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Earlier in this season's playoffs, specifically during Game 3 of the first round series between the New York Rangers and Philadelphia Flyers, there was a situation that had the potential to evoke one of the NHL's more ill-conceived rules. I'm referring to Rule 46.13, also known as the "Tie-Down Rule" or the Rob Ray Rule.
In this situation, two non-fighters (Philadelphia's Jakub Voracek and New York Carl Hagelin) had a fight and Hagelin's sweater, which was clearly not tied down, came up over his shoulders and sat on top of his head as Voracek whaled away with punches.
At this point, the referees had three options: 1) Penalize both players for fighting and issue Hagelin a game misconduct, 2) Penalize both players for fighting but rule that the sweater had not come all the way off Hagelin's torso (although the rulebook says torso, in practice it generally means the back of the sweater coming all the way off the player's head), or 3) avoid the issue entirely and issue roughing minors instead of fighting majors.
The officials went for option 3, even though the altercation was a full-blown fight. Neither team was about to complain. Philadelphia only lost Voracek, a member of its top line, for two minutes. New York did not lose Hagelin, one of its fastest skaters and better two-way forwards, for the rest of the night.
No muss, no fuss and no need to worry about the semantics of where the torso ends for rule enforcement purposes. Frankly, all it did was show what a silly, Band-Aid rule the tiedown rule was in the first place. For non-fighters, tying down the jersey is sometimes an afterthought. It is up to the team trainers to make sure everyone is properly uniformed.
Referees could always go to the trainers and remind them that players who violated the uniform rules could not play in the game if they were caught. They could be fined or forced to leave the game. That usually takes care of the problem.
Listen, during my own playing days as an enforcer, real tough guys would stand up and fight. Guys weren't looking for a built-in (and cheap) advantage.
That's not to say every fight was totally clean. Dave Schultz, among others, used to tape his fists ala a boxer. That practice got outlawed. For the most part, though, there were no shenanigans with players' sweaters.
When I became an NHL referee, I started to see more and more liberties taken with jerseys. Rob Ray was the most notorious for wearing an oversized sweater and ditching it to end up barechested during a fight. Marty McSorley wore a velcro tear-away sweater. I even saw one guy smear Vaseline all over his sweater so opponents' could not grab and hold onto him in a fight.
I had no tolerance for that sort of crap. I used to laugh at those guys on the ice and embarrass them, which would incense them even more.
The NHL decided to make the jersey tie-down into a penalty, which was another band aid rule with the potential for unintended consequences (being a bigger risk to generally pacifistic players who happened to get into a rare fight on a night where they forgot to tie down). Lay the responsibility on the refs and the trainers. If they aren't tied down they leave or get fined.
The so-called tie-down rule is a joke, and the situation that arose this spring underscored what a bad rule it actually is. When the clear-cut best decision in a situation is one that either substantively chances or outright ignores the rule, it's probably a bad rule in the first place.
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Paul Stewart holds the distinction of being the first U.S.-born citizen to make it to the NHL as both a player and referee. On March 15, 2003, he became the first American-born referee to officiate in 1,000 NHL games.
Today, Stewart is an officiating and league discipline consultant for the Kontinental Hockey League (KHL) and serves as director of hockey officiating for the Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC).
The longtime referee heads Officiating by Stewart, a consulting, training and evaluation service for officials. Stewart also maintains a busy schedule as a public speaker, fund raiser and master-of-ceremonies for a host of private, corporate and public events. As a non-hockey venture, he is the owner of Lest We Forget.
In addition to his blogs for HockeyBuzz every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, Stewart writes a column every Wednesday for the Huffington Post.