Paul Stewart: Case Book or Rule Book?

There should be some transparency.

There was a play in a Bruins Sabres game a while ago where Bergeron punches the puck toward the net to a teammate in front of the Buffalo net, the player tried to bat the puck in but missed, and by this time Bergeron had circled around the net and put the still bouncing puck into the net. The rule book says you can't bat the puck with your hand to a teammate, or to gain a clear advantage, I'm guessing this means you can't bat it over an opposing players head and then skate around him to get the puck. This play was both, was it just a missed call? Or because his teammate made a play, but failed in his attempt to actually touch the puck did they not violate the letter of the law and have they deemphasized the "gaining an advantage" part of the rule?

Why not make the case book publicly available like they do with the rule book? Why do they release only one or two things that will be points of emphasis before the season and not all of them? And if they're not going to call it a certain way why not just change the rule?

2 thoughts on this blog -

a season or 2 ago, wasn't there a play where Crosby was sent to the sinbin, and after a discussion with the officials, he was removed and no penalty was called? So this (wiping out of a penalty call) has occurred before.

A new "trick" that I see happening in games, that the officials are not yet aware of, is this. When a player gets caught out of position, he falls to the ice, and as he is falling either trips up the opposition or interferes enough with his to allow teammates to recover from the poor play. Why is this never called?