Penalty (ice hockey) points being awarded. Penalty (ice hockey) A penalty in ice hockey is a punishment for an infringement of the rules. Most penalties are enforced by sending the offending player to a penalty box for a set number of minutes. During the penalty the player may not participate in play. Penalties are called and enforced by the referee, or in some cases, the linesman. The offending team may not replace the player on the ice (although there are some exceptions, such as fighting), leaving them short-handed as opposed to full strength. When the opposing team is said to be on a
Penalty (ice hockey) penalty is ejected, and is sent to the team's dressing room. The player may be immediately substituted for on the ice; however, in practice, game misconduct penalties are often assessed as an addition to a particularly egregious infraction that has also earned the player a two-minute minor penalty or (more often) a five-minute major penalty, in which case another player will serve this penalty in place of the ejected player. Regardless of the time during the game that the penalty is given, the player is charged with ten penalty minutes (twenty in the IIHF rules) for statistical purposes for the