Free Ice hockey scoreboard

Why score Ice hockey with ScoreZen

• ✓One-tap scoring, built for Ice hockey
• ✓Share the live score by QR code or link
• ✓Free for spectators — no app to install to watch
• ✓Keeps working if the connection drops
• ✓34 sports, tournaments and standings included

How Ice hockey scoring works

Each goal is worth 1 point; there are no different goal values. The score is simply the number of goals each team has scored. The team with the most goals at the end of the game wins. In overtime or a shootout, the decisive goal determines the winner.

Match format

A game has 3 periods of 20 minutes of effective time, with two intermissions (often 15 minutes) to resurface the ice. If tied, a sudden-death overtime and then a shootout may decide the winner. The duration and overtime format vary by federation and match type (group stage or knockout).

How to win

The team with the most goals at the end of regulation wins. If the score is level, the winner is decided by sudden-death overtime and, if needed, a shootout (depending on the format).

Recommended ScoreZen setup

Set up ice hockey in goal-based scoring mode (points = goals, +1 per goal). Use the 'Official' preset with 3 periods for a regulation game, or 'Casual' for a free score. Optionally enable a goal target for short friendly games.

How a hockey goal is actually credited

The goal goes to the last player on the scoring team to touch the puck before it crosses the line, not to whoever shot hardest. A deflection off an attacker's skate or body counts, and the goal belongs to the player it deflected off. If a defending player shoots the puck into his own net, the last attacker to touch it is credited and no assist is given; if it ends up in the net off a defender in any other manner, assists may still be awarded.

Assists: two at most, to the players who touched the puck immediately before the scorer, provided no defender played or had control of it in between. A defender who plays or controls the puck cuts the chain, which is why a long, pretty sequence often produces one assist and not two.

Standings differ. In IIHF competition, a win inside the three 20-minute periods is worth three points, a win in overtime or the shootout two, the beaten team one, a regulation defeat nothing; the French championships use the same 3-2-1-0 scale. The NHL keeps the older scale: two points for any win, one for an overtime or shootout defeat.

The shootout is the trap on the sheet. However many attempts are converted, only the decisive one changes the result: the winner ends one goal ahead of the score at the end of overtime. In the NHL, the losing goalkeeper is not charged with that extra goal against, and the shooter is not credited with a goal in his personal statistics.

(IIHF Official Rule Book 2025/26, rules 33.2, 77, 78.1 to 78.4 and 84; NHL Official Rules, rule 78 - Goals and rule 84.4 - Shootout; FFHG, Règlement des activités sportives 2025/2026.)

The scoresheet mistakes that cost hockey clubs

First mistake: the clock. The scoreboard counts down from 20:00 to 0:00, but the sheet wants the time of the goal as elapsed match time, previous periods added on. A goal with 6:12 left in the second period is 33:48. And when tenths of a second are shown in the last minute of a period, the time of the goal is rounded up to the whole second. Settle that convention before the warm-up.

Second: letting players out early. A minor ends on a goal only if the team scored against was short-handed with a minor on the clock, and then only the one with the least time left on the clock dies. A major releases nobody. A ten-minute misconduct is a different animal: the player is replaced immediately, so his team is never a man down, and he only comes back at the first stoppage after his ten minutes have run.

Third: coincidental minors. Both teams complete, one minor each at the same stoppage: each side puts its player in the box and replaces him immediately, so the strength stays even and nothing shows as a short-handed penalty, the two players stay in the box until the first stoppage after their time expires, and no goal releases them. Fourth: a bench minor carries no shirt number - the coach designates a player to serve it - and a penalty served by a substitute is recorded against the player who committed the foul.

Last, the statistics everyone rushes at the end. Plus/minus is worth something only if somebody writes down every skater on the ice at the goal, and only goals scored at even strength or short-handed count: a power-play goal gives nobody a plus. Do not forget the sixth skater when the goalkeeper is pulled. A shot that hits the post is not a shot on goal unless it goes in.

Same sixty minutes, four different rulebooks

The sixty minutes never move: three 20-minute periods of actual play, from a U15 game to a world final. The intermissions do: 15 minutes under IIHF rules, 18 in the NHL, and in France 15 minutes, 17 in Division 1. The clock stops at every whistle, so an hour of hockey fills an evening.

Overtime separates competitions. An IIHF preliminary round plays five minutes of sudden death, three skaters and a goalkeeper a side, then a shootout of five different shooters; playoff and bronze medal games get ten minutes of the same 3-on-3; the gold medal game plays overtime period after overtime period, 15-minute intermissions in between, until somebody scores. The NHL plays five minutes 3-on-3 then a three-shooter shootout, and in the Stanley Cup playoffs full 20-minute sudden-death periods after a 15-minute intermission. In France, overtime is five minutes in the regular season and ten in the play-offs, except in the deciding game - game 7 of the Ligue Magnus final, game 5 of the Division 1 and Division 2 finals - which is played until a goal is scored, with no shootout.

Youth hockey changes the game itself. In France, body checking is banned in U9, U11 and U13, in elite women's hockey, in the Trophée fédéral and Challenge loisirs, and in 3-on-3 - body contact stays legal in the women's categories. All those categories still play three periods of 20 minutes. In IIHF men's junior hockey, any major penalty in a U20 or U18 game brings an automatic game misconduct and ejection.

Rosters and ice differ too. The IIHF allows 22 players, at most 20 skaters and 2 goalkeepers, and a team needs at least 5 skaters plus a goalkeeper on the ice to start. The NHL dresses 18 skaters and 2 goalkeepers. France asks for 10 field players, a goalkeeper and a coach at the opening face-off, and lets a game start with 8 field players provided the sheet is put right by the second period; the ceiling is 20 field players and 2 goalkeepers, 18 and 2 in Division 1, Division 2 and the Ligue Magnus at weekends. An IIHF rink is 60 m long and 26 to 30 m wide; an NHL rink is 200 feet by 85.

What ScoreZen changes for ice hockey

You keep the score from your phone, with the three 20-minute periods and the countdown clock already set for hockey. One tap per goal, undo for the one you tapped by mistake. The penalty button starts a two-minute countdown that runs on playing time: it holds still at the whistle and starts again with the puck.

Everyone else follows by link, or by a QR code taped to the door of the rink: grandparents, the injured defenceman, parents driving back from the away game. Spectators are free, unlimited, and never need an account. Inside, TV mode fills the arena screen, the transparent overlay drops the live score into OBS, and the season publishes as a calendar feed.

For a tournament, ScoreZen runs knockout with an optional third-place game, home-and-away championship, pools then a final bracket, Swiss system, and best-of-3 or best-of-5 series. The standings apply the 3-2-1-0 scale by themselves. And one QR code covers the whole tournament: every player finds their own game inside it.

Afterwards the replay and the vertical story are built to be shared, the club site embeds the widget, the schedule exports to CSV, and a public read-only API needs no key. In a cold rink with no signal it keeps counting and resynchronises when the connection returns, in 25 languages. Three trial matches are free for life, then one payment of €1.99unlocks it for life.

Frequently asked questions