On a semi-regular basis the question comes up of what to do if a skater sits in the wrong seat in the penalty box and refuses to move when asked to do so. Whenever this comes up, opinion seems to be completely split.
The relevant casebook entry is C4.4.1.A which states “The Penalty Box Official should begin timing the penalty then ask White Blocker to move to the preferred seat.”
One viewpoint is that because the casebook entry only says “ask”, the skater is free to refuse to move and there’s nothing that anyone can do about it.
The other viewpoint is that refusing to move is both ignoring officials (per 4.3) and interfering with normal penalty box operations, and is therefore penalisable.
It seems that reasonable, well informed minds can differ on this interpretation here. There are experienced officials with both viewpoints, and a consensus on the issue never seems to be reached. Could we get some clarification?
Can you describe the situation and detail in which this happened? Like, was it a willful refusal, was the refusal rude or did they just ignore the PBM, what was the impact, whose seat was it, was the refusal rude, were tensions already high, stuff like that?
If this is purely theoretical and hasn’t happened, I feel like the general answer is the same as other theoretical questions which is “the facts of the real situation are fundamentally important to the answer.” I.e. we can’t answer things that haven’t happened in a vacuum. Trying to do so would set us up for a certain interaction that would be less than ideal.
But also I have definitely had people ask me this before and provided a similar answer – “I’ve never seen this happen so if it ever does we’d need to look at the scenario overall.” But if it really did happen I would love to hear about the scenario!
I’ve not seen it myself, but I’ve seen the question come up time after time and it always leads to very split opinions on whether it could ever be penalised. Sometimes it’s asked as what to do if it occurs, but other times it’s asking the genuine question of “are skaters allowed to refuse to move seats”.
The discussions always seem to involve the skater sitting either on the wrong side of the box, or in the wrong position (eg jammers seat as a blocker). They assume that the skater heard the request and just politely refused to move.
I’d bet that the split opinions are because of different mental scenarios playing out. Like at playoffs this year as a PBM I had a coach talking to a skater in the box, and an opponent came in and had to dodge the coach, which delayed their entry into the box. I asked the HR for a penalty for that, and one was granted. I’d ask the same thing if a wrong-side skater who refused to move caused an opponent’s box entry to be delayed…because of the impact.
The reason I have a hard time answering this in a theoretical sense is that the real-world situation would have impact but I don’t know what it was.
Another analogue for me is a smudged number on the arm. In and of itself it’s sort of illegal, but we don’t (I hope) penalize skaters for having smudged numbers. But…when the smudged number means an official can’t call a penalty and the penalty is delayed so the skater stays on the track longer…that’s when I’d call the equipment violation. Same as if they’re on the “black” team but are wearing a “dark grey” shirt. If a ref calls “grey one two” and the skater doesn’t leave, then their uniform color had impact. But, both of these draw precedent from the idea that “you have to leave the track pretty soon after you’re called,” plus it’s an illegal thing that delayed a correct call.
The other thing that could be impactful here is rudeness, like, if I say “please move to the other side, this is not your side,” and they’re just like “NO” (caps for loudness), does that rise to the point of being rude to me as an official? Probably…but if they’re just like, “no, I don’t have to, I’m going to stay here since it’s closer to where I want to exit the box, but thank you for the reminder kind sir” I don’t think that refusing to do what I say would be rude and thus it’s not impactful.
Whole lot of text to say…yeah we’d need to see this one actually play out to make the right call.
Rules has discussed this and - I believe - determined that the base scenario of “(Color-Number) your timing will continue but move to this seat” and a response of anything like “No” is grounds for a penalty for Insubordination.
It’s true that the seat designations are not codified in the Rules - that is to make sure that in different venues with different set-ups the Officials are still able to establish legal Penalty Boxes that satisfy the requirements and function clearly for both those operating the Penalty Box, those entering it, and those observing it (for any of a myriad of reasons, but including sending queued skaters and counting PB points).
As such, refusing to move when requested, given that the request is in order to maintain the correct functioning of that area and so that the Officials can continue to rely on what they see at a glance, is impactful in and of itself.
This might run counter to a current Certification Test question, perhaps more than one, which is a snag in our regular clarification process, I believe.
For fairness’s sake, until this is formally documented in a way that is available to all interested parties, I think we need to treat this as ambiguous.
As always, when a situation is not explicitly covered in the rules, (and no PUBLIC guidance has been provided) the fallback principle is “game impact.”
If a skater refuses to move to a new seat, IS that impactful? If there are five blockers in and out, and it slows down box operations, then certainly it is. If it’s one blocker by themselves the whole time? It’s hard to say there’s been an impact.
If we issue an instruction which isn’t actually covered by any of our forward facing documents, and a skater politely does not comply, is that “insubordinate?” Is it insubordinate to the level that requires penalization? Reasonable people can differ.
And with any ambiguous situation, we need to be careful of the power dynamics. An experienced tournament head might be tempted to “ding” a newer official for picking the opposite approach to their preference. This would be consistent with things that have happened in the past.
But it would not be appropriate. “Personal opinion” differences over ambiguities in the rules and procedures are NOT a valid source of negative feedback.
The best solution, of course, is to just officially clarify, publicly and accessibly, the right answer.
I agree with Smasher here, public official clarification would be most welcome. It’s clearly ambiguous, the topic comes up repeatedly, and there are very differing views on how it should be handled.
Point of order: This is a publicly viewable space. It isn’t unprecedented for Rules to provide guidance / clarification on our organization’s forum.
(It would probably be better for the post to come from the Rules account, but it’s a newer system, and I’d be happy to make sure the right people have the right access.)
“Someone is in a physical location where they are not explicitly allowed to be, such as the track or team bench area, they should be warned and then, if they refuse to rectify the situation, should be penalized”
Overall this all seems reasonable to me but I wanted to discuss the impact spectrum here based on Riot’s rationale, because I think it goes beyond the situation noted.
For example, it would also trivially apply to the team bench area, finally adding the requirement that folks stay in their bench area. Someone outside the team bench area (e.g., in the opr lane) would need to be warned and then penalized, regardless of whether there is impact, yeah? We’ve also felt this way but never written it down for many years.
I think it’d also naturally apply to skaters or coaches running into the middle to talk to the HR. Talking to the HR is allowed, but running into the middle is not (unless the HR specifically allows it in the captains’ meeting). So that’d be one more thing for the officials to pay attention to. Or we’d want to make an exception for that for people explicitly allowed to talk to the HR?
I would rather not penalise. That being said, I see that in rare extreme cases a penalty might be beneficial to the game (for example if penalty timing is disturbed repeatedly). So here are ideas for how to support issuing a penalty.
I don’t think we need to modify any case. We could do a minor modification to rule 4.3, especially to its last point “Failure to abide by Governing Body policies during the game pertaining to Skaters, Team Staff, and the immediate play area”, to include event policy as well; then the event policy can be that skaters have to move seats when asked to by the box officials.
Or we could simply include something in the governing body policies about moving seats when asked.
But in fact the list under 4.3 is non-exhaustive, so we can already say “this is unsporting, therefore penalty-worthy by 4.3”.
WZ - I realized after I posted that I should’ve mentioned - Rules would also prefer not to penalize. Our preferred outcome would be to stop timing, same as if they stood incorrectly or failed to stand. But we agreed that that was explicitly outside of the Rules, while a penalty was within the Rules and a correct application of those existent rules.
