The NCAA Men’s and Women’s Ice Hockey Rules Committee issued a mid-November memo to clarify its position on checking from behind and players in the crease. Here is the memorandum, from committee chair Rico Blasi of Miami University, in its entirety.

Hitting From Behind. The committee’s alteration to this rule has created more awareness of this rule. The committee continues to feel this dangerous act must be eliminated from our game.

On this year’s rules video, which is posted online at www.ncaa.org, the committee showed several examples of legal contact and what must be a penalty for checking from behind. Please review these if you have not done so already. To access the video from the NCAA web site, click on “Sports” then “Ice Hockey” under the listing of sports.

To be clear, there is a difference between contact and checking from behind. As was discussed at the pre-season clinics, if a minor penalty was called in the past for boarding, charging or another infraction and the contact is from behind and into the boards or goal cage, this must be called a major penalty and a game misconduct or game disqualification.

Officials no longer have a choice in this area and players and coaches must realize that the onus is on the player delivering the check with this penalty. With this rule, the committee is attempting to change behavior, much as the enforcement initiative changed obstruction/impeding behavior last season. This memorandum is intended to underscore the committee’s strong position on this rule.

Crease. First and foremost, the jurisdiction of the crease rule is the referee’s discretion. The referee has three options in dealing with this rule:

1) Incidental contact. In some cases, minor contact may occur that does not affect the play. The referee has the ability to allow play to continue in these situations.

2) Faceoff. If the referee feels the goalkeeper is being prevented from defending the goal, but incidental or no contact is made, the referee may stop play and conduct a faceoff in the neutral zone.

3) Interference penalty. The referee must call a minor penalty when the goalkeeper is phyically interfered with by an attacking player.

The committee hopes these clarifications are helpful. Good luck for the rest of the season.