Rules and Briefings
45-Second Shot Clock on Penalty Corners
By UmpireHockey.com
Mar 21, 2013 - 6:00:00 PM

The FIH Executive Board held one of its three annual meetings last weekend in Lausanne. It was the first time that the board had met since the elections of the new members at the FIH Congress in Kuala Lumpur last November and several items were on the agenda during the busy two days.

Most notably, the Executive Board decided to implement a 45-second shot clock for all penalty corners (as of this writing, this does not apply to games governed by NFHS and NCAA in the USA).

After seeing that the time taken for penalty corners was gradually increasing, the Executive Board felt this was an important measure to speed up the game while still giving teams enough time to prepare for penalty corners. The rule is set to take effect in time for the Women's Hockey World League Round 4 tournament in Argentina.

What isn't clear from the FIH announcement is if this is a rule, mandatory experimental rule, or something that is only going to appear in the FIH Tournament Guidelines.

Further, the announcement makes no mention of what penalties will be in place for a defense or attack in violation of the mandate.

Currently, UmpireHockey.com suspects it will only be in its Tournament Guidelines as there has been nothing from the FIH Rules Committee.

Copyright © 2002- UmpireHockey.com