

Tables with a size of 40 inches or lower are more suitable for children, they also fit in more confined spaces so if you’re looking for an mini air hockey table for your dorm room or a similarly confined space, you will sometimes have no choice but to opt for a small sized table. If you are a competitive player looking to improve your skills, you would do better with an 8 foot table so you can practice your skills in an environment that is somewhat identical to tournament conditions. It depends entirely on your budget and the type of setup you have for your air hockey room, whether it’s a rec room or a simple living room or even your bedroom.Īir hockey ta bles can range anywhere from below 40 inches to full-size 8 foot tournament-grade models, so the size also depends on the type of air hockey you would like to play. Size is one of the most important aspects to consider when choosing your air hockey table. What to Look for in Regulation of Air Hockey Table 1. The upcoming list of air hockey tables consists of tables that we’ve found to fulfill the needs of most players, whether they are beginners, intermediate or professional-level air hockey enthusiasts. Now that the basics of air hockey tables have been established, we can delve deeper into the specific tables that we recommend for purchase. Whether you want to purchase an air hockey table for your own personal enjoyment or you have kids who spend hours playing air hockey at the local arcade, it can be a fun and worthwhile investment to purchase an air hockey table for your home. While fully-sized tournament-type tables are indeed still quite pricey, there are smaller and more affordable alternatives rapidly becoming available on the market.Īir hockey is a sport which has had an exponentially growing fanbase over the past thirty years, so the time is now to invest in. While air hockey is a game that is usually reserved for arcades and cinemas, air hockey tables are gradually becoming cheaper and more accessible to the average consumer.

Along with other table-based sports, such as pool and ping pong, there is a dedicated cult following to air hockey. In addition to the American market, air hockey has expanded into many other countries, such as Venezuela, Spain, Russia and the Czech Republic, so air hockey is by no means an isolated phenomenon. It is against the rules to lift your mallet and use it to stop the puck by placing it above the puck, and this would constitute a foul in the official rules of the game. The strategy used depends on your playstyle but it is encouraged to use the sides of the table (these are officially called rebound rails in air hockey nomenclature) to bounce the puck into your opponent’s goal. The goal is to score the most goals on your opponent within the time limit. The rules of air hockey are quite simple, there are two goals on each side of the table, each roughly twice the size of a regulation mallet (the replacement for a hockey stick in this case). Naturally, this doesn’t make the puck truly frictionless, but it certainly negates a large amount of the friction and makes the experience more similar to the lack of friction offered by ice in a traditional hockey game. Air hockey is a sport that is played on a frictionless table, this is achieved by a fan blowing air through many small holes in the playing surface.
