Card Hockey
Match ranks to score goals for your country across a fast three-round card-hockey match.
Overview
Card Hockey is a four-player partnership card game played with a standard 52-card deck. It is a traditional game, best known in Canada, in which matching the rank sitting on the table scores a goal for your side. A match runs three rounds.
The player directly opposite you is your teammate; the two players either side of you are the opposition. Goals are counted per team, never per player, so a goal your partner scores is worth exactly as much as one of your own.
All 52 cards are dealt out one at a time around the table, 13 to each player. Nothing is held back in a stock — every card in the deck is played before a round can end.
Choose your countries
Before the first card is dealt, a Select Teams screen asks you to pick a country for your side and a country for the opposition. There are twelve national teams: Canada, United States, Russia, France, Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Norway, Denmark and Finland.
The two sides must be different countries — cycling one team onto the other automatically skips past it. Your choices are saved, so the same matchup comes back the next time you play.
The chosen flags are used throughout the match. Each side’s flag sits above its running score, and every player at the table is shown with the flag of the team they are playing for, which is the quickest way to keep track of who is your partner and who is not.
The cards
Ranks run Ace, 2 through 10, Jack, Queen, King. The Ace counts as rank one and plays as an ordinary low card, and Queens and Kings are ordinary as well. The Jack is the only card with a special role.
Suits do not affect scoring at all. Hearts, spades, diamonds and clubs are interchangeable; only the rank printed on the card matters. There is no trump suit and no requirement to follow suit, so on your turn any card in your hand is a legal play.
The match rank
The last ordinary card played sets the match rank. Play a card of that rank and you score a goal for your team.
The instant a goal is scored, the table is cleared and the match rank is wiped. Until someone plays a new ordinary card the display reads Blocked, and while it is blocked nothing can be scored.
A goal does not earn an extra turn. Once the goal has been acknowledged, play passes on to the next seat in the usual order — so the player sitting after the scorer leads into a fresh, open table.
Jacks
A Jack never sets a match rank. Playing one clears whatever rank is active and blocks the table.
A Jack never scores either — not even when Jack happens to be the current match rank. Playing a Jack onto a Jack is a second block, not a goal.
That makes the four Jacks purely defensive cards. A Jack does not create a chance for you; it takes one away from whoever plays next, who now has to open the table again before anyone can score.
Rounds and turn order
Play passes one seat at a time, one card per turn. A round ends only when every hand is empty, so all 52 cards are played in each of the three rounds.
Your teammate opens the first round. The lead then moves one seat per round, which means the opponent on that side opens round two and you open round three. Between rounds the full deck is reshuffled and dealt again from scratch.
Scoring and winning
Goals accumulate across all three rounds. There is no per-round reset and no bonus for winning an individual round — a goal in round one counts exactly as much as a goal in round three.
After the third round the team with more goals wins. Equal goals is a draw — there is no tiebreaker, no overtime and no shootout.
Settings
Settings lets you set a player name and choose a player avatar, a table background, a card back, and a card face style of Plain or Classic. Sound effects and haptic feedback can each be switched off. Your choices are remembered between sessions.
Controls
Tap a card in your hand to play it on your turn. Your hand is kept sorted by suit and then by rank, so a card stays roughly where you last saw it.
The current match rank is shown above the table and reads Blocked when no rank is active. Goals are announced as they happen and the table clears, and both team scores stay on screen, under their flags, throughout the three rounds.