by William Engelman

Created on: August 10, 2009

Professional Hockey has a numerous amount of rules. Most people will not know the rules including half of the coaches themselves. Watching a game can get pretty confusing, everything can get going pretty fast pace and smoothly, then a whistle blows. When a whistle blows, penalties gets called, play stops, and nobody has any idea what the referee is talking about. Sometimes we don't know why he is sending a player to the penalty box or why the puck is being dropped from another area. Watching a hockey game we will see a lot of stopping and going; in some games that becomes extremely annoying the game gets stopped every thirty seconds for icing, two-line passing etc.

Rule Number 53, one rule that seems to have different levels of violations, in NHL hockey is Throwing Equipment. Rule 53 has punishments assessed depending on the situation in which the rule was violated. The rule itself, according to the official rules of the NHL, basically states, that nobody including the goalie or coach can throw equipment i.e. sticks, clipboards, gloves in any opponents zone or there own but the penalty can be extremely varied depending on the situation.

In two cases a Penalty shot can be awarded to a team, or a goal can be awarded to a team. If a puck is mere inches from going in to the goal and the goalie says, forget that throws his stick or glove and hits the puck; a goal will be awarded to the opposing team for throwing equipment and interfering with the puck. Also if a player is mere inches from shooting at the goal and a piece of equipment is chucked miraculously in front of the puck then a penalty shot can be awarded.

Another form of penalty for the violation of Rule 53 is if a player throws his stick at another player, or throws anything including the puck itself trying to cause bodily harm to a player. That infraction of trying to hurt another player is a match penalty. A match penalty means that a player or coach must leave the remainder of the game. Depending on whether the item struck the opposing player, will land you some fines, match penalties, suspensions, a nice little clip on the evening news, and a brawl that usually follows such an event. Ultimately if someone is actually hit by a flying stick on purpose, an official usually doesn't have time to blow the whistle. Both teams will hit the ice and a major brawl ensues, changing the penalties to fighting and worse.

There are also ways in which rule 53 is just a minor penalty,

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