Mouthguard Rule Clarification - Central Alberta Hockey League (CAHL)
2012-11-01
This message applies to the Central Alberta Hockey Leage (CAHL) Only.This message applies to the Central Alberta Hockey Leage (CAHL) Only.
Updated Information on Mouth Guards within CAHL League
There have been many emails and calls on this since I sent out the message last week and included below.
After some legwork by Warren Randle, we can make this even simpler.
There is no rule regarding mouth guards at any level beyond the local minor hockey associations that choose to have such a policy.
Clarification from Hockey Alberta and Hockey Canada has been provided and the practice of a warning to the team followed by a Misconduct penalty to a player for improperly wearing a mouth guard is not valid.
No penalties will be issued to players for failing to wear a mouth guard or for wearing one improperly.
Please advise your Referee in Chief or Referee Assignor to pass this information to the officials. There are no penalties related to mouth guards.
Thank you for forwarding this information.
--
James Parks
CAHL President
Below is last weeks message which is not correct!
On Fri, Oct 26, 2012 at 1:25 PM, CAHL President
<cahlpresident@gmail.com> wrote:
All CAHL Directors:
Please pass this along to your local Referee in Chief or referee assignor as information for your officials.
I have had some reports of players being penalized for not wearing mouthguards so I want to clarify the rule around that. I am copying Warren Randle as the liaison to the Referee side of our operation to ask that he pass this back to the referee zones to be certain we are consistent throughout the league as well.
Hockey Canada does not require that players wear mouthguards. Hockey Alberta does not require that players wear mouthguards. CAHL does not require that players wear mouthguards.
As such, there are no penalties for not wearing a mouthguard.
IF a player is wearing a mouthguard improperly, the team will be a given a warning to that effect and subsequently a player from that team may be given a misconduct (10 minute) penalty. A second infraction causing the same player to get a second Misconduct Penalty would result in a Game Ejection. That's it. There is no minor penalty and no requirement for the referee to do anything else about it.
If a local association has a rule around mouthguards as many do, then it is up to the local minor hockey association to address it as they see fit with respect to their players only. A rule put in place by the LMHA does NOT affect visiting teams.
ie: Chestermere players are required to wear a mouthguard per the Chestermere rules, but a game played in Chestermere where players from Hanna do not have mouthguards does not make the players from Hanna subject to penalties or ejection from the game.
If a player is penalized based on a local rule, the visiting team may have cause for a protest of the game. (See CAHL Regulations around protests if this applies.)
--