How Many Calories Does Hockey Burn?

Hockey calories by weight & duration

The roughly 562 calories per hour is an estimate calculated for a 155-pound person using a standardized MET value, so your actual burn will be higher or lower depending on your weight, fitness level, and how hard the game runs. Log your sessions in the Mariposas app to track your output over time and see how your numbers shift as your conditioning improves.

Calculated as MET (8) × body weight (kg) × hours. How this works.

What to expect in a hockey class

A first session typically opens with a warm-up, stick-handling or passing drills, and a positional walkthrough before scrimmage play begins. The pace in drills feels manageable at first, but once live play starts the intensity spikes quickly because you're reacting to other people rather than controlling the tempo yourself. Expect your legs to feel the lateral skating strides or sharp cuts almost immediately, and expect gaps in your cardiovascular fitness to show up around the ten-minute mark of sustained play.

Tips for your first hockey class

• Focus on positioning and staying close to your assignment rather than chasing the puck everywhere. New players burn huge amounts of energy by running all over the surface, which leads to early exhaustion and leaves defensive gaps.
• Get comfortable with your skates or footwear before worrying about stick skills. The ability to stop, change direction, and accelerate in control is the foundation everything else is built on.
• Keep your knees bent and your center of gravity low during play. Standing upright feels natural but it slows your lateral movement dramatically and makes you easier to knock off the puck.
• Talk to your teammates constantly, even just calling your position or saying you're open. Hockey relies on audio cues because players are often outside your field of vision, and new players who stay quiet tend to get caught flat-footed on fast transitions.

What affects how many calories hockey burns

The 562 calorie-per-hour figure reflects a 155-pound person playing at a moderate-to-vigorous level, and the actual number climbs with body weight and effort: a heavier player or one taking longer shifts, playing defense with heavy physical contact, or skating at a high level will burn considerably more. Short shifts with near-maximal effort followed by bench rest create an interval-like pattern that can push intensity higher than sustained steady-state cardio, while a casual pickup game with long stoppages will pull the burn down toward the lower end of the MET range.

Three things move your number most: body weight (a heavier body burns more for the same activity, that's why the table runs from 125 to 225 lb), duration (calories scale with time), and intensity. A hockey you push hard burns more than an easy one, because effort is what the MET value of 8 represents, an average for this activity. Your fitness level and how much you rest between efforts shift it too, so treat these as a solid estimate rather than an exact count.

How we calculate hockey calories

Every number here uses the standard energy-expenditure formula: calories ≈ MET × body weight (kg) × time (hours). The MET value of 8 for hockey comes from the published Compendium of Physical Activities, the same reference researchers and fitness trackers use. We convert your weight to kilograms and multiply through, no fudge factors. See our methodology for the full formula and sources.