Invented by three Brunswick engineers – Phil Crossman, Bob Kendrick and Brad Baldwin, air hockey is one of the simplest indoor games and involves two players in action across a table. An air hockey table, a puck and two paddles or mallets are all that is needed to play a game of air hockey. With two goals on either ends of the table, each player’s aim is to shoot the puck into the opponent’s goal and score seven points first so as to win the game.

After a coin toss decides who will possess the puck first, a game of air hockey begins and points are counted as soon as the puck breaks the horizontal plane inside the opponent’s goal. Each player gets seven seconds to shoot the puck back across the table’s centre line in order to avoid a foul or forfeit its possession.

A foul is committed if the player places the mallet atop the puck; in such a situation, the opponent is given possession of the puck. The puck should not be touched by anything but the mallet. Goaltending in a game of air hockey happens when the player uses any other object to stop the puck from entering the goal area; this gives the opponent the opportunity of a free shot.

The player should not hit the puck while it is on the opposite side of the table’s centre line and should also avoid crossing the centre line with the mallet. If the player causes the puck to leave the table, a foul is called and the opponent receives possession of the puck.

Correct form is crucial to the game – the mallet should always be held behind the knob instead of the top to ensure better wrist action and speed. The player should always defend his side of the table from the centre line and keeping the mallet at a distance of about eight inches to a foot from the goal helps the player to effectively guard the goal in air hockey, besides enabling a quick reaction to both straight shots as well as bank shots from the opponent.

The player should never be in haste and should always be in full control of the mallet and the air hockey table. In order to score maximum points in a game of air hockey, the player should always aim to shoot for the corners and at great speed. The player should always try to steer clear of the rails of the table as it could decrease the speed of the puck on its way to the opponent’s goal.

The most popular drifts or set patterns of the puck’s motion across the air hockey table that can evade the opponent’s expectations are the centre, the diamond, the diagonal and the L. The player can strike the puck at different locations of the mallet and thereby hit groups of shots with apparently the same delivery but in opposite directions.

Air hockey is played competitively at various tournaments across the world.