Got a clarification question because it came up at an event this weekend, and officials had differing views, and I haven’t been able to find anything to solidify the position for either side
Scenario: Jammer is issued a penalty and serves time as normal
When instructed to stand, they move to the edge of the penalty box and then straddle the line - with at least one wheel or the toe-stop always making contact with the inside of the penalty box
Is this legal, or illegal? And what are the rule/procedure that supports the call?
I recall a while a ago there was something that made this legal, but can’t find anything explicit anymore
Red Jammer arrives at the Penalty Box for a penalty, sits, is told to stand 20 seconds later, and stands. They then watch the scoreboard count down 10 seconds, and leave the Box without being told to do so by an Official.
Outcome: Red Jammer should be penalized if they completely left the Box even a fraction of a second early.
Rationale: If Red Jammer’s time had completed and they had not been released, this would be an officiating error and Red Jammer should not be punished for it. However, leaving the Box early without good reason should always be penalized.
Keep in Mind: If an Official had told the Red Jammer their time was up, Red Jammer had good reason to leave the Box early.
If the skater is touching inside the box, they’re still in the box.
I consider there to be two opposing principles, though.
Casebook Scenario C4.2.4.F makes clear that a skater placing one skate inside the penalty box does not constitute entering the box. It constitutes partially entering the box. “Fully entering” requires both skates to be inside the box. I struggle not to read this to imply the inverse: that when a skater places a skate outside the box boundary, they are no longer in the penalty box but are at best partially in the penalty box.
Scenario C4.4.1.B fleshes this out for me by adding the apparent skater intent to “gain some kind of illegal advantage or negligently exiting illegally” to the factors of consideration. A transitory passing of the boundary with both skates isn’t penalizable because of its transitory nature.
Taking these scenarios together, I read that
Being in a straddling posture does not constitute being fully in the penalty box.
Whether the skater adopts a straddling position transitorily or in an intentional and sustained way is a relevant distinction.
and then to conclude that
When a skater adopts a straddling position intentionally or in a sustained way, they are no longer “in” the penalty box but are “partially in”.
and that that does constitute an illegal exit.
The other principle I’d suggest applying here is the concern for safety in the penalty box that is articulated throughout the rules. Penalized skaters adopting straddling positions have a significant (albeit venue-dependent) risk of impinging on the outer officiating lane and/or impeding other skaters from entering or exiting the box. In order to mitigate this risk and prevent the necessity of articulating just how far a skater may straddle (Is a toe stop in the box with the body contorted outside legal?) it’s coherent with the other guiding principles in the rules to require the skater to remain fully inside the box.
I don’t think either my argument above or the reading of C4.2.4.D are especially strong. This would benefit in my mind from explicit clarification in the Casebook.
I agree that this would be worth clarifying in the casebook since it has come up. I think most people just tell each other in their first or second stint of PBT that “straddling is sorta not ok but no impact so just let it go,” which is why it’s gone unasked for so many years.
That said, I think the missing piece in this thread isn’t about legality so much as impact.
Box size is not regulated. So being 0.5m closer to the track isn’t really holistically impactful since it’s “allowed” in other venues.
The proxy for “are you getting back to play faster” is almost entirely driven by where on the track the Pack is. So the extra 0.5m isn’t meaningfully changing that, either.
The impact spectrum for this is fundamentally about whether opponents and/or officials are confused about the in-box status. Teams time jam-calls and NOTT points and stuff like that based on whether you can tell, at-a-glance, that a skater is “in” the box. Straddling is almost never ambiguous. The other one is if they’re using their out-of-box body to impede their opponents entry/exit to the box, entry/exit to their bench area, or maybe even impinging on sightlines from the bench?
But I think the important thing is that, whether-or-not we want to use discretion to decide whether or not it is formally legal or illegal, that there is almost never sufficient impact for it to matter.