Hockey 101 – Boarding (Rule 42)
Boarding is a very serious penalty and can sometimes be missed or misscalled by an official. “Boarding” is the action of any player who checks an opponent in such a manner that causes the opponent to be thrown violently in the boards. Now, if you have watched 5 minutes of hockey ever in your life, you are probably saying right now “But wait – they are ALWAYS crashing each other into the boards!” Well – here are two videos you can watch that should show the difference between a good hard check into the boards and an illegal hit known as Boarding.
Darcy Tucker gets boarded by Jordin Tootoo
Milan Lucic checks Mike Van Ryn through the glass
The NHL Rulebook definition is:
A boarding penalty shall be imposed on any player or goalkeeper who checks an opponent in such a manner that causes the opponent to be thrown violently in the boards. The severity of the penalty, based upon the degree of violence of the impact with the boards, shall be at the discretion of the Referee.
There is an enormous amount of judgment involved in the application of this rule by the Referees. The onus is on the player (or goalkeeper) applying the check to ensure his opponent is not in a vulnerable position and if so, he must avoid the contact. However, there is also a responsibility on the player with the puck to avoid placing himself in a dangerous and vulnerable position. This balance must be considered by the Referees when applying this rule.
This is another one of those “soft” rules that rely on the position and judgement of the officials. My general rule of thumb for this penalty is if one player is hit on the numbers (from behind) and thrown into the boards (which would mean he was at least a foot or two away from the boards) violently … then Boarding should be called.
The penalty for this could be a minor (2 minutes) or major (5 minutes) … a Match Penalty can also be handed down if the officials belive the action was a deliberate attempt to harm the one being hit.
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Bill,
Great take on a very ambiguous rule.
It is interpreted differently by many officials, which makes calling it consistently difficult. In my experience, the officials usually get the call right, but the discrepancy is between a minor, major, and/or match being called.
Good post!
Tyler