Street hockey (also known as road hockey, shinny, dek hockey, ground hockey, ball hockey, or cosom hockey) is a variation of the sport of ice hockey where the game is played on foot or with inline skates or roller skates. The object of the game is to score more goals than the opposing team by shooting a ball or puck into the opposing team's net. In its most pure form, street hockey is always played on an outdoor surface (very often a street, parking lot, tennis court or other asphalt surface), thus the genesis of the name street hockey. In more organized forms, it is played in rinks which often were designed for roller hockey and can be indoor or outdoor rinks. There are also rinks built specifically for hockey played on foot, and these are referred to as dek hockey or ball hockey rinks. These rinks can also be used for roller hockey games. Street hockey in pickup form is generally played under the following guidelines, since there are no "official rules" for local pickup hockey:

The term street hockey was started in Canada^{[citation needed]} and is also used in the United States. This wording is very closely related to the Canadian terms dek hockey or ball hockey. Some regions in North America use street hockey in reference to roller hockey, where inline or roller skates are worn to play otherwise the same game. Street hockey is generally played on foot, and when players use inline or roller skates to play, the sport becomes roller hockey. All this terminology can seem confusing to non-players and the general public, but ultimately is a simple case of semantics. General consensus amongst players of the sport is as follows: