Defending with legs

When I was a lad, the style of defending shown in the vids below was not uncommon. I always think that it is fouling since the defender is not trying to play the puck, but is using his body to limit attacking options in an active fashion.

Opinions welcome.

I sent these vids to Pizazz again - am curious as to what he comes up with as a ruling.

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Faster than a speeding puck...

First impression off one view.

2nd one is definitely playing the legs as the primary defense. You can tell by the knees being the lowest part of his body. Maybe a hand gets below them for a brief second.

1st one looks like the guy is trying to stay in good position rather than redirect the defender. But it is hard to tell in the small distant video image.

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Just in case you weren't sure, it's official -- CMAS sucks.
Oh yeah, and now they're broke.

This has always been a wonder for me as well. Although after thinking about it from both sides I stand on the side that the defender is just taking up there space. The point of offense is to attack and beat the defence. So you are not going to just sit there in their feet you should swim around them and make a move or a pass to another player. The defender has the right to be there and positioned like that because otherwise then it wouldn't be defence if you would have to move out of the way all the time for the other team.

In the second vid the defender is between the attacker and the goal and is using legs to deflect him in the direction he wants. I am not sure if it is a foul since the attacker does not swim into the legs, but I think as soon as he does swim into the legs the defender is blocking him...

Aren't we supposed to move out of the way when a player with the puck wants to swim through? I remember seeing many people ejected for 2 minutes in Calgary in similar situations, although not identical to this.

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Faster than a speeding puck...

in both vids the defender is trying to keep his legs between himself and the puck... if his legs contact the puck or he kicks the guy in the face i reckon its a foul.

in the second vid, you can see the guy actually trying to drop his knee onto the attacker, or prospecting hoping the attacker will swim into his knee... thats a tad more serious i'd think.

i've seen a guy do exactly that in a worlds game, twist to keep his legs in the way then kick when the attacker makes a move, hit him in the mask and swim off with the puck, and it was called and the guy sinbinned.

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it's more polite on the grating than on the subs bench

Just got the comments from Pizazz. See below:

2 things need to be considered:
1) Fins off the bottom: It can be considered that this player is leaving his fins in the way and even though they are not on the bottom it could be said that he is leaving his fins in the way if play
2)Obstruction: As with turning and going for the puck, when a player turns and goes directly for the puck it would not be considered a foul however if a player turns (or in this case proceeds) and does not go directly for the puck but infringes the side in possession this should be considered a foul.


Both videos are similar, second one less clear, in both instances I would have expected the referee on this side to be closer and have a better view but on the first video much would depend on the game situation i.e. if the player with the puck was just breaking away from his own goal probably just an advantage puck, if it was close to the defenders goal and no other players were close to help defending advantage puck plus time penalty.


Regards Pizazz

And, as an optional extra, Pizazz had forwarded it to some other refs, and got the following comments from SimonT (please note though that since Pizazz is world chief ref, I would consider his interpretation to be leading if there are any disparities):

I thought the first one was probably a foul, but it was pretty marginal in the sense that the defender has to be SOMEWHERE, but in this case it looked like they were a bit more in the way than they had to be.

Second one was definitely trying to keep the attacker off with his legs - and I would have given 2 min for the first offence if I saw it in a game, as it's definitely deliberate.
When I'm making this sort of call I will usually try and decide whether the defender's body/legs are simply in the position they had to be to best defend, or if they've set themselves up in a 'suboptimal' defensive position to maximise how much of their body they can get in the way. It's usually pretty obvious!

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Faster than a speeding puck...

number 1 looked alright but the view wasn't the best

number 2 looked like a foul

Gotta agree with Todd and Simon here. I think Pizazz is mixed up on this. 2nd one is much easier to see the blatancy of the foul.

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Just in case you weren't sure, it's official -- CMAS sucks.
Oh yeah, and now they're broke.

Whoopsie... my fault. In the mail I sent Pizazz with the links to the videos they were in the other order...

So here #2 is #1 in his mail.

Sorry about that.

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Faster than a speeding puck...

That makes more sense.

__________________
Just in case you weren't sure, it's official -- CMAS sucks.
Oh yeah, and now they're broke.