Fighting in Ice Hockey - Rules and Penalties

Rules and Penalties

Rules of the NHL, the North American junior leagues, and other North American professional minor leagues punish fighting with a five-minute major penalty. What separates these leagues from other hockey leagues and nearly all other sports is that they do not eject players simply for participating in a fight. However, fighting is punishable by ejection in Minor Hockey, College and European leagues, and in international and Olympic competition.

The rulebooks of the NHL and other professional leagues contain specific rules for fighting. These rules state that at the initiation of a fight, both players must drop their sticks so as not to use them as a weapon. Players must also "drop" or shake off their protective gloves in order to fight bare-knuckled (essentially, "throwing down the gauntlet"), as the hard leather and plastic of hockey gloves would increase the effect of landed blows. Players must also heed a referee warning to end a fight once the opponents have been separated. Failure to adhere to any of these rules results in an immediate game misconduct penalty and the possibility of fines and suspension from future games.

In many leagues, linesmen will permit a fight between two players to run its course until one or both players end up on the ice. Linesmen will actively try to break up fights that are one-sided, where one player gains an advantage, where more than two participants are involved, or in situations involving multiple fights.

In the NHL, when a player is fined, his lost pay goes towards the NHL emergency assistance fund. A fined coach's lost pay goes to the NHL Foundation.