Best Air Hockey Table

Air Hockey was invented in 1969 by a team of Brunswick Billiards engineers, they had set about trying to create a table game that used a frictionless surface. Although they had designed it in 1969 it was left and not revisited until 1972 when another Brunswick employee, Bob Lemieux, refined the design. Air Hockey was found to be a great success and was very popular in the 1970's with various tournaments being set up across America. In 1975 the United States Air-Table-Hockey Association(USAA) was formed as an official sanctioning body.

An air hockey table is comprised of a flat playing surface with surrounding bumper areas, which are to stop the pucks or the hockey mallets from going off the table. The table also has two slots which are at either end of the table, these are the goals. Also at both ends of the table but below the playing surface are the puck returns, these gather the pucks when the fall through the goals.

The surface area of the air hockey table is perforated with tiny holes, through these holes air is released with the aid of varying types of machinery. This means that there is a cushion of air on the playing surface which significantly reduces friction and thus speeds of the travel of the puck, making it a very fast game. Some models of tables use an extra slick surface as an alternative to using air creating devises, which makes them far cheaper to manufacture and buy but technically these are not air hockey tables. There are also pucks on the market that create their own battery operated air cushion but these have a tendency to break from the mallets hitting them.

• At the start of play a coin toss decides who first gets possession of the puck.
• The first player to score 7 goals wins, a goal is also allowed for the puck crossing the horizontal line in front of the goal even if it does not enter the goal itself.
• Stopping the puck by placing the mallet on top of it is a foul, this gives over possession to the other player.
• Once the puck enters a players half of the table, they have 7 seconds to field it over to the other players half, if there is failure to do so a foul is committed and the other player receives possession of the puck.
• The puck can only be struck with the mallet and not by hand or otherwise, a foul is committed if done incorrectly.
• The puck can only be stopped by a mallet and not by hand or arm, if this happens a free shot on goal is awarded.
• Each player is not permitted to strike the puck in the other players half of the table, if this happens a foul is awarded and the other player gets possession.
• If a player causes the puck to leave the table by striking it the other player receives possession.