Hockey: Proposed "Always Icing Rule" Change

Submitted by formerlyanonymous on

MichiganHockey.net brought up an interesting rule change that the NCAA is considering this year, that icing will ALWAYS be called. This includes when a team is on penalty kill!

Under this proposed change, a shorthanded team would not be able to ice the puck freely.  While this change might sound small to the casual observer, it could have a huge impact on many aspects of the game, from killing the flow of the game (imagine a team icing the puck ten times during a major or minor penalty), killing the legs of the penalty killers (the team who ices the puck cannot change lines and having to do a soft clear might not give you enough time to safely change on the fly), and even perhaps on recruiting.  None of the the NHL, AHL, ECHL, Canadian major junior hockey, or any league has implemented such a drastic change, and potential recruits might opt for routes other than college hockey feeling this change won’t help their development.

This seems like a crazy change, and the coaches seem to agree in MichiganHockey's article (follow for more info).

bleeker

June 12th, 2010 at 5:36 PM ^

Agreed. It seems like icing would still be a good strategy for the short-handed team and it would just slow down the game and have an effect opposite of the one they are going for, not that I think hockey needs to be faster.

weasel3216

June 12th, 2010 at 5:21 PM ^

I hate this 100%.  This would be horrible for the game, the whole pointing of the no call icing on PK is to allow the game to continue with subs on the go.  To take it out would mean we would see PP working around 45-50% which would be insane.  Yeah the mass market would love it (ESPN) but hockey fans would have to shake their heads at this.  Could you imagine Michigan 7 Michigan State 6, that is BS. 

enlightenedbum

June 12th, 2010 at 5:44 PM ^

Those rule changes almost all seem to be to promote scoring.  Which never really struck me as a problem in college hockey.  This is the worst of a lot as either you'll see a ton of icing calls and thus more whistles or a lot of two minute PK shifts which endangers the players.  HATE

MichiganStudent

June 12th, 2010 at 5:47 PM ^

By far the dumbest proposed rule change. If this gets implemented I will be super pissed. Icing on the PK is  a part of the game and it should stay that way. If you want to increase scoring there are far better ways of doing it. Shrink the goalies pads, implement the hybrid icing that is proposed, etc.

Mr. Robot

June 12th, 2010 at 6:02 PM ^

I don't like any of the new icing rule, but this one is a back-breaker. It is a shameless attempt to increase scoring and frankly give an enormous advanatge to whoever has the msot power plays, even if by a few. Furthermore, it creates a MASSIVE rift between college rules and NHL rules, and college hockey's ability to bring in players with NHL aspirations will take a serious hit when OHL teams can say "You can't even ice the puck on a penalty in college!" Really don't want this implemented.

I wouldn't mind a touch-up icing like the NHL to permit an attacking team to keep going if they can reach the puck first, but leaving the hybrid thing to the judgment of the kind of refs we have is a bad idea. Anything else, no thank you!

Blue Durham

June 12th, 2010 at 7:52 PM ^

it places an overwhelming importance on the special teams.

The goal differential between the 2 teams during 5 on 5 (which should be a large majority of the time the game is played) will be quite small versus what happens during the relatively small amount of time during power plays.

Also, given how much more frequently penalties will result in goals, will the refs be more hesitant to call penalties.

Hard to believe that this really is being considered.

JustGoBlue

June 12th, 2010 at 8:37 PM ^

are livid.  http://www.collegehockeynews.com/news/2010/06/12_questioning.php

EVERY coach in the CCHA and WCHA and Atlantic Hockey voted against it.  The article didn't say anything about the other conferences, but I would imagine it's not popular in any of those either...

Hopefully the coaches can get it changed before the season.  I can't believe the Committee would do something so major with the majority of coaches against it, but they did. 

I've already E-mailed every member of the Playing Rules Oversight Panel (PROP) telling them that the changes suck and that they should in no way approve them.  Unfortunately, the PROP is mostly a rubber stamp and can only veto proposed changes for reasons of player safety, monetary concerns, or to preserve the intergrity of image of the game.  So I harped on the integrity of the game thing pretty hard and mentioned that it could also affect player safety as it owuld make more tired players and tired players are more likely ot be injured.  I don't think it will do any good and I don't normally speak out, but this enraged me.  http://web1.ncaa.org/committees/committees_roster.jsp?CommitteeName=PROP If anyone else is interested, they vote in July. 

I am also unhappy about the contact to the head rule.  It's a good idea, but under the rule, a high stick would be a major penalty and a game misconduct/disqualification.  You can't tell me that should happen.  There are way too many contact to the head penalties called for this to be a good idea for all of them.  It should be an option, definitely and should maybe even be applied by erring on the side of too many calls, but not to this extent. 

Also, Forrest Karr (UAF AD, chair of the Committee that came up with these asinine rules) says a lot of dumb and contradictory things in his quotations.  He doesn't want more whistles, but let's allow shorthanded icing.  He doesn't think that penalized teams should have "advantage" over the unpenalized team of being able to ice the puck, but he applauds the change becasue it would create more shorthanded opportunities.  Last time I checked scoring a goal is way more of an advantage than being able to ice the puck without penalty while shorthanded.  He also admits that coaches are way against it.  He's not very far below Gary on my List of People That Should Have Nothing to do with Hockey Ever list.

I wrote a 4 page E-mail detailing my disgust in a way that makes this affect the integrity and image of the game to the PROP committtee so I could go on and on, but yah.  Way dumb.  Please miracle occur and coaches find some way to at least change the  shorthanded icing call or the PROP committee overrule it.  I can live with the contact to the head rule, poviding the refs decide to not be complete idiots about how they call things and just call what should be a 2 minute contact to the head something that doesn't have CTH in it's name so they don't give out a 5-minute major for a crime that doesn't deserve it.  But the icing UGH...

So please, E-mail PROP, make it sound like the crime against the game it is.  Red and the rest of the coaches are on our side and hopefully this can get changed.  Their E-mails aren't on the link, but are easy to find by going to their school/conference website.  When I couldn't E-mail the person directly, I sent it to their assistant and asked them to forward it on to the committee member.  Larry Scott (Pac-10 commish) is on the PROP, so I E-mailed his assistant asked him to forward it and got an E-mail back from the assitant saying that he would, so it's at least worth a try and this way maybe the game can be saved. 

Crusade over.

JustGoBlue

June 12th, 2010 at 8:35 PM ^

in case there is any confusion, this is WAY past the "being considered" stage.  These rules have been formally proposed and only await the rubber stamp confirmation.  These WILL be implemented unless the PROP decides not to.  The Committee is through discussing them and has approved them.  These rules WILL be in place THIS season unless something pretty major happens to disrupt that, so there's little hope that the AD of Nebraska Wesleyan University and the commish of Conference Carolinas will even give a thought toward overturning the proposal without significant encouragement. 

Zone Left

June 12th, 2010 at 10:31 PM ^

That's funny, I was watching the US - England game thinking about how much eliminating offsides in soccer would change the game.  Forcing teams to play the puck out softly and/or adding a lot of face-offs virtually guarantees a significant increase in the number of goals.

the_big_house 500th

June 13th, 2010 at 3:07 AM ^

I've played hockey for 9 years and the purpose of killing a power play is ICING THE DAMN PUCK DOWN THE OTHER END. This whole "we want more goals" stuff is a load of bs. Teams have to be able to clear the puck down the ice on a power play because thats how you help kill it. This as a defenseman pisses me the fuck off.

UMxWolverines

June 13th, 2010 at 4:47 PM ^

I thought this would be about how when a team dumps it and it gets past the goal line it's always icing, opposed to the nhl where if the team that dumped it touches it it isn't icing. This idea is retarded