Upon Further Review … : College Hockey News

June 7, 2022
PRINT

It’s a ‘Rules Change’ Year, And Some Big Things Need Fixing

by Adam Wodon/Managing Editor (@CHN_AdamWodon)

Every two years is a “rules change year” in college hockey, and this is one of them. That means, if you want a rule changed, added or removed, it must be done this summer, or you need to try again two years from now.

The NCAA Ice Hockey Rules Committee is a singular body for all of college hockey, men and women, in all divisions. It will convene next week to discuss a series of rules change ideas, and recommend which ones it will forward to the NCAA’s Oversight Committee for final approval. First, there will be a one-month discussion period, where the Rules Committee solicits feedback from the coaches.

There are a lot of relatively small changes that are being discussed, though some coaches may consider certain ones a bigger deal than others.

Wisconsin assistant coach Mark Osiecki and Canisius head coach Trevor Large are the only D-I men’s coaches on the Committee. (Former Vermont assistant Joe Gervais is on there.) Both declined to be interviewed for this article. We talked to almost 20 other coaches to gauge their opinion on the other rules change proposals being discussed.

Brass Tacks

There are three main rules areas being discussed, and they are intertwined:

• Whether to allow referee discretion on 5-minute majors / game misconducts
• Re-assessing how video replay is applied on major penalties, and whether to institute a “coach’s challenge“
• Re-assessing how supplemental discipline is doled out

In a classic case of “careful what you wish for,” I remember first writing in 2011 about how the NCAA needed to institute video review of 5-minute majors. My point then, however, was for it to be utilized in the exact opposite manner it turned out to be. After seeing Yale’s Brian O’Neill — the ECAC Player of the Year — tossed out of an NCAA Tournament game for a supposed hit to the head, I said that such a call was way too costly to leave that up to the naked eye.

So they did implement video review, but instead have used it to conduct overly-lengthy reviews to see if a player barely brushes another player’s head with their elbow. That player then gets automatically kicked out of the game.

If the officials cannot definitively determine that a penalty is worth a 5-minute major and game misconduct after watching the video IN FULL SPEED for 30 seconds — then move…