Own goal

An own goal is an event in competitive goal-scoring sports (such as association football or hockey) where a player scores on his or her own side of the playing area rather than the one defended by the opponent. Since own goals are often added to the opponent’s score, they are often an embarrassing blunder for the scoring player, but in certain sports are occasionally done for strategic reasons.

In some parts of the world, the term has become a metaphor for any action that backfires on the person or group undertaking it, sometimes even carrying a sense of “poetic justice”. During The Troubles, for instance, it acquired a specific metaphorical meaning in Belfast, referring to an IED (improvised explosive device) that detonated prematurely, killing the person making or handling the bomb with the intent to harm others.

A player trying to throw a game might deliberately attempt an own goal. Such players run the risk of being sanctioned or banned from further play.

If a goal is scored by a player on the defending team, credit for the goal goes to the last player on the other team to have touched the puck; this is because own goals in hockey are typically cases where the player so credited had the shot deflected, but this convention is used even where this is not the case. Occasionally, it is also credited to the closest player to the goal from the other team if he is determined to have caused the opposing player to shoot it into the wrong net. Assists are not awarded on an own goal because the defending team has possession of the puck between any pass and the goal itself.

Occasionally in the NHL, players have directed the puck into their own empty net, either late in the game or because of a delayed penalty call. This was the situation which resulted in Billy Smith of the New York Islanders becoming the first goaltender to receive credit for a goal in the NHL. In some parts of Canada, an own goal is referred to as a limoges. The term is believed to have originated in New Brunswick (approximately 1970) and became more common in the greater Toronto region starting in the 1990s.