Can someone explain why the Sharks hand pass was illegal?
TIA!
Hey Barf!!
How ya doing? It’s been a while!👍
Anyway, a hand pass, in and of itself, is NOT illegal. It can LEGALLY be used by ANY skater on the ice, BUT, it has to be a LEGAL hand pass. If it is NOT a LEGAL hand pass, then the officials MUST blow the whistle, and stop play!
So the question is, what defines a LEGAL hand pass?
IMO, it’s easier to define what an ILLEGAL hand pass is, that would then cause the officials to stop play!
Ok, so a hand pass is illegal IF, in the opinion of the officials, it is “swatted” toward the direction of a fellow teammate on the ice, OR where the players hand pass has created an ADVANTAGE for their team!
Essentially, the only hand stop, or hand pass, that IS allowable, is one where the skater, who uses his hand to stop the puck, drops the puck to himself, in close proximity, and he retrieves his own puck in the continuation of his skating, OR he can “swat” randomly, at the puck, but the end result, CANNOT be advantageous to HIS team, in the opinion of the on ice officials! If so then play must be stopped!
Obviously, the San Jose hand pass was VERY advantageous to their team, which already makes it illegal, secondly, the pass went to a fellow teammate, which again made it illegal, so that as soon as the hand pass was touched by another SHARK teammate, officials should have blown the whistle, and stopped play!
They didn’t stop play because, believe it or not, NONE of the four officials claim to have SEEN the hand pass!!....(Are you frickin kidding me?)!! ALL FOUR OFFICIALS MISSED IT!!!!
There you have it, buddy!
I think that even the San Jose fans know they got away with one, big time!!
Hope that helped,
Rush