Yes, I have another Hockey question. (Please be patient with me!)
I noticed the following situation at the game that I attended last evening.
The home team has a player in the penalty box for whatever reason. Towards the end of that “power play” (anywhere between :30 to :15 seconds left of the home team’s player penalty period), the visiting team scores a goal. What I noticed is that the player in the penalty box comes out and the remaining time that he had left is no longer.
Why is that? Why does he get to come out? At one time we had two players in the sin bin and one had about :20 seconds left and the other had about 1:00 min left. The one with 1:00 min left, stayed in the box, but the other came out.
Any information you can provide would be most appreciated!
On a minor penalty, the player who is in the penalty box comes out when the opposition scores. (This assumes that there is a man advantage.) On a major penalty, the player stays in the penalty box (usually for 5 minutes) for the full duration of the penalty.
In the second incident you describe, there were two separate penalties. These happened forty seconds apart. When the opposition, which had a two man advantage, first scores, the first penalty is over.
There are some complexities such a coincidental minors, etc; but essentialy the purpose of the penalty: to give the other team a man advantage, is over when the other team scores.
It used to be that all penalties were served in full. No matter how many goals the opposing team scored during their power play, the guy in the sin bin stayed put.
Apparently, long ago, Montreal had such talent on the power play that the rules were changed to level the playing field. For minor penalties, the offender stayed in the penalty box for the duration of the penalty or until the team on the power play scored.
Back in the 1950’s the Canadiens were the class of the league making the finals 10 straight years and winning 5 straight Cups.
There has been talk of changing the rule back so that the player serves the full 2 minutes, and that makes sense to do it. Back in the 1980’s the rule was changed with regards to coincidental minors so that teams would still play 5 on 5 and not 4 on 4. That change was made because of the Oilers and the way they outscored everyone when there was some open ice. The rule got changed back in the late 1990’s. Of course I think that there are other changes the NHL should make before they make the change and have players serve the full 2 minutes.
Personally I like it the way it is
Nothing better than seeing a goal scored by a team and the guy in the sin bin has to get out and skate back to his team. Usually they show the guy coming out of the penalty box after a goal is scored on tv. Good chance to scream: ITS ALL YOUR FAULT! STUPID INTERFERANCE CALL!!! WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?!?!
Now if we could only put the Ref’s in the sin bin! The AHL refs really stink at what they do. If you could only imagine what we were calling the ref last night.
I went to an ECHL game one time. Best chant I heard, (other than the one we scream at the Houston Aero’s game)* is from the Louisiana Ice Gators. When they score, the do a hand motion of an alligator mouth chomping and then they say “Bad Goalie, Bad Goalie; it’s all your fault”. Too funny!!
The Sweetest Thing
Houston Aeros Chant when they score the goal is “He Shoots, He Scores, Hey (insert name of opposing team goalie) You SUCK!”
AKA “The Gretzky Rule”. If Edmonton was losing by a goal with a couple of minutes left, they’d send out a goon (Dave Semenko) to rough up somebody on the other team. There’d be some retaliation, and both would get sent to the box for roughing. Now, for the last two minutes of the game, Gretzky had two less people he needed to skate around…
It seems to me that if players on other teams fall for this tactic, that they (and their team) deserve what they get.
If there was a time when full minor penalties were served it was in pre-History hockey. I’ve been watching since the mid50s and the rule has been the same.
Making a team play shorthanded for a full penalty would make penalties much more serious. Most games are in the 3-2 scoring area.
Hockey News gets delivered to my home and I’ve yet to hear about serving full minors, no matter what.
Of course what they’ve been playing for the last 20 years isn’t really hockey, anyway.
I’d have loved to see Gretzky, who is the closest we have to a modern day Babe Ruth, play against people like Bobby Orr and Phil Esposito, Gordie Howe, Bobbie Hull. . .He’d have still be great, but nothing like he was.
Of the players you mentioned, the only one that Gretzky didn’t play against is Bobby Orr - missed by one year (although Orr had a drawn-out retirement, so in reality he was gone a few years prior).
Granted these guys were past their prime, and Gretzky was an 18 year old kid, but compare Esposito to Gretzky, in the full season that they both competed in, 1979-80.
Esposito was still putting up decent numbers, comparable to what he put up early in his NHL career, when he was 25. Gretzky, just 18, put out numbers comparable to Esposito’s peak, when he was 31.