Between games of the first day of the Black Bear Classic I had the
privilege and opportunity to chat with a Hockey East Association
administrator about US hockey's newest change.  I'll call it the

   Five Second Rule

Perhaps you've seen this new procedure in the new NHL season or
witnessed it in the recent Winter Olympics?  Now college hockey is
seriously speeding up the game, and other levels are also involved.

As explained to me, the procedure is meant to minimize the time spent
during stoppages of play.  Once the visiting team has had a chance to
send out any replacements, the referee raises his hand.  The home team
now has about 5 seconds to send out any replacements.  The referee can,
under his discretion, hold his signal for longer (but generally did not
in today's Black Bear Classic games).  When the referee brings his hand
down, the linesman doing the faceoff toots his whistle.  The centermen
have 5 seconds to get ready for the drop of the puck, but in practice
most pucks were dropped today after 2 or 3 seconds.

If there is a player offsides at the drop of the puck, the play is
whistled dead and the offending team is warned (once per game per team,
I presume).  Occurrences after the warning get the offending team a minor
penalty.

In today's games at the Alfond, I witnessed no delay of game penalties
and no warnings ...  and two very quickly played games!  The LSSU/QC
game might have broken all records for elapsed time, were it not for a
broken plexiglass panel at one point.

I'm impressed.  Good rule and good implementation!  My first thoughts
were that it would be good for keeping the fans into a game, continuing
the "momentum" of one team or the other, and minimizing delays caused by
players creeping into the faceoff circle.  And it did in all three
cases, IMHO.  It also removes the "DROP THE PUCK!" jeer from the fan
repertoire!  ;-)

But as the Hockey East administrator pointed out, it also keeps the
players heads in the game.  They don't have time to get mad an opponent
or to bait before play resumes ...  as they must focus on the puck and
the quickly resuming play.  And it did today, IMHO.

Have others noticed this new to US procedure? Like it? Will it stick?

cheers, wayne

Wayne T. Smith
[log in to unmask]                          Old Town Landing
The College Hockey lists: Hockey-L and Hockey3 at http://lists.Maine.edu/