NHL: The 5 Dumbest Rules in Professional Hockey

You know what they are.

Dumb rules. We have all watched hockey games and shaken our heads.

Why can't an organization like the NHL realize just how stupid it is and just change the rules?

Whether it is a penalty call, a zone, someone playing the puck, whatever it may be, this slideshow will examine the five dumbest rules in hockey today.

We start off with No. 5: 

5. The Instigator Rule

Luke Schenn Instigating?

What exactly does it take to instigate a fight? 

Most fights in the NHL these days are two guys that either have to settle a beef with one another, trying to jump start his team out of a funk or just plain old does not like someone. 

Every time there is a fight in the NHL, someone instigates it. Every time. 

In the above example, Toronto's Luke Schenn takes exception to a massive hit and starts a fight. 

Do not get me started on guys who start fights with face shields on. 

Who instigated the fight? Abedelkader for throwing a big hit? Schenn for not liking it? 

If someone just grabs someone else and pummels him, then the guy who pummels gets five minutes and the other guy gets nothing. 

It has happened before, it will happen again. Referees are free to hand out penalties at their discretion and it is hard enough to call the high speed of hockey without wondering who "started it" and punish them with two minutes in the sin bin. 

4. Touch Icing

How many players have to be injured chasing a puck down for icing before the NHL wakes up and eliminates this ridiculous rule from the books?

The Whistle should blow when the puck crosses the line and the play is dead. 

Does someone have to die chasing a puck as full speed to the boards before the NHL changes the rule?

Players skate as blazing speeds faster than ever before. Speed is being hyped as what the NHL is being built around and you have an ancient rule that could potentially be the end of a season, career or a life?

It is a rule that has to change.  

3. Goalie Contact. Is It Allowed or Not?

Now this isn't a rule per se, but it should be clearly delineated where the line is drawn in respect to contact with goaltenders.

I am sure there is a rule somewhere, but what exactly is being enforced?

If the goalie is outside the crease, is contact OK then? If he is in the crease is contact NOT OK?

Players have to be told what the line is, and here, do not cross it.

Is a goalie outside the crease fair game to be smashed just like anyone else?

Goaltenders have enough to deal with with five enemies on the ice who want to fire a one-third pound piece of vulcanized rubber as hard as they can at you, or past you if you will.

Do they have to worry about the 200-pound world class athlete skating 20 miles per hour is going to run him over like a mack truck as well?

Now that may be overstating it a bit, but when contact with goalies is strictly penalized in one game and totally ignored in another, then we have a major problem.  

In the above video high class player Matt Cooke was given three separate minor penalties for contact with Rick DiPietro. Sure that's all fine and dandy. But if you want to put a stop to players running goaltenders, how about an escalating penalty scale with the second infraction gets you ejected or a major penalty? 

2. Shooting the Puck over the Glass from the Defensive Zone Is a Penalty

OK so you can shoot the puck off the glass and over out of play, but that's fine. You shoot a puck directly over the glass, and that is bad. 

I get what the NHL was going for here but it is way too automatic for this to continue. It should be a judgement call for an official whether the goaltender or defenseman shoots the puck over the glass should warrant a penalty or eliminate the rule altogether and just have the faceoff in the defensive zone.

I have grown really tired of every time a puck goes over the glass all players immediately point to it and try to draw a penalty or to deny a penalty. 

Times should change.

As much as it pains me to put Matt Cooke up here again, this is the only one I could find.  

1. Goalies Cannot Go into the Corners

Really? I mean Really? 

This is just absolutely ridiculous. The NHL thought that they should not allow goaltenders to play pucks in the corners because, let me see if I have this right, they are trying to create more offense?

Does this make any sense at all?

No. 1, the trapezoid looks ridiculously out of place on a hockey rink and goaltenders are pretty resourceful people and have figured out that all you have to do is skate across and stop the puck before it gets into the corner or wait for it to bounce out of the area.

How many more goals have been scored in the NHL because of this rule.

I would bet real money that more goals have been prevented because you are taking away a possible two-line breakout pass from goaltenders who are very adept at playing the puck, like Martin Brodeur, Rick DiPietro and Ryan Miller.

Goaltenders for the most part are pretty good at playing the puck and you take away a potentially exciting pass up ice to prevent what exactly?

Its ridiculous. It is stupid. It is, ladies and gentlemen, the dumbest rule in hockey.  

Have another dumb rule you want eliminated from the rule books? Place your comments below.