Helpful Documents
The FIH has published the indoor briefing for the 2009 Rules of Indoor Hockey.
Of particular interest in the briefing is it's coverage of two mandatory experimental rules—time outs and free pushes.
Time Outs – Allows one time out per half per team. Play must restart in exactly one minute. The time out can be requested by the team captain or a team official but only when play is stopped.
[ED: In the USA, we have a long history with time outs during outdoor play—two per game in high school games and one per game in college. By allowing team officials, i.e. coaches, to request a time out, umpires are often confronted (during competitions with lots of crowd noise) by coaches yelling behind the back of the closest umpire, "Time out. Time Out! TIME OUT!" Ultimately the umpire is blamed for not being able to hear the coach's screaming over the crowd noise – some of whom often join in the "time out" chant. This isn't an invention of what could happen—it actually does happen. Timeouts are better requested by the team captain, who is most often in front of the umpire and who, unlike the umpire, should be paying attention to their coach. While this permission, allowing "team officials to request a time out", will work well at the upper levels of the game, the FIH has responsibility for providing governance that will work at all levels of the game and in all environments. We hope this permission is reconsidered should the rule (when the rule) is adopted in 2010.]
Free Pushes – The new free push rule for indoor hockey requires indirect entry into the circle from free pushes inside the attacking half of the pitch and allow the "self pass" option.
2009 Indoor Briefing
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