Daniel Cooper40 said:One question, since we’re already talking about officiating. Does the clock actually have to stop during a penalty shot?
No—it didn't used to be required either, unless there was a player serving a suspension...
But, according to the updated rulebook, you don't even have to do that anymore...
Unless, of course, you just called a penalty and a two-minute suspension at the exact same moment...
However, if the penalty is called but the scoreboard shows a suspension is active, play continues without a timeout...
The only exception is when the team with the suspended player is facing a penalty and the shooter starts stalling—trying to milk the clock as much as possible—in which case, you call a timeout...
On the flip side, if the team facing the penalty is the one with the suspended player and the shooter starts dragging their feet, there's no timeout. That's just their own "stupidity"—they're basically allowing the period where they're short-handed to tick away faster...
The clock only stops for a penalty shot when there's a goalkeeper change... which tends to confuse people, because since that's how it works now, but it didn't always...
Though, back in the day, people used to get tripped up by the clock stopping on a penalty while a suspension was in progress (a scenario that doesn't exist anymore), so you still hear folks in the stands yelling about it today...
Still, some people out there today still cling to the idea that the clock *must* stop for a penalty shot regardless of everything else—whether there's a suspension, whether the goalie changes, none of that matters...
And here’s another interesting little rule/instruction...
If there are 7, 6, or even 5 seconds left in the half or at the end of the game, and a penalty is called, you wait for the clock to run out before blowing the whistle for the shot...
Mind you, teams that are losing tend to get pretty heated about that one...
But it avoids that messy situation where you blow the whistle for the shot just a few seconds before the buzzer, the player aims for the net, takes the shot, and then the game ends while the ball is still mid-air...
Now *that* is a nightmare... because you have to redo the shot, and there is absolutely no way to explain that to the team that was awarded the penalty—especially if things were playing fair...
