Every writer should be well versed with Style Guides and THW supports the usage of the AP Style Guide. We also have a few items that might be more specific to The Hockey Writers so we thought we’d develop our own Style Guide.
Punctuation and Related Matters
- Spacing after a period. Only 1 space comes after a period.
- The Oxford comma, we use it. example: the game was full of hits, great saves, and solid defense.
- Double Hyphen, the use of “–” is Not valid, it stems from old printing when a printer would convert it to a “m dash”. We do not use double-hyphens.
Height
Always digit then descriptor: 5 foot 10 inches unless used as an adjective.
He stood 6 foot 3 inches.
The 6-foot-1-inch defenseman
Titles
- When using numbers in a Title please use the digit. ex “Top 6 NHL Defensemen”
- No punctuation in titles
- The Curious Case of… is never a good idea for a Title
Expressions
NHL Draft
When mentioning a particular draft year, whether it’s in the content or as a TAG use the following format: year-NHL-draft ex. “2012 NHL draft”
Stanley Cup – after introducing it Capitalized is it then referred to as ‘the cup’ or ‘the Cup’ ? It should be ‘the Cup’ as it is a proper identifier and not a generic term.
backup not back up or back-up, when referring to a goaltending position. Of course ‘back up’ is valid when referring to the action to back up.
beside or besides Beside means “next to”, while Besides means “apart from” ex. the best player ever besides Gretzky
defenceman or defenseman ? It’s a Canadian vs. US thing. Typically using a ‘c’ is British/Canadian while in the US they mainly use the ‘s’, both are fine (ignore spellcheck on this one).
faceoff – this is the noun, to face off would be the verb
forecheck – not fore-check
homestand – not home stand
leaderboard – not leader board
matchup – not “match-up”
Resign vs. Re-sign Resign means to quit a position while re-sign means signing a new contract.
Setup or Set Up Setup is a noun: the setup on the power play was dynamite – set up when a verb: they were set up to fail
Shoo-in not Shoe-in [explanation]
Player Names
Sven Baertschi Not Sven Bartschi
TAGS
- No nicknames
- No NHL or AHL team names
- Tournaments: WJHC, U-18 WJHC
- 2015 NHL Draft – is the way we would Tag Draft posts, don’t include the word Entry
- We can use popular team Hashtags (do not include the # symbol), example: stlblues, preds, habs
Teams sub-topics
TeamName Topic example: Lightning Goaltending or Penguins Draft
acceptable sub-topic Tags: Draft, History, Management, Goaltending, Prospects
Grammar
Mould or Mold (both are correct, just British/Canadian vs. American English).
