Guidelines to prioritize safety, development, and inclusivity:
- Set diverse goals – set goals for puck handling, learning rules, in-game vision, reducing offsides, fluid passing and movement, communication, creating scoring opportunities, the list goes well beyond scoring points.
- Care for all players’ development and safety – safe, developmental hockey is our mission and play style. If you’ve never played with (or against) someone, practice noticing their abilities so you can make safe choices that help everyone learn.
- Play the puck – develop stick handling skills to gain and maintain possession of the puck. Don’t play the body, check, or skate through others’ bodies.
- Practice enthusiastic consent – Get permission before you hug or touch someone, and remember that many folks may be comfortable with fully-clothed hugs in the stands, but uncomfortable with *any* contact in the locker room. Every body can have boundaries without having to worry about being Midwestern nice about it.
Locker Room Etiquette: If you aren’t comfortable dressing in front of other people, or other aspects of the locker room, please talk to your captain or a board member about this. We can share advice, and with your captains can help figure out the best way to make you feel comfortable and safe. Accommodations can always be made.
We’ve made a conscious choice as a league over the years to share locker rooms as a team. We are a league with an incredibly diverse range of bodies, body types, gender identities, sexualities, histories, and comfort levels. Know that some are comfortable getting totally naked and some won’t be comfortable in less than a t-shirt and shorts, or more. We ask that you respect each other by being discrete. The locker room isn’t the place to single out your new teammates and ask why they dress up or down.
Game Rules, adopted by the MGHA:
All games will be played under current USA Hockey Adult No-Check rules (pdf), with the following additions.
- No slapshots are allowed. The note from rule 621(d) will be applied: A face-off shall take place at one of the end face-off spots adjacent to the goal of the offending player’s team who, in the process of making a forehand shot or pass, raises the blade of their stick above their waist in the backswing of such shot or pass.
- Limit players to three goals per game. If a player scores a goal after reaching the limit, the goal will be disallowed and the face-off moved to the nearest neutral-zone face-off location (attacking team caused the stoppage of play).
- Game Time and Timeouts:
- Warmup: 4 minutes
- Periods: 12 minutes (stop time)
- Intermissions: 1 minute
- Minor Penalties: 1:30
- Major Penalties: 3:00
- Misconduct Penalties: 6:00
- Timeouts: 1:00
- The R4HC 5-Minute Rule will be used, with the exception that timeouts will be permitted: At the first stoppage of play after 5:00 or less are left in the allotted ice time: if the clock shows more than 3:00, the on-ice officials will ask [the game timekeeper] to reset the clock:
- The time on the scoreboard clock should be reset to show 2 minutes plus the number of seconds on the clock. For example, suppose the scheduled ice time ends at 10:00 am. If the scoreboard clock shows 3:48 left at the first whistle after 9:55 am, the clock should be reset to 2:48.
- Penalty times are not reset. The on-ice officials will notify each team that the clock is being reset.
- [the game timekeeper] may verbally call the attention of the on- ice officials if they do not notice that it is time to reset the clock.
- [the game timekeeper] should not reset the clock unless told to do so by the on-ice officials.
To report Code of Conduct violations, use the Conduct Reporting Form.