Penalty (ice hockey) the 1921–22 season, while five- and ten-minute penalties were added two years later. Both the NHL and the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) recognize the common penalty degrees of minor and major penalties, as well as the more severe misconduct, game misconduct, and match penalties. A minor penalty is the least severe type of penalty. A minor penalty is two minutes in length. The offending player is sent to the penalty box and in most cases, his team will play shorthanded. If the offending player is the goaltender or a team is given a "bench minor" penalty (assessed against the
Penalty (ice hockey) larger fine, and the offending player is suspended indefinitely until the Commissioner rules on the issue. In NCAA hockey, a similar penalty called a game disqualification results in automatic suspension for the number of games equal to the number of game disqualification penalties the player has been assessed in that season. For statistical purposes, match penalty is counted as ten minutes in NHL and as twenty-five minutes under the IIHF rules. A penalty shot is a special case of penalty for cases in which a scoring opportunity was lost as a result of an infraction (like being tripped or hooked