June 19, 2022
CHN Staff Report
The NCAA Ice Hockey Rules Committee met last week, and came away with a set of proposals for adoption. The changes will get a one-month review period, then be approved, or not, by the NCAA’s Playing Rules Oversight Panel.
Among the biggest changes is giving on-ice officials discretion on whether to eject a player for contact to the head and checking from behind. In recent years, these were automatic ejections in addition to the five-minute major.
Hand-in-hand with that, often times those majors/ejections came as a result of lengthy video reviews, another point of emphasis the Committee is trying to address — hoping to reduce their use.
“We strongly believe player behavior has improved and remain committed to enhancing player safety with these critical rules,” committee chair and Vermont’s associate AD Joe Gervais said. “In recent years, the rigid nature of the penalty has resulted in ejecting players that do not warrant such a severe penalty.”
Though there was talk about possibly shortening the amount of time video reviews could take, or forcing a coach’s challenge for any review — nothing was proposed that directly addresses lengthy reviews for major penalties.
Instead, a coach’s challenge was implemented for some issues, which could help reduce the amount of reviews over areas besides penalties. Among those are goaltender interference, offside, and pucks played with a high stick — all would require a coach’s challenge to be overturned according to the proposal. In addition, a team that loses a challenge will have its timeout taken away, or, if it has no timeouts remaining, will be assessed a two-minute penalty for delay of game.
Among other proposed changes, a player will not be offside if their skate is above the blue line when the puck enters the zone. In the past, a player was only onside if their skate was at least touching the blue line. This change puts college hockey in line with the NHL’s recent similar rule change.
The so-called North Dakota rule has been changed back. In the 2017 NCAA Tournament, North Dakota had a goal disallowed for offside, well after the puck entered the zone and the opponent had gained and lost possession. A rule was made where if the puck changed possession in the zone, the play couldn’t be reviewed later. That distinction has now been eliminated.
In addition to trying to reduce automatic ejections, the…
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