I've seen games in ECAC, Hockey East, Atlantic Hockey this year and
watched games on TV from both CCHA and WCHA, and the only league that
seems to have this protocol penalty is the ECAC. All the other games have
allowed players to leave the bench at the end of a period and skate out to
greet/congratulate/encourage the goalies. From that I'm guessing that
only the ECAC has some special rule or regulation about this. Is it
possible there was some trouble last year with teams gathering en masse on
the ice and the league is trying to avoid a similar issue this year?