Penalty (ice hockey) 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 "power play", they
Bench-clearing brawl 1995, the National Basketball Association changed the penalty for leaving the bench to participate in a brawl from a $500 fine to an automatic one-game suspension. In 2010, the Northern Territory Football League in Australia ruled that any player found to have left the interchange bench to participate in a melee would be ejected from that match; they would also have their melee fine increased by 25% and receive an automatic one-game suspension. Bench-clearing brawls do not occur very often in gridiron football. All levels of the game penalize any "substitute who leaves the team box during a fight" (as