Reading Ice Hockey Diagrams

Overview

Many of the documents here carry rink diagrams — a picture of the ice with players and arrows on it. They use a notation borrowed from published coaching material, and five minutes here will make every diagram in the rest of the guide readable at a glance. You do not need to memorise it; come back when a symbol is unfamiliar.

These diagrams use a drill notation drawn from two published symbol keys. The two disagree in places, so it is worth two minutes to know which is which.

Diagram from rink map and glossary

Where each symbol comes from. Five of the eight line symbols — forward skating, skating with the puck, passing, shooting and backward skating — are drawn the same way in both keys, so those are uncontroversial. The other three are not:

• A line ending in two bars is called stopping here, following the Hockey Eastern Ontario sheet. The IIHF key draws that same glyph and calls it a sudden stop; its plain stop is a pair of slashes.
• A line ending in one bar is checking pressure, and comes from the Hockey Eastern Ontario sheet only. The IIHF key has no such symbol — and in it, one bar is half of a sudden stop.
• Bars across a line are lateral crossovers. The published glyph is a bare picket of bars with no line through it and no direction; the arrow and the line are added here, because a picket that does not say which way you are going is no use in a play diagram. The IIHF key's nearest equivalent is a different shape again.

Players follow the IIHF key's axis. A circle is your own team; a triangle is the opposition — shape carries the team, which is IIHF International Symbols §21.1's convention and not the Hockey Eastern Ontario sheet's, where shape carries position instead. That matters more than it sounds: if you meet the HEO sheet elsewhere, its triangles mean defencemen, not opponents. An X is a pylon — a practice cone — and never a player, in both keys and here.

Two departures on top of that, so you are not caught out:

1. The letters inside a glyph are roles, not positions. The IIHF key puts a numeral inside — 1 goaltender, 2 right defence, 3 left defence, 4 right wing, 5 centre, 6 left wing. They are not used here, because F1, F2 and F3 are roles set by order of arrival and not people, and a numeral would say "F1 is the centre" where the text takes care to say it is not. So the glyph carries whatever label the surrounding section uses.
2. Circle and triangle map to your team and theirs, not to offensive and defensive. The IIHF key is written for a coach drawing both ends; these diagrams are drawn from your team's point of view, so you can tell at a glance which shape is you.

⚠️ Do not call this notation "international" to anyone. A key of that name exists — it is one of the two above — and what is drawn here is not it. None of this has been checked against how any particular club or coach actually draws things; if your coach's whiteboard disagrees, their whiteboard wins.

What a diagram is and is not. A diagram shows one moment. A movement that only makes sense over time needs two diagrams, so where you see a pair, read them as a sequence or as two answers to the same instant — the captions say which. And a picture is the most absolute-looking thing on a page: where a caption says a detail is a coaching choice, believe the caption, not the picture.

Common Mistakes

• Reading a diagram as the way hockey is played. A picture is the most absolute-looking thing on a page. Almost every diagram here shows one system among several, and the caption says so — believe the caption.
• Taking a shape as a place to stand. Positions in a diagram are drawn at one instant. Where the play moves, the shape moves with it.
• Assuming your coach uses these symbols. Nothing here has been checked against how any particular club draws things. If your coach's whiteboard disagrees, their whiteboard wins.
• Expecting a diagram to show a whole play. One frame shows one moment. Where a movement only makes sense over time you will find two diagrams, and the captions say whether they are a sequence or two answers to the same instant.

Key Takeaways

1. A circle is your own team; a triangle is the opposition. Shape carries the team, so the diagrams work in either theme and without relying on colour.
2. An X is a pylon — a practice cone — and never a player.
3. Solid arrow, forward skating. Long smooth wave, skating with the puck. Dashed arrow, a pass. Double line, a shot. Those four cover most of what you will meet.
4. The letters inside a glyph are roles, not positions. F1 is whoever arrives first, not the centre.
5. Where a caption says a detail is a coaching choice, it is. Ask which version your team runs rather than taking the picture as the answer.

Sources — retrieved 30 July 2026

IIHF Coach Development Program, Level I (Tactical), §21.1 "International Symbols": PDF — the player-glyph axis, and most of the line symbols. sha256 9b195d03…, 750,071 bytes, 2002.

"International Drill Symbols", Hockey Eastern Ontario NCCP Development 1 clinic handout: PDF — the source of "checking pressure" and "lateral crossovers", which the IIHF key does not define. sha256 d0cfeca1…, 309,926 bytes.