Bye
What is Bye in hockey?
How to understand a hockey term Bye?
What is the definition of Bye in hockey?
A bye means that a participant in a competition is not required to compete while most of the other participants are. Its main use is in tournament competitions. It can have two different meanings in sports and other competitive activities. In single-elimination tournaments, when there are an odd number of participants, a bye allows one or more to play in a later round. Other types of eliminator tournaments may also include a bye for others reasons. An example would be as a reward for the best ranked team(s).
In round-robin tournaments where there are an odd number of competitors, usually one gets a bye in each round. However, over the whole tournament, each team plays the same number of games.
Similar to the round-robin context, in leagues where most teams play on the same days during regular-season play, a team that does not play on a given day is said to be on bye. In sports that are played weekly, especially gridiron football, a team that does not play at all during a given week is said to be on its bye week. For example, during the regular football Season in the NFL, each team gets a week off (bye week) during the regular season.