Home advantage

Home advantage also referred to as home ice advantage is a term to describe certain conditions that give the team hosting a game a little edge.

Some of these include:
 * Having the last chance to change lines during stoppages in play. This would give the host team a chance to offset the strength of the other team's players on the ice such as putting their checking line up against the other team's best scoring line.


 * Being able to "sleep in your own bed" and not having to travel (usually) and being in a hotel when a team has several home games in a row.


 * In former years the size of a rink and layout was not as standardized. Most notably would be the former Boston Garden which gave the Boston Bruins a tremendous set of advantages such as the penalty boxes being right next to the Bruins bench with the visiting teams bench being on the other side of the ice centered on the red line while the Bruins bench was also slightly off center to the red line but closer to the Bruins defending end for two periods; making it easier for the Bruins to get defenders changed off during penalty killing situations. They also had direct access to their locker room at the end of their bench while the visiting teams' locker room was via the zamboni entrance doors at one end of the ice requiring a player or staff member to go to the locker room during stoppages in play or through the common area where fans would go the concession stands or restrooms. A few other advantages included the size of the sheet of ice it was 191 feet by 83 feet and was one of the last NHL rinks to be of a non-standard size and layout. The lack of air conditioning made the arena unbearably hot during later rounds of the playoffs as the 1988 Stanley Cup Finals and 1990 Stanley Cup Finals both of which were marked with games being stopped due (and a 1988 game being susupended) to power transforms blowing in the area. Fog would often be an issue during these games as well.