Once
players have been properly changed, no further substitution may be made
until the face off has been completed and play has resumed, unless, in the
time prior to the face off, a penalty has been imposed which will make one
of the teams short-handed.
This
rule has been put in place in order to allow both teams the opportunity to
put their special teams players (power play and/or penalty killers) on the
ice. Most teams as you get to
the upper levels have specific players that work on the penalty killing
situations. Also, if you are about to go on the power play, you want your
top scorers on the ice for this situation.
Therefore, if the game is about to go from a 5 on 5 situation to a
5 on 4 situation, or 4 on 4 to a 4 on 3 situation, both teams will be
permitted to change players and the line change procedure will commence
again.
Note: If the on ice
strength is already at 4 on 3 and then the team on the power play receives
a penalty (during a stoppage of play) bringing the on ice strength to 3 on
3 then no team will be allowed to change as they are now at even strength
and no team will have an advantage.
Finally,
if a player from one team receives a Misconduct penalty (10 minutes) then
that team will be allowed to put a player from the bench on the ice but no
other players from either team will be allowed to change.
This is because a 10-minute Misconduct is not a time penalty on the
play clock. The player sits
in the box for a minimum of 10 minutes and then comes out of the penalty
box once play has been stopped after he has sat in the penalty box for 10
minutes. A Misconduct does
not make a team short-handed therefore the team receiving the Misconduct
will have to replace the penalized player on the ice and only this player.
This
is another one of those situations which rarely happens in minor hockey,
but is a rule which referees must be aware of for the odd time that it
does happen. As if officials don’t have enough on their minds already,
just imagine how rules similar to this that there are in the book. Most
coaches in the game today have no idea how this rule is written.
Therefore, when it does happen, there is often the need to provide an
explanation to the coach as to why he cannot make a substitution or why
the other team was permitted to make one. In a lot of cases, the coach who
is not aware of the rule will argue that the referee is wrong in his
interpretation and this can lead to some very negative reaction from the
bench and the fans, thus creating problems on the ice.
