Tie breaking

     Conditions for breaking ties are not laid down in the rules of field hockey. In many competitions (such as regular club competition, or in pool games in tournaments such as the Olympics), a tied result stands and the overall competition standings adjusted accordingly. Where tie-breaking is required, many associations will follow the procedure laid down in FIH tournament regulations which mandate 7.5 minutes each way of "golden goal" or "sudden death" extra time (i.e. the game ends as soon as one team scores). If scores are still level, then the game will be decided with penalty shootouts from the 23m line similar to Ice Hockey shootouts. Before 2011 matches were decided by penalty strokes, in much the same way that association football penalty shoot outs are conducted.

Other competitions may use alternative means of breaking a tie, for example, an extended period of golden goal extra time with a progressive reduction in the number of players each team can have on the field. The number of players is usually reduced to seven a side, and they play for ten minutes. At the end of this ten minutes, if there is still a tie, then they play another round of the ten-minute seven versus seven. After that, if the tie remains, the teams compete in penalty strokes. In the event that after two rounds of penalty strokes the tie still remains, the game goes to sudden-death penalty strokes to determine a winner. However, most games will end after one round of the seven versus seven, unless it is a game in which there needs to be a winner.