The game is similar to ice hockey, but played on foot on a gym floor with a hard orange ball and five-player squads made up of a goalie and four roaming players.

Goalies wear full padding, but the other players wear sweatpants, jerseys and helmets with face masks. Under the jersey, some players wear a tallit katan, a religious garment with knotted fringes, or zizit.

Blatant body checking is banned, but there is plenty of contact. The teams play mostly in conventional gyms set up with temporary barriers.

Orthodox youngsters are often introduced to the game in summer camp or by friends from their synagogue, and end up playing in one of the many youth leagues that have cropped up in Orthodox neighborhoods, before joining teams in middle school.

“In some New Jersey yeshivas, floor hockey is more popular than basketball,” said Yoni Stone, the varsity coach at the Yeshiva University High School for Boys. “Forget high school — every single day school has a team, and the kids start in the youth leagues.”

Players, abiding by their religious tenets, use the sport as an outlet between long hours spent studying Judaic texts and other subjects. Since they observe the Sabbath, there is no play on Friday evenings or Saturdays before sundown. The season runs from late October through March.

On a weeknight last month, the Lions made their dramatic pregame entrance to blaring rock music. They were there to take on the Cobras from the Rae Kushner Yeshiva High School in Livingston, N.J., a school financed by the family of Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of President-elect Donald J. Trump.