for the beginning of a period), while the other is placed on the “:00” position. Each play uses up an allotted time amount, as per the table below:

In short, move the clock each time you roll the dice except on the second part of a shot sequence.

Each time the clock passes the “:00” mark and returns to the left (either “:50” or “:40”), remember to move the minute marker down by one.

Shifts

In the basic game, keeping track of shifts is accomplished by keeping track of lines. At the beginning of a line’s shift, a team’s pawn (either red or blue) is placed under the seconds column across from the “2”. When the seconds time pawn reaches this point over the course of the next minute, move the pawn up so it is across from the “1”. When the seconds time pawn reaches this point again, the players have been on the ice for two minutes and need to conduct a line change. Simply assume that a new line takes over at that time, and that the puck is in possession of the player replacing the one who last had it.

For example, the blue team’s players were put on the ice at 18:30. The blue pawn is therefore placed under the “:40” mark across from the “2”, as shown:

When the seconds pawn returns to or passes the “:30” mark, the blue team’s pawn is elevated to the “1” position, as shown:

When the “seconds” pawn again returns or passes the “:30” mark, it is time for the blue team to conduct a line change. Don’t forget to move the blue team’s pawn back to the “2” position!

The “minutes” section has been constructed using alternating colors (at this writing, blue and green), so that you are reminded to make a line change every time the minute pawn is moved to a green circle.

You may opt to use the more advanced shift rules as you get accustomed to the game mechanics.

Forechecking

In order to prevent the other team from easily moving the puck up the ice, and in order to create more turnover possibilities in the opponent’s end (and thereby causing more scoring possibilities), you may place forecheckers in your offensive end when the other team is in possession of the puck in that end.

The defensive team chooses how many forecheckers to place by putting on-ice tokens on the game board in their offensive (attacking) zone. Only the three forwards (center, left wing, right wing) may be placed in the other player’s defensive zone. The other players are assumed to be in the neutral/defensive zone. Placing too many forecheckers has the disadvantage of creating scoring
opportunities for your opponent if they are able to move the puck in to your end of the ice.

After being placed, a team’s forecheckers may not be moved again until one of the following happens:

1. the offensive team turns the puck over
2. a loose puck occurs
3. there is a play stoppage
4. after the offensive team takes a shot

 

Puck Actions

On the far left of each skater’s ratings are seven columns labeled as shown:

This block represents “puck actions” which will be taken in the “Defensive Zone” (D) when the team is at Even Strength (ES), on the Power Play (PP), and Short-Handed (SH), in the “Neutral Zone” (N), and the “Offensive Zone” (O), which is also sliced into Even Strength, Power Play, and Short-Handed columns.

Each of the columns have different types of puck actions, such as “PD” (pass vs. defense), “SC” (skating vs. checking), “DC” (dump or clear), “ICE” (icing), “OFF” (offsides), “INJ” (injury), “PN” (penalty), and the shot types “WS” (wrist shot) and “SS” (slap shot). There is also a “⁂” (wild card) action, which allows the coach to choose from most of the other actions above (exceptions would be penalties, injuries, and offsides), and a “WP”, which means a “weird play” may have occurred.

The ranges in each column are from 00 to 99. On the player (Mark Bollinger) listed on page 2, a passing (“PD”) action will occur on rolls from 00-40 when the player is in his defensive (“D”) zone at even strength (“ES”). On rolls from 41-59, a skating (“SC”) action will occur. The player will attempt to clear (“DC”) the puck on rolls from 60-74, and will ice (“ICE”) the puck on rolls from 75-80. On roll
82, the player will either be called for and/or instigate a penalty (“PN”), and on rolls 83-84 will suffer some sort of injury (“INJ”). Rolls from 85-98 are wild cards (“⁂”). Bollinger will initiate a “WP” (weird play) on roll 99 in this situation, but will not on a power play ("PP" column) or when his team is shorthanded ("SH" column) as those blocks have been grayed-out. While in the neutral zone or offensive zone, and under power play or short-handed situations, these actions change accordingly.

Identifying Defenders

Identifying defenders is done with the six-sided “polyhedral” die (the one with numbers rather than dots), which is referred to as the “d6p” (d6-polyhedral). For example, when Bollinger has control of the puck in his defensive zone and a d6p roll of “2” comes up, the defense’s center (“➋”) is involved in the play if he was present (in this case, as a forechecker in Bollinger's defensive zone). If the
player identified by the d6p is not in the same zone as the puck, then the result of the play is automatically read from the puck-handler’s ratings (the offensive player is “unopposed”).

A Walk-Through…

The offensive team (Team 1) has the puck in its defensive zone, section M2, with Bollinger, a center (“➁”), in possession. Note that the “M2” designation isn’t very important at this point, since the team is in its defensive end. The “M” however, means that the puck is located in the “middle” of the zone.  We will place the plastic puck and Bollinger’s token with a “2” on it as shown below, to indicate that he is in possession of the puck:

The defensive team elects to put its left wing (“➊”) and center (“➋”) as forecheckers in their offensive zone (Bollinger’s defensive zone), and the rest of the players (“➌”, “➍” and “➎”) in its neutral/defensive zone. Note that it doesn’t matter which portion of the zone…left, middle, right…that the forecheckers are placed. It also doesn’t matter where the other players are placed, so long as
they are not in their attacking zone. In the diagram above, they are placed near the blue line, but they just as easily could have been placed in the neutral zone, or one in the neutral zone and two anywhere in the defensive zone. In all cases, they defend when ever identified by the d6p when the puck is in either the neutral zone or the defensive zone.

The offensive team now rolls all 6 dice to begin its play. The dice roll is as follows:

The two d10 are combined (colored die first, white die second) in order to see what type of action is taking place with the puck. Since the colored d10 roll of “5” and a white d10 roll of “4” combine for a “54”, the puck action type is “sc” (found on Bollinger’s card under the “D”, “ES” column,) which means that the player with the puck will attempt to skate it into the next zone, and the defensive player (if close enough to hinder the play) will use his “CH” (checking) column to try to stop him.

Note that the “D” column, which is used whenever the puck handler is in his defensive zone, has three sub-columns; “ES”, “PP”, “SH”. The “ES” column is used on all even-strength plays, the “PP” column is used when the puck handler’s team is on the power play, and the “SH” column is used when his team is short-handed. On Bollinger’s card under the “D”, “ES” column rolls “00” through “40” are “pd” (passing vs. defense). Rolls “41” through “59” are “sc” (skate vs. checking). Rolls “60” through “74” are “dc” (dump or clear). Rolls “75” through “80” are “ice” (icing), while rolls “81” through "82" is a penalty, “84” is an injury, rolls “85” through “98” are “⁂” (wild cards), on which the offensive coach may elect any applicable puck action he chooses, unless you choose to use the strategy cards mentioned previously, and roll "99" is a "wp" (weird play.)

The d6p was a “1”. This means that the other team’s left wing (player “➊”) is identified as the matchup opponent, provided he is in the same area as the puck. Since “➊” is one of the forecheckers in the same zone as Bollinger, he is recognized as the defender on the play. Had the d6p roll been a “2”, player “➋” would have been the defender, as he too is a forechecker. Rolls “3” through “6” would have indicated that Bollinger was unopposed, and whatever action he was taking would be successful.

To determine who wins the matchup, we look at Bollinger’s “SK” rating, which is “15” in this example, subtract the defender’s “CH” rating, which we will assume is a “3”, and compare the result to the d20. If the d20 result is less than or equal to the result, the result of the play will be read off Bollinger’s “SK” column. If not, the result will be read off the defender’s “CH” column. In this case, d20 rolls from
1-12 (15 - 3 = 12) would result in the play result being found on Bollinger’s card, while rolls of 13-20 would be read off the “CH” column of the other team’s center. If no defender was recognized by the d6p, the result would automatically have been read off of Bollinger.

In this case, since the d20 roll was a “11”, the play result will be found on Bollinger’s “SK” column.

The two d6 total was “8”. Looking under Bollinger’s “SK” column, across from “8”, we see the play result of “▲”, which means Bollinger has now successfully skated straight ahead 2 zones from his defensive zone into the other team’s offensive zone.

The rink now appears like this:

 Notice that the defensive tokens haven’t moved…and they won’t, until either a turnover, loose puck, play stoppage, or shot occurs. Therefore it is very important to set your number of forecheckers reasonably! Too many will lead to weaknesses in the other areas of the ice. 

The offensive zone is actually nine different zones, laid out in a 3x3 grid, as shown:

A “▲” results in a two zone movement. The diagram below shows the possible two-zone movements on a “▲” result:

 Likewise, results of “▶” and “◀” also result in two zone movements forward, and also a lateral movement of one zone either to the right or to the left. Shown below would be some examples of a “▶” result (two zones forward, one zone to the right:

 Note that if the puck is already located in the right-hand portion of the rink, a “▶” basically turns to a “▲”.

Since the result was “▲”, the puck is placed as shown:

Had the result symbol been a “△” instead, the puck would have advanced three zones total and would now be in level 2, as shown.

 Had the result symbol been a “▶” instead, the puck would have advanced forward two zones and to the right, and would now be in offensive zone “R3”, as shown below:

The "Levels" shown in the diagrams above play a huge role in determining the quality of shots, and coincide with the zones in the goalie's "shot quality" section.

Shots targeting other sections, such as "a2", would similarly use the rows corresponding to Levels 1, 2, and 3, as shown below, and so forth.

Since Bollinger still has possession of the puck, we re-roll all 6 dice to see what he does with it. This time, the following dice are rolled:

The d10 combo is “12”. Looking under the “O” (offensive zone), “ES” (even-strength) column on Bollinger, we see that d10 combos from 00-12 give the puck action of “PD” (passing vs. defense). The d6p was a “2”. Since player “➋” is still back in Bollinger’s defensive zone as a forechecker, this means that Bollinger is “unchallenged”, and so he will automatically win the matchup and the result of
the play will be read from his ratings.

We now look under the “PS” column across from the d6 total of “8”. This time we see the result of “▲Ⓐ”. Translation: the pass was successful, and it goes to the offensive player with the highest “recipient” rating (excluding the passer), advancing the puck two zones (in this case, to zone “M1”).

Notice that the puck now has disc “➄” on it rather than Bollinger’s “➁”. The puck is now in possession of a new player, our right defenseman (“➄”) Roman Hammer, who had the on-ice players’ highest “recipient” rating of “5” (see Hammer’s “G(5)” rating at the bottom of his card below), so we will use his ratings for our next play.

The dice are again rolled:

Since our right defenseman, Roman Hammer, is in his offensive zone and his team is at even strength, we look under “O”, “ES” in order to find out what the d10 combo “45” calls for. Rolls 37-63 are “ws”, or “wrist shots”.

If a defender is close enough to a shooter, he may be able to block the shot. Hammer’s “W” (wrist shot) rating is 11. Assuming that the defender’s “BL” (block) rating is a 2, Hammer would be able to get the shot on goal with d20 rolls from 1-9 (11 – 2 = 9). Rolls from 10-20 would be blocked by the defender. Since our d20 roll was a 6, the shot goes through toward the goal.

Look in the shooter’s shot section under "1" (d6 with black dots) and across from the "3" (d6 with white dots) to see where the puck is targeted. We find the code “b1” listed there. This means that the puck is headed toward zone “b1” on the goalie. Since Hammer is shooting from section "M1", we cross-reference zone "b1" with level 1 in the goalie's "shot quality" section, as shown. The color residing in this position is "red". Had the shot been taken from level 2, it would have been "orange", and had the shot been taken from level 3, it would have been "yellow". Red is a very high-quality shot! Let's see if Hammer scored…

Knowing that the puck is headed toward the net, we now re-roll to see if the shot scores:

We have already ascertained that the shot taken by Hammer is on-goal. Now we need to see if it has "drifted" from its original heading, tipped by another player, or if the goalie was screened on the play. The d6 combination this time is "35" (d6 black 3, d6 white 5), so we use the "drift section" of the shooter's card, as shown.

Listed there is the result “↳”. This means that, although the shooter has targeted zone “b1” as found previously, his shot drifts a little down and to the right, targeting zone “c2” instead.  This means that the shot wasn't as good as we had originally thought…perhaps Hammer "didn't get all of it."

The color on the goalie's shot quality section in level 1 of zone "c2" is blue.

 Now that we know the quality of the shot, we check the goalie's "scoring grid" section to see if the shot is a goal. The d10 combo was "24" (colored "2", white "4".) Looking at the goalie card, we see a "➋"…

 A “➋” means the shot was on goal, the goalie made the save, and the center has possession of the rebound. Which team’s center? Since the result was
found on the goalie’s card and the symbol is black, the player identified is on the other team (a “➁” would have been the center on the goalie’s team). Therefore, Bollinger (our center) now has possession of the puck. Where? The d20 roll of "11" tells us that the puck is recovered in "M2" (that's what the number ranges on the game board represent.)

The defense’s forecheckers (if any) have now had enough time to get back down the ice to help play defense. All 5 defenders are now located in their team’s neutral/defensive zone.

Now that we know who has control of the puck, we re-roll all six dice:

Looking under Mark Bollinger’s (the shooting team’s center) “O”, “ES” column (since he has taken possession of the puck in offensive zone “M2” and his team is at even-strength), we find that he will take a wrist shot (rolls “22” through “54” are all wrist shots).

We will assume that the defender on the play (identified as the right wing, “➌”, by the d6p roll) has a “BL” rating of 3. Subtracting it from Bollinger’s “W” rating of 14, and comparing the result to the d20 roll of 6, we see that the shot is not blocked and is headed toward the goal (14 – 3 = 11, and the d20 roll of 6 is less than or equal to 11).

The two d6 are now combined to see where the puck is headed. In this case, Bollinger’s shot is headed toward goalie zone “b4”, as the d6 combo was a "21". Referring to the goalie's shot quality section, we see that this is a "yellow" quality shot (remember, the shot was being taking from level 2,) as shown:

We now re-roll all six dice for part two of the shot process:

As in the previous example, we need to see if the shot drifts. Cross-referencing
the d6 combination of "52" in the “drift” section of the shooter’s card, we see an empty spot. This means the shot does not drift, and is still headed toward goalie zone “b4”.


On "yellow" quality shots, any square in the goalie location section which is colored yellow, blue, or violet will result in a goal. Since this shot is off a rebound, we add 5 points (the goalie's “Reb” rating is 5) to the d10 combo of "42", giving us an adjusted total of "47". Cross-referencing on the goalie “scoring grid” section, we see that this time the color there is violet…

...Bollinger has scored! Had the shot not been a rebound (and therefore, the 5-point bonus not been added,) a "42" would have resulted in "➍", which would have been a rebound to the attacking team's left defenseman.