Bizarre Goal

[Stephen11 0]

So last night in my beer league playoffs, it's 2-0 good guys about halfway through the third. I'm defending a guy in the slot (in front of my goalie). He accidently gives me a pretty a good high stick and rattles my cage. As I turn around I see the ref (only one ref on the ice) with his arm up. I'm a little surprised because they usually don't call high sticks in our league since everyone wears cages. Anyway, my goalie sees the whole thing too and starts heading for the bench. Well, it turns out the ref's arm was up to indicate a delayed offside, not the high stick. The other team got the puck at center ice and then shot it into the empty net! We initially just shrugged it off, but later on the bench we were wondering, if their guy didn't clear the zone when it was shot back in, shouldn't the play be called dead? Since he didn't touch it before it went into the goal, we weren't really sure. At any rate, we ended up holding on for the win, so no big deal. But I've never seen something like this happen before. Anyone else?

[Fletch 219]

Hosed.

Should have been called dead, as it was a shot on net on a delayed offside.

[coryroth24 15]

From the NHL rule book. Our Beer League calls it like this too...

"(NOTE) If the puck enters the defending team's goal during a delayed off-side, the goal is disallowed. The face-off will be in the neutral zone."

http://www.nhl.com/hockeyu/rulebook/rule74.html

[shooter27 116]

Yeah - you definitely hosed on that one. Happens all the time with incompetent refs in mens league. I had one where I scored a tying goal from the point with less than a minute left, only to have the ref disallow it and call it offsides. His reasoning? "The puck only has to touch the white on the other side of the blue line to be considered offsides." Now, I've been playing a long time and know damn well the puck has to 100% cross the blue line (or any line) and you have to be able to see ice between the puck and the line for offsides to be called. Thankfully it was just mens league and not a highly competitive situation like when I was younger, because in my younger days I definitely would not have reacted nearly as well as I did.

[Stephen11 0]

Well that rule explicitly answers the question. Thanks. I think what happened was that the ref was so confused by what was happening (goalie out of the net) that he overlooked the fact that the guy hadn't cleared the zone yet. And we didn't argue anything because we weren't sure what was going on either - it didn't occur to us until later that the guy was still offside when the puck went in. Huh.

[Gummer12 134]

it should actually be All The Way Down, not neutral zone.

[D-MaN88 0]

Wex is got it right. As soon as the other player shot for the empty net, that made the offsides intentional and after the goal should have been disallowed, the face-off should have came back into their zone.

Simply hosed.

[razrbladz12 0]

Too bad it didn't work out like this for your team! :P

[dontdumpdangle 0]

I remember when i was playin hs hockey and the ref had his arm up, and our dumb ass goalie went sprinting to the bench while the puck was still in our zone and the other team just slid it in. The call was against us.

[habsmaniac 0]

sick!

[Chadd 916]

From the NHL rule book. Our Beer League calls it like this too...

"(NOTE) If the puck enters the defending team's goal during a delayed off-side, the goal is disallowed. The face-off will be in the neutral zone."

http://www.nhl.com/hockeyu/rulebook/rule74.html

I don't know a single rec or youth league that plays with NHL rules, it just happens to be the virtually identical to the USAH or HC rule in this one case.

[Konig von Kuhlem 0]

Too bad it didn't work out like this for your team! :P

Hilarious!

[kovalchuk71 212]

Why don't they call High Sticks? A High Stick is a High Stick, regardless of wether you are wearing a cage or not.

[Fletch 219]

From the NHL rule book. Our Beer League calls it like this too...

"(NOTE) If the puck enters the defending team's goal during a delayed off-side, the goal is disallowed. The face-off will be in the neutral zone."

http://www.nhl.com/hockeyu/rulebook/rule74.html

I don't know a single rec or youth league that plays with NHL rules, it just happens to be the virtually identical to the USAH or HC rule in this one case.

The adult leagues at Anaheim Ice do! They call obstruction and everything....

[Stephen11 0]

Why don't they call High Sticks? A High Stick is a High Stick, regardless of wether you are wearing a cage or not.

I don't really know, but I just see it happen a lot. It might be a no harm no foul thing, or it might just be because it's harder for them to spot it when people are wearing cages. With a cage, since you don't feel the stick actually on your skin, you don't get that natural "head-snap" reaction which is what the refs usually spot.

I don't think this is limited to beer league refs either. I notice a lot more incidental high sticks (which aren't called) in college hockey than in the NHL. Pros seem to have better control over their sticks, and the refs seem to call it a lot tighter to boot.

[Ogie 0]

In our beer league a similar thing happened. There was a collision at center ice, both players fall, and the official puts his arm up for a delayed penalty. Both goalies head to the bench thinking the penalty is on the other team...the team going on the PP gets the puck, fires the empty netter. they win by one goal.

[chippa13 1844]

Goalie 101: Don't go anywhere until you know who the penalty is on.

[pantherfan 0]

Or the bench calls you over and you can blame EVERYTHING on them if they're wrong, including subsequent goals against caused by bench mis-managment depression.