  Many stars across all classes possess strong enough magnetic fields to
influence dynamical flow of material off the stellar surface. For the case of
massive stars (O and B types), about 10\% of them harbour strong, globally
ordered (mostly dipolar) magnetic fields. The trapping and channeling of their
stellar winds in closed magnetic loops leads to {\it magnetically confined wind
shocks} (MCWS), with pre-shock flow speeds that are some fraction of the wind
terminal speed that can be a few thousand km s$^{-1}$. These shocks generate
hot plasma, a source of X-rays. In the last decade, several developments took
place, notably the determination of the hot plasma properties for a large
sample of objects using \xmm\ and \ch, as well as fully self-consistent MHD
modelling and the identification of shock retreat effects in weak winds. In
addition, these objects are often sources of H$\alpha$ emission which is
controlled by either sufficiently high mass loss rate or centrifugal breakout.
Here we review the theoretical aspects of such magnetic massive star wind
dynamics.
