Hockey Calories Burned Calculator

Calories burned playing hockey is the energy your body uses to skate or run, battle for the puck or ball, and recover between bursts. It depends mostly on your weight, how long you actually play, and whether it is a casual skate or a hard game.

What Hockey Calorie Estimates Measure

It counts all the energy you use playing hockey, including the share your body would burn at rest anyway, which makes it a gross figure. It does not read your heart rate, your oxygen use, or how much ice time you got unless you tell it.

The Formula

Calories (kcal) = MET x body weight (kg) x time (hours)

1 MET = about 1 kcal per kg of body weight per hour

METs rate an activity against sitting at rest. The hockey MET values are taken from the 2024 Adult Compendium of Physical Activities, which lists energy costs for adults aged 19 to 59¹.

How This Calculator Computes Your Result

Set your age group and weight (pounds or kilograms), choose the type of hockey, then enter your time. Behind the scenes, the tool changes pounds to kilograms, finds the hockey MET, and multiplies. You see calories rounded to the nearest 5 kcal and the MET to one decimal.

The tool gives your total, your calories per hour of play and per 30 minutes, and a table of all three hockey options at your weight. For players under 18 there is no result, as values for young people differ. If you are 60 or older, a note appears, because hockey is not in the Older Adult Compendium.

Time on the ice or field (optional). The default mode counts your whole session. If you spent much of it on the bench, switch to this mode and enter your playing minutes, or your number of shifts and average shift length in seconds. Bench time is left out and the result is labeled "active time only". Add your bench minutes to see the whole-session figure beside it. Your real total likely sits between the two, because you still burn energy on the bench while you recover.

The compendium has no separate entry for roller or inline hockey. If you play roller hockey, the ice hockey general value gives only a rough guide.

What Your Result Means

The figure is the energy that hockey session used, not a goal you need to reach. These are the hockey figures for a 70 kg (154 lb) adult:

These figures assume you played the whole time. If you were on the ice for 20 minutes of a one-hour slot, your active-time figure will be much lower. A heavier player burns more at the same effort.

What Changes Your Burn in Hockey

Shifts and bench time. Ice hockey is played in short, hard shifts. Each shift lasts about 30 to 80 seconds, and players then sit for several minutes before going out again². A typical player is on the ice for about 15 to 25 minutes of a 60-minute game² ³.

How hard each shift is. During a shift, heart rate climbs toward its maximum, and nearly half the distance is skated at high speed³. Long shifts on a short bench add up to more work than short shifts with plenty of rest.

Level of play. The compendium gives competitive ice hockey 10.0 METs and general play 8.0¹. Both are estimated values rather than direct measurements, so they carry more uncertainty than the field hockey value.

Field hockey substitutions. Field hockey uses rolling substitutions too⁶. Elite men in one study were in play for about 52 minutes per match and spent 60% of that time above 85% of their maximum heart rate⁵. Elite women were in play for about 44 minutes, at an average of 86% of peak heart rate⁶.

What Heart Rate Studies Show About Recreational Hockey

Beer league hockey is not gentle. The Hockey Heart Study monitored 113 men in a recreational league, average age 42.7, during games of 60 to 90 minutes⁴. On average, players spent 30 minutes above 85% of their age-predicted maximum heart rate. In about three of every four games monitored, heart rate went above the age-predicted maximum⁴.

The same study found slow heart rate recovery after play in most monitored games, and some abnormal heart tracing findings of uncertain meaning⁴. The authors concluded that middle-aged men playing recreational hockey may often be exercising too intensely⁴. Players returning to hockey after years off, or with heart risk factors, may want to talk to a doctor first.

Hockey Compared With Other Sports

Calories for 60 minutes of continuous play, from 2024 Adult Compendium values¹:

Minute for minute on the ice, competitive hockey sits at the top of this list. Over a full game, though, an ice hockey player spends most of the time on the bench², so the game total depends more on ice time than on this hourly figure. Other stick sports in the compendium include floorball (10.5 METs) and broomball (7.0 METs)¹.