Don't Fall for It: Diving Has No Place in Hockey

          Next, the crackdown on obstruction in the post-lockout NHL has fueled the problem further. Players knowing that the slightest infraction by the opposition can end up in a power play situation has players looking for every opportunity to get the ref's attention.

          Diving cannot be an acceptable practice in the NHL, especially in a league that needs all the support it can get and continues to search for a larger fan base.            

          Although the penalty for diving is used on a semi-occasional basis in today’s NHL, it needs to be one of the more significant changes made. Ever since the lockout and the new standard of officiating, it has been hard to understand how the referee was able to spot the small one handed tap on the hip (or hooking as they liked to call it) but failed to acknowledge the 215 pound athlete that plummeted to the ice shortly thereafter.              

          It happens all the time. For every five hooks there are one or two dives. For every five hooks there are five hooking penalties, and almost zero diving calls. The ones that are called simply negate the power play the diving team would have benefited from, even though diving is a much worse crime to commit since it has an impact on the honesty of the game.              

          For this reason, diving should be a five minute major penalty every time no matter what the circumstance.              

          With two referees on the ice, a player usually does not need to help them make the penalty call by falling to the ice, which is yet another reason why there is simply no place for it in the game. Calling both penalties is fine as long as two infractions are clearly identified.              

          There is no harm in calling the dive alone either, when a player simply embellishes a fall or an injury when no foul was committed on them.  In any case a dive is a dive and warrants five minutes in the box.           

          To put further emphasis on the issue, those who are caught must go through a separate process. A process that begins with the penalty but could lead to suspensions.             

          The offender’s name goes on a list and future dives by the same player will go to the league to discuss. Each additional dive a player takes after the first should come with a fine to both the player and coach, somewhere in the range of $15,000 to $30,000 for the second offense, increasing from there.             

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