The penalty box or sin bin [1] (sometimes called the bad box, [2] or simply bin or box) is the area in ice hockey, rugby union, rugby league, roller derby and some other sports where a player sits to serve the time of a given penalty, for an offence not severe enough to merit outright expulsion from the contest. Teams are generally not allowed to replace players who have been sent to the penalty box. [3]
Ice hockey has popularized the term "penalty box." In most cases it is a small isolated bench surrounded by walls on all four sides, with the side facing the ice having the access door. There are typically two penalty boxes: one for each team. In ice hockey a period in the box occurs for all penalties unless circumstances call for an ejection or a penalty shot. If three or more players are serving penalties at once, the team will continue playing with three on the ice but will not be allowed to use the players in the box until their penalties expire.
Most leagues specify that a team cannot replace on the ice a member serving a minor (2-minute) penalty. This results in situations such as the power play, in which the opposing team outnumbers the penalized (shorthanded) team, and (in the event of coincidental minor penalties) situations in which both teams must skate with one fewer player on the ice.
If a team scores a goal while one or more of the opposing team is serving a non-coincidental minor penalty, the penalty with the least time remaining is cancelled, and the player serving that penalty may return to the ice. In the case of a double-minor (4-minute) penalty, the penalty is treated as two consecutive 2-minute penalties. If the opposing team scores, only the penalty currently being served is cancelled (e.g. a goal with a double-minor penalty clock at 3:45 is reset to 2:00); if at least one penalty interval remains, the penalty clock is reset to reflect this (two minutes if one interval remains, four minutes if two intervals remain) and the player must remain in the box; if less than two minutes remain, the remaining penalty is cancelled, and the player is released. A major (5-minute) or misconduct (10-minute) penalty must be served in full, regardless of the number of goals scored by the opposition. To keep play fair, coincidental minor penalties ("matching minor" penalties assessed to both teams simultaneously) are also served in full regardless of scoring. Goaltenders never go to the penalty box even though they are assessed penalty minutes (but they can be ejected and replaced with a substitute). Any penalties enforced against goaltenders or the bench are served by a teammate, with many leagues requiring that teammate to have been on the ice when the penalty occurred.
In rugby league, penalties involving violent play, dangerous play, professional fouls or repetitive commission of a specific offence can result in a sin binning, where the offending player must spend 10 minutes off the field. In Australian rugby league, the referee will raise both hands and spread his digits to indicate "10 minutes"; elsewhere, the yellow card is used.
Often, if a team is committing one offence repeatedly, the referee will warn the captain that the next time they commit that offence, the player responsible will be sent to the bin. In the Super League and other UK based competitions, the referee will face the offending team and circle one arm towards them to signal a team warning; this saves time and also allows for fans to see that the next player responsible for a penalty will be sent to the sin bin indefinitely (if there has not been a sufficient change in attitude from the team). For the most serious offences and/or repeated misconduct, the referee may send off players, who take no further part in the game and leave their team a player short. Referees also have the power to send team officials to the stands.
In 1981 Australia's New South Wales Rugby Football League introduced the use of the sin bin and that year Newtown Jets hooker Barry Jensen became the first player sent to it. [4] In the National Rugby League, there is no physical sin bin. Players must serve their punishment in the dressing room; remaining on the sideline or in the stands is not permitted. However, in the Super League and other UK based competitions, a player sent to the sin bin will usually sit on the bench and will wear a 'bib'; however, they do have the option of going back into the dressing room if they please.
Use of the sin bin was introduced to rugby union in 2001. [5] A sin-binned or sent-off player may be replaced if he plays in the front row of the scrum (prop or hooker) and the team has a substitute available who is capable of filling that player's position. This allows contested scrums to continue during the player's suspension. In this instance, the team must remove one player from another position for the duration of the suspension. [6] The referee usually signals such infringements by displaying a yellow card.
In rugby union sevens, the sending-off period is 2 minutes, which despite being eight minutes shorter, is actually a more severe penalty for two reasons: a) a normal sevens match lasts only 14 minutes instead of the 80 used in 15-man union or 13-man league, meaning that the penalty lasts one seventh (14.3%) as opposed to one eighth (12.5%) of the match, and b) during this time, the offender's team must play without one seventh of their team; this opens up more space than losing one thirteenth or one fifteenth of the side.
The following sports use penalty boxes (by that or another name) in some form:
The hybrid sport of International Rules football presents a slight anomaly since penalty boxes are native to neither of the sports from which International Rules was conceived, namely Gaelic football and Australian rules football (although the Gaelic Athletic Association did experiment with the idea, before moving on to another experimental format, which requires a player given a black card to be substituted). [7]
Proposals to introduce penalty boxes in association football have been discussed by the International Football Association Board (IFAB). [8] In 2017 IFAB approved temporary dismissals for cautionable offences; however, this is only permitted for youth, veterans, disability and grassroots football. Competitions' use of this system—rather than 'normal' yellow cards—is optional, and there are variations in how it can be implemented. For 90-minute games, the length of the temporary dismissal is 10 minutes. [9]
Some indoor soccer leagues and competitions, which often use the playing area layout, boards and benches of ice hockey, already use them. In small sided football (i.e., 5-, 6- and 7-a-side), "timed suspensions" are used, and indicated by a blue card, in addition to the traditional yellow for a caution. Periods of suspensions vary depending on the match length (e.g., a 25-minute-half match has a suspension of 5 minutes) and are defined in the competition's rules. [10]
In professional wrestling the promotion Total Nonstop Action Wrestling has used a penalty box in the King of the Mountain match, where instead of retrieving an object hanging above the ring, the winner is the first person to use a ladder to hang a championship belt above the ring — after having scored a pinfall or submission (pinfalls count anywhere) to earn the right to try. A wrestler who has been pinned or forced to submit must spend two minutes in a penalty box. [11]
Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players each, who primarily use their feet to propel a ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is to score more goals than the opposing team by moving the ball beyond the goal line into a rectangular-framed goal defended by the opposing team. Traditionally, the game has been played over two 45-minute halves, for a total match time of 90 minutes. With an estimated 250 million players active in over 200 countries and territories, it is the world's most popular sport.
Handball is a team sport in which two teams of seven players each pass a ball using their hands with the aim of throwing it into the goal of the opposing team. A standard match consists of two periods of 30 minutes, and the team that scores more goals wins.
Ice hockey is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an ice skating rink with lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice hockey sticks to control, advance, and shoot a closed, vulcanized, rubber disc called a "puck" into the other team's goal. Each goal is worth one point. The team which scores the most goals is declared the winner. In a formal game, each team has six skaters on the ice at a time, barring any penalties, one of whom is the goaltender. Ice hockey is a full contact sport, and is considered to be one of the more physically demanding team sports. It is distinct from field hockey, in which players move a ball around a non-frozen pitch using field hockey sticks.
"Power play" is a sporting term used to describe a period of play where one team has a numerical advantage in players, usually due to a rule violation by the opposing team.
A penalty kick is a method of restarting play in association football, in which a player is allowed to take a single shot at the goal while it is defended only by the opposing team's goalkeeper. It is awarded when an offence punishable by a direct free kick is committed by a player in their own penalty area. The shot is taken from the penalty spot, which is 11 m from the goal line and centred between the touch lines.
A penalty in ice hockey is a punishment for an infringement of the rules. Most penalties are enforced by sending the offending player to a penalty box for a set number of minutes. During the penalty the player may not participate in play. Penalties are called and enforced by the referee, or in some cases, the linesman. The offending team may not replace the player on the ice, leaving them short-handed as opposed to full strength. When the opposing team is said to be on a power play, they will have one more player on the ice than the short-handed team. The short-handed team is said to be "on the penalty kill" until the penalty expires and the penalized player returns to play. While standards vary somewhat between leagues, most leagues recognize several common varieties of penalties, as well as common infractions.
The Laws of the Game are the codified rules of association football. The laws mention the number of players a team should have, the game length, the size of the field and ball, the type and nature of fouls that referees may penalise, the offside law, and many other laws that define the sport. During a match, it is the task of the referee to interpret and enforce the Laws of the Game.
Rugby league nines is a version of rugby league football played with nine players on each side. The game is substantially the same as full rugby league, with some differences in rules and shorter games. Nines is usually played in festivals, as its shorter game play allows for a tournament to be completed in a day or over a single weekend.
In various sports, a professional foul is a deliberate act of foul play intended to bring about an advantage for the perpetrator's team. Professional fouls are usually committed to prevent an opponent from scoring.
Roller in-line hockey, American roller hockey or inline hockey, is a variant of hockey played on a hard, smooth surface, with players using inline skates to move and ice hockey sticks to shoot a hard, plastic puck into their opponent's goal to score points. The sport is a very fast-paced and free-flowing game and is considered a contact sport, but body checking is prohibited. There are five players including the goalkeeper from each team on the rink at a time, while teams normally consist of 16 players. There are professional leagues, one of which is the National Roller Hockey League (NRHL). While it is not a contact sport, there are exceptions, i.e. the NRHL involves fighting.
In sports, an ejection is the removal of a participant from a contest due to a violation of the sport's rules. The exact violations that lead to an ejection vary depending upon the sport, but common causes for ejection include unsportsmanlike conduct, violent acts against another participant that are beyond the sport's generally accepted standards for such acts, abuse against officials, violations of the sport's rules that the contest official deems to be egregious, or the use of an illegal substance to better a player's game. Most sports have provisions that allow players to be ejected, and many allow for the ejection of coaches, managers, or other non-playing personnel. In sports that use penalty cards, a red card is often used to signal dismissals. In some sports, another player is permitted to enter the game in place of the player who has been ejected, but in others the team is required to continue the game with a reduced number of players.
In the sport of association football, fouls and misconduct are acts committed by players which are deemed by the referee to be unfair and are subsequently penalised. An offence may be a foul, misconduct or both depending on the nature of the offence and the circumstances in which it occurs. Fouls and misconduct are addressed in Law 12 of the Laws of the Game. A foul is an unfair act by a player, deemed by the referee to contravene the game's laws, that interferes with the active play of the game. Fouls are punished by the award of a free kick to the opposing team. A list of specific offences that can be fouls are detailed in Law 12 of the Laws of the Game ; these mostly concern unnecessarily aggressive physical play and the offence of handling the ball. An infringement is classified as a foul when it meets all the following conditions:
A bench-clearing brawl is a form of fighting that occurs in sports, most notably baseball and ice hockey, in which most or all players on both teams leave their dugouts, bullpens, or benches, and charge onto the playing area in order to fight one another or try to break up a fight. Penalties for leaving the bench can range from nothing to severe.
Penalty cards are used in many sports as a means of warning, reprimanding or penalising a player, coach or team official. Penalty cards are most commonly used by referees or umpires to indicate that a player has committed an offence. The official will hold the card above their head while looking or pointing toward the player who has committed the offence. This action makes the decision clear to all players, as well as spectators and other officials in a manner that is language-neutral. The colour or shape of the card used by the official indicates the type or seriousness of the offence and the level of punishment that is to be applied. Yellow and red cards are the most common, typically indicating, respectively, cautions and dismissals.
Unsportsmanlike conduct is a foul or offense in many sports that violates the sport's generally accepted rules of sportsmanship and participant conduct. Examples include verbal abuse, taunting of an opponent or a game official, an excessive celebration following a significant play, or feigning injury. The official rules of many sports include a general provision whereby participants or an entire team may be penalized or otherwise sanctioned for unsportsmanlike conduct.
The National Hockey League rules are the rules governing the play of the National Hockey League (NHL), a professional ice hockey organization. Infractions of the rules, such as offside and icing, lead to a stoppage of play and subsequent face-offs, while more serious infractions lead to penalties being assessed to the offending team. The league also determines the specifications for playing equipment used in its games.
Too many men is a penalty that may be called in various team sports when the team has more players on the field or other playing area than are allowed by the rules. Penalties vary from one sport to the next.
Cross-checking is an infraction in the sport of ice hockey and ringette where a player checks an opponent by using the shaft of their ice hockey stick or ringette stick with both hands. This article deals chiefly with ice hockey.
In team sports, substitution is replacing one player with another during a match. Substitute players that are not in the starting lineup reside on the bench and are available to substitute for a starter. Later in the match, that substitute may be substituted for by another substitute or by a starter who is currently on the bench.
The Hockey Canada Officiating Program is the governing body for on-ice officials for all ice hockey games played under the jurisdiction of Hockey Canada. The Hockey Canada Rulebook provides in-depth explanation and examples of all rules governing hockey in Canada.
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