Goaltender

Rule set: Written to NHL rules. Where IIHF, USA Hockey or typical rec-league rules differ in a way that changes how you play, it is flagged inline. This matters more for goaltenders than anyone except defencemen — see the trapezoid section. Playing in Britain? The IIHF flags are yours — every level of UK hockey runs the IIHF book, amended locally; see UK and England Rules.

Overview

Key: Goaltending is not primarily about reflexes — it is about being in the right place, so that the save needs almost no reflex at all
Convention: Be out, be square, be set — Korn's three steps, which he numbers but does not rank; trading a little depth to be completely set is a coaching judgement rather than his, so ask your coach
Key: Depth is the decision you make before every save, and it always trades the shooter in front of you against the pass behind
Read: Come out at a lone shooter with no pass available; get back when the puck is in tight, or a pass across the front of the goal is on
Convention: On a screened shot from distance the coaching schools genuinely disagree — one wants you deeper, for time to find the puck; the other calls going deep a common error and wants a close gap, so ask which your coach teaches
Technique: Track the puck all the way into the pad, the glove, the chest — if you saw it hit you, you know where the rebound went, and when a pass is released move then, not when it arrives
Key: You see everything and you are the only player not deciding while sprinting — a view wasted unless you say it, early, short, every time
Mindset: You will let in bad goals — have a reset ritual, use it identically every time, and do the analysis tomorrow, not during the game

Goaltending is not primarily about reflexes — it is about being in the right place, so that the save needs almost no reflex at all.

"Out, square, set" is Korn's numbering, and he does not rank the three: treating out-and-square-but-still-moving as worse than slightly-shallow-and-completely-set is a coaching judgement rather than his. Tracking the puck all the way in pays twice — goalie coaches put almost every soft goal down to losing sight of it, an observation rather than a count, and if you saw it hit you, you already know where the rebound went. And your voice is the most valuable thing you do that is not a save: you are the only player on the ice not deciding while sprinting, and that view is wasted unless you say it — early, short, and every time, because a goalie who calls intermittently trains their defencemen to filter them out.

If you have not started playing yet, this is the cheapest route onto the ice: goalies are scarce, so learn-to-play places are often free or discounted and clubs often loan gear. ⚠️ Borrowing is the right way in — but borrow the pads, the blocker, the trapper and the chest protector, and buy the mask. Goalkeeper face protection is required equipment under every book, and under USA Hockey and Hockey Canada the sticker on a loaned mask is worth thirty seconds — an expired one is no certification at all. 🇬🇧 In Britain there may be no sticker to find, and its absence is not a fault, because no British rule names a certification mark; ask your league what it accepts. But an in-date sticker is a certification clock, not a condition report: it carries an expiry date and tells you nothing about how many pucks that mask has stopped or what state its liner is in, and nobody at a club is keeping a record. See Protection, and the neck laceration protector below, and Equipment, which owns used and borrowed head protection.

How This Document Maps onto the Other Position Documents

Center, Defender and Winger are all built on the same skeleton: three zones — Defensive, Neutral, Offensive — and inside each zone four situations: Carrying the Puck in Free Space, Carrying the Puck Under Pressure, Pressuring an Opponent with the Puck, and Without the Puck. Each finishes with an Other Situations section.

A goaltender does not fit that grid, and forcing it would teach you something false. You spend the whole game in one zone, you carry the puck essentially never, and you pressure nobody. So this document is organised by skill instead. Here is the translation, so that a reader moving between the four documents does not lose their place:

The skaters' framing	Where the equivalent lives here
Defensive zone — without the puck	Almost the whole document: Stance and Depth, Angles and Positioning, Movement, Save Selection, Rebound Control, Tracking the Puck, Screens, Tips and Traffic.
Defensive zone — carrying the puck, free space	Playing the Puck — retrievals behind your net, the trapezoid, the ranked list of safe outlets, the delay-of-game minor for putting the puck out of the rink, and your part in icing.
Defensive zone — carrying the puck, under pressure	Playing the Puck → The discipline of not playing it, plus Freezing the puck under Rebound Control. Your equivalent of a defenceman's "get it off the glass" is a freeze or a clear.
Defensive zone — pressuring an opponent	You almost never do this. The two exceptions are the poke check (Save Selection) and coming out to smother a loose puck (Playing the Puck).
Neutral zone	Barely applies. You may not participate in the play beyond the centre red line, and all four books penalise it — see below. Your job here is watching for the shorthanded break.
Offensive zone	Only when your net is empty — see 6-on-5 with your net empty.
Other Situations	Same job as the skaters': Situational Goaltending — breakaways, penalty shots, 2-on-1s, 3-on-2s, shootouts, special teams, the empty net, and what to do when a fight breaks out.

Three of those rows carry more than a table has room for.

Playing your own zone without the puck is your version of a skater's "finding space" — except the space you are finding is the shooting angle rather than a patch of ice.
You have no real equivalent of pressuring an opponent, and the nearest thing to one is your voice. Communicating with Your Defence is where it lives: you do not pressure anybody yourself, you direct the four players who can.
The neutral-zone prohibition is a penalty in every book, and the books do not measure it the same way. A minor is assessed under NHL Rule 27.7, IIHF Rule 27.6, USA Hockey Rule 407(c) and Hockey Canada Rule 4.13(c) — the last of those penalised as interference under its own Rule 8.3(a). The NHL's and the IIHF's determining factor is the position of the puck, and both books write that into the playing rule. USA Hockey's and Hockey Canada's is the position of your skates — and neither writes it at the rule number just given. USA Hockey's skates test is in the separate Casebook volume, at Rule 407(c), Situation 13; Hockey Canada's is in a different playing rule, Rule 8.3(a)(ii), and restated in Interpretation 2 to Rule 4.13(c). The full split is under The trapezoid — the rule that defines what you can do, and your shorthanded-break job is under Power play, in Situational Goaltending.

Two sections have no skater equivalent at all and are specific to this position: Goaltender Interference, From Your Side of It and What a Goalie Needs From Their Skaters.

A Note on Language

Key: The shared vocabulary — lines, zones, named areas — is in Rink Map and Glossary; only goalie-specific terms are defined here
Key: Depth is how far out you are along the puck-to-goal line; square is chest, hips and shoulders facing the puck, centred on that line
Key: Five-hole is the gap between your legs; six-hole is the gap between your stick arm and your body
Key: Front door is the shooter you are challenging; back door is the space you have opened up behind you, usually at the far post
Key: The spoken call "back door" is narrower — it means an unmarked opponent waiting at the far post, a person rather than a depth
Key: You do not play a series of shots; you play situations, many of which never end in a shot at all

Goaltending has its own precise vocabulary, and these terms recur throughout this document. The shared vocabulary every position uses — the lines, the zones, the named areas of the ice, and the full glossary — is in Rink Map and Glossary; only the goalie-specific terms are defined here.

The crease = the light-blue painted area in front of the net where you operate. It is a semi-circle of six-foot radius drawn from the centre of the goal line, with straight side lines starting one foot outside each post and running four feet six inches out (NHL Rule 1.7).
Depth = how far out of your net you are, measured along the line from the puck to the middle of the goal.
Square = your chest, hips and shoulders facing directly at the puck, with the middle of your body on the line from the puck to the centre of the net.
Challenging = coming out toward the shooter to reduce how much net they can see. The opposite is staying deep or playing back.
Five-hole = the gap between your legs. Six-hole = the gap between your stick arm and your body, which opens when your paddle is too long or you roll your shoulder.
Blocker = the rectangular pad on your stick hand. Glove or trapper = the catching mitt on the other hand.
Post = the vertical pipes at the sides of the net. Post integration = the family of techniques for sealing yourself against a post and getting off it cleanly.
Front door / back door = when you challenge a shooter, the shooter is the front door; the space you have opened up behind you, usually to the far side of the net, is the back door. Every positioning decision trades one against the other. (The spoken call "back door" — see "Communicating with Your Defence" — uses the term slightly more narrowly: it means an unmarked opponent waiting at the far post. Same piece of ice, but the call is about a person, not about your depth.)
Save selection = choosing which save to make. Not "reacting" — choosing.
Reading the situation = recognising where every player and the puck are, and deciding from that where to be and which save to use. You do not play a series of shots. You play situations, many of which never end in a shot at all.
Screen = an opponent standing in your sightline. Traffic = bodies between you and the puck, from either team.

Stance and Depth

The ready stance

Position: Feet slightly wider than shoulder-width, weight on the inside edges of the balls of your feet
Technique: Get low with your knees, not your spine — bending at the waist drops your head and makes you fall through saves
Position: Hands out in front and visible in your own peripheral vision; hands at your hips must travel forward before they travel sideways
Technique: Stick blade flat on the ice a blade's length in front of your toes, angled so a puck deflects down and out
Key: Head still and level — your eyes are the instrument, and everything else exists to keep them steady
Rule: A goalkeeper's paddle may not exceed 26 inches (NHL Rule 10.2); too long and you stand taller and the six-hole opens
Rule: IIHF Rule 10.2 sets the widened portion at 71 cm — about 28 inches, roughly two inches longer than the NHL's

Everything else is built on this. A stance that is wrong in a small way at the start of the play is wrong in a large way by the time the shot arrives.

Feet slightly wider than shoulder-width, weight on the inside edges of the balls of your feet. Weight on your heels means you cannot push, and you will fall backwards on the first lateral move.
Knees bent, chest up, back reasonably straight. Bending at the waist to get low drops your head and pushes your shoulders forward, which is what makes goalies fall through their saves. Get low with your knees, not your spine.
Hands out in front of you and visible in your own peripheral vision. This is the single cheapest improvement most rec-league goalies can make — a startling number of pucks simply hit hands that are already where the puck is going. Hands held back at your hips are hands that must travel forward before they can travel sideways.
Stick blade flat on the ice, roughly a stick-blade's length in front of your toes, angled so a puck hitting it deflects down and out rather than up into your body. The stick is your first line of defence against low shots and passes through the crease.
Head still and level. Your eyes are the instrument; everything else exists to keep them steady.

Paddle length matters more than beginners think. The paddle is the thick part of the goal stick between the blade and the shaft; the NHL maximum is 26 inches. Under IIHF Rule 10.2 — the book you play under in Britain — the ceiling is higher: "The widened portion of the goalkeeper's stick extending up the shaft from the blade shall not extend more than 71cm from the heel and shall not exceed 9.0cm in width." That is about 28 inches, roughly two inches more than the NHL allows, and the IIHF sets no height-exemption process because it does not need one. A paddle that is too long forces you to stand taller, pushes your stick hand away from your body and opens the six-hole. If your stance feels wrong and you cannot fix it, measure the stick before you rebuild the stance — and note that the extra two inches the IIHF permits are exactly the two inches that will cost you the six-hole.

Depth is the fundamental decision

A strong-side shooter has the puck, and a second attacker is standing unmarked on the far side of the net — the back door. The goaltender is on the line from the puck to the centre of the goal line but has backed off toward the goal line rather than challenging, because the read for a pass available across the slot is to back off: being slightly less square to a shot you can still see beats being perfectly square to a shot that never comes while the back door is wide open. How far to back off is a judgement made situation by situation and not a fixed distance — the trade is always the front door against the back door, and there is no universally correct answer, only a correct answer for each situation. Nobody is drawn covering that far-post attacker, because an unmarked opponent there is exactly what the goaltender’s call of “back door” is for.

Two positions to recognise in your own game, drawn against the same shooter, and neither of them one to play from — it is the same goaltender drawn twice, at two opposite extremes. One is hiding deep in the net, where the posts feel safe and where the corners of the net are open. The other has run at the shooter, out as far as the hash marks and about twenty feet from the goal line, where the first pass or the first change of direction beats them. Both are confidence problems rather than technique problems, so the fix is not a mechanical one; the position you actually want is a read made situation by situation, out and square and set at the depth that situation calls for.

Key: Every save begins with a decision you made before the shot — how far out of my net am I?
Priority: The trade is always front door against back door — shot taken away against pass still covered
Risk: Depth costs you reaction time, lateral coverage on a pass, and awareness of where the net is behind you
Read: With one shooter, no pass available and the shot from distance, challenge to the top of the crease or beyond
Read: Puck below the dots or in tight, or a pass available across the slot — get back
Convention: Depth against a screened shot from distance is a genuine coaching split, not a default. Find out which your coach teaches
Never: Hide deep in the net or run at shooters — both are confidence problems, not technique problems

Every save begins with a decision you made before the shot: how far out of my net am I?

Think of it geometrically. The net is six feet wide. From the shooter's point of view, you are a wall of a certain size at a certain distance. Move a foot toward them and you cover noticeably more of the net from their perspective — the shooting angles that beat you shrink. Move a foot back and they open up again.

So why not just charge out every time? Because depth costs you three things:

Time. The further out you are, the less time you have to react to a shot from that distance, and the more of a deke you have to respect.
Lateral coverage. The further out you are, the further you have to travel to get across on a pass. A goalie two feet outside the crease facing a strong-side shooter has an enormous back door.
Net awareness. Out past the top of the crease it becomes genuinely hard to know where the goal is behind you, and "losing the net" is how goalies end up making a save while standing beside the post.

The trade is always front door against back door. You are choosing how much of the shooter's shot to take away versus how much of the pass you can still cover. There is no universally correct answer; there is a correct answer for each situation.

The rough defaults, which every goalie coach will adjust:

One shooter, no pass available, shot from distance: challenge. Get to the top of the crease or beyond. Take the shot away and make them beat you with placement.
Puck below the dots or in tight: get back. Depth buys the shooter nothing when the angle is already bad, and you need the ability to move.
Pass available across the slot: back off. Being slightly less square to a shot you can still see beats being perfectly square to a shot that never comes while the back door is wide open.
Screened shot from distance: a genuine coaching split, not a default — find out which one your coach teaches. The traditional answer is deeper than you would otherwise be, so you have time to find the puck through legs. A second school teaches the opposite and calls going deep an error: the BVHS goalie manual says "Goalies often fall deep in their crease when facing pressure; this is a common error. This opens too much net and does not help see more of the puck," and asks instead that you "maintain a close gap to the shooter to eliminate room for the puck to move, as well as tips." Both sides are trading the same two things — net coverage against sighting time — and disagreeing about which is scarcer. See the traffic section.

Two failure modes, and both are confidence problems, not technique problems. A goalie who has lost confidence goes to one extreme or the other: hiding deep in the net where the posts feel safe (and getting beaten to the corners), or running at shooters — sometimes out as far as the hash marks, the short marks on the sides of each faceoff circle level with the faceoff dot, about twenty feet from your goal line — and getting beaten by the first pass or the first change of direction. If you can see either pattern in your own game, treat it as a head problem before you rebuild your mechanics.

Angles and Positioning — The Core of the Position

If you take one thing from this document: goaltending is not primarily about reflexes. It is about being in the right place, so that the save requires almost no reflex at all. The saves that look spectacular are usually positioning failures that were rescued athletically. The saves that look easy are the good ones.

Playing the angle

An opposition shooter has the puck at the top of the right-hand faceoff circle, with no second attacker to pass to. The shaded wedge running from the puck to the two goalposts is every straight path from that puck into the net — the whole of what the shooter has to shoot at. The goaltender is standing on the line from the puck to the exact centre of the goal line, which is neither the middle of the goal nor the middle of the ice, and has come out to challenge. A rough default for this read — one shooter, from distance, no pass available — is the top of the crease or beyond, but it is a default every goalie coach will adjust, so treat the depth drawn here as an example of the read and not a measured instruction.

Position: Stand on the line from the puck to the exact centre of the goal line, facing along it, centred on it
Technique: Be out — at the depth this situation calls for
Technique: Be square — chest and hips pointed at the puck, centred on the puck-to-net line
Technique: Be set — stationary, or as close to it as the play allows, at the moment of release
Convention: Korn lists out, square, set as three steps and does not rank them — trading a little depth to be set at release is a coaching judgement, and one manual gives up depth only against a back-door or deke threat, so ask your coach
Action: Ask for the extra second in practice — if you are never set in practice, you will not be set in games

Imagine a line drawn from the puck to the exact centre of the goal line. Your job is to stand on that line, facing along it, with your body centred on it. Do that and you are covering the middle of the net by definition, and the shooter can only score by hitting the edges.

Mitch Korn's three-step formulation of cutting down the angle is the clearest one in circulation, and worth memorising in order. He gives them as "(1) being out … (2) being square … (3) being set (stationary if possible)":

Be out — at the depth this situation calls for.
Be square — chest and hips pointed at the puck, centred on the puck-to-net line.
Be set — stationary, or as close to it as the play allows, at the moment of release.

"Set, then shoot" is also how you should be practised. Coaches habitually let shooters fire before the goalie's feet are down. If you are never set in practice, you will not be set in games. Ask for the extra second.

Squaring up

Technique: Square is about your torso, not your feet. Rotate your shoulders and hips and take small shuffles
Never: Turn your skates and skate along an arc facing the wrong way
Never: Take the big shuffle — two large steps instead of four opens the five-hole mid-step
Key: A smaller shuffle is always better; a large one also leaves you unable to change direction

Square is about your torso, not your feet. On a puck moving laterally across the top of the zone, you stay square by rotating your shoulders and hips and taking small shuffles — not by turning your skates and skating along an arc facing the wrong way.

The common error is the big shuffle: covering the distance in two large steps rather than four small ones. A large shuffle opens the five-hole mid-step and leaves you unable to change direction. Smaller is better, always.

The post-to-post arc

The puck has gone wide and low, out level with the goal line between the net and the boards, and the goaltender has come back to the near post. Two things put them there. The angle closes on its own as the puck moves toward the boards, so depth buys nothing from out here and only leaves you unable to get back; and finishing a lateral movement a foot short of the post rather than at it leaves a gap between your pad and the post for a shooter to pick — the low short-side goal, which goalie coaches call the cheapest goal in hockey, though that ranking is coaching emphasis rather than a counted statistic. Closing it does not close the whole short side: with your body low against the post the space over your shoulder is a separate exposure, and shooters at higher levels look for it. This is one end of the shallow arc a goaltender works along — out at the middle, curving back toward the posts as the puck goes wide — and the arc itself is movement the still picture cannot carry.

Position: Move along a shallow arc — out at the middle, curving back toward the posts as the puck goes wide
Key: As the puck moves toward the boards the angle closes on its own, and depth there just means you cannot get back
Technique: End each lateral movement at the post rather than near it, so there is no gap between your pad and the post for a shooter to pick
Convention: Goalie coaches call the low short-side goal the cheapest in hockey — coaching emphasis rather than a counted ranking, and closing it does not cover the high short side over your shoulder
Key: Korn's "Y-theory" — out, back, and diagonally toward the post — is the picture of what the arc looks like

You are not moving in a straight line across the crease. You are moving along a shallow arc — out at the middle, curving back toward the posts as the puck goes wide. Two reasons:

The geometry demands it. As the puck moves toward the boards the angle closes on its own; you do not need depth to cover a shot from the goal line, and depth there just means you cannot get back.
The posts are your reference points. Ending each lateral movement at the post rather than near it leaves no gap between your pad and the post for a shooter to pick — the low short-side goal, which goalie coaches call the cheapest goal in hockey. Treat that ranking as coaching emphasis rather than a counted statistic. And note which half of the short side you have closed: the space over your shoulder is a separate exposure, and it is covered under post integration below.

Korn calls the efficient combination of moving out, back and diagonally to the post the "Y-theory" — out, back, and diagonally toward the post — and it is a good mental picture for what the arc actually looks like when you trace a goalie's feet over a shift.

Knowing where you are without looking

Key: You cannot look at the net, so build a set of physical references instead
Technique: Tap the posts with your stick or glove when the play allows — it is a position fix, not a nervous tic
Technique: Feel where your skates are relative to the blue paint; the crease lines are painted for you
Technique: Use the crease depth marks as a depth reference where your crease carries them (NHL Rule 1.7)
Action: Look before you rely on the depth marks — check in warm-up what your own crease is painted with, because IIHF Rule 1.7 puts the geometry in an appendix and that paint need not carry the NHL's marks
Action: Reset at every stoppage — skate your arc, tap both posts, find your top-of-crease spot

You cannot look at the net. The puck is at the other end of your attention and it moves faster than your head. So you build a set of physical references:

The posts. Reach back and tap them with your stick or your glove when the play allows. Every goalie does this. It is not a nervous tic; it is a position fix.
The blue paint. The crease lines are painted for you. The straight side lines run from one foot outside each post out to four feet six inches; the arc is six feet from the middle of the goal line. Feel where your skates are relative to the paint.
The depth marks. NHL creases carry a five-inch line extending into the crease from each side line, four feet out from the goal line (Rule 1.7). They exist as a depth reference. Use them — but look before you rely on them. IIHF Rule 1.7 describes the crease in a sentence and puts the geometry in Appendix VI rather than in the rule text, so the paint you get under the IIHF book is not guaranteed to carry the NHL's marks. Find out what your own crease is actually painted with in warm-up.
The ice itself. Your own skate ruts, the goal crease edge under your blade, the feel of the post against your shoulder or shin.
Reset at every stoppage. Skate your arc, tap both posts, find your top-of-crease spot. Rebuild the map every whistle so you do not have to think about it during play.

Angle first, or depth first?

Convention: The mainstream modern emphasis is angle before depth — get on the line first, then add depth if the situation allows
Key: Being deep but off-angle is a goal; being on-angle but a little deep is a save you have to make
Read: Stepping off the post to face a short-side shot is the documented exception to angle-before-depth — add depth first to close the near-post gap
Key: Where the danger is a gap you have just created by moving, depth is the fix
Action: Ask your own coach whether they teach angle before depth — this is a difference in coaching philosophy, not a settled fact

The mainstream modern coaching emphasis is angle before depth: get on the line first, then add depth if the situation allows. Being deep but off-angle is a goal; being on-angle but a little deep is a save you have to make.

There is at least one well-documented exception. Philadelphia Flyers goalie development coach Brady Robinson teaches that when you are stepping off the post to face a short-side shot, depth is the first thing you add — because pushing out along the short side is what closes the near-post gap that opens the instant you detach from the post. Treat that as the shape of the exception generally: when the danger is a gap you have just created by moving, depth is the fix.

Ask your own coach which they teach. This is a genuine difference in coaching philosophy, not a settled fact.

Movement

Goalie skating is its own discipline. You almost never take a normal forward stride; you move laterally, backwards and diagonally in small controlled increments while keeping your body facing the puck.

On your feet

Options: Shuffle for short lateral moves, T-push for longer ones, telescope in and out, C-cut backwards to retreat
Technique: Shuffle without turning your skates and arrive stopped rather than drifting — you stay square the whole way
Technique: T-push turns the lead skate to form a T and covers real ground, but you are momentarily not square, so use it when you have time
Technique: Telescope straight out and straight back along the puck-to-net line, brisk and explosive, never a stroll
Technique: C-cut backwards on your inside edges so you retreat without ever taking your eyes off the puck
Convention: What the lead skate does in a shuffle is not settled — BVHS teaches the flats and calls an outside edge a fault that anchors you
Key: Take your control from the size of the shuffle and from stopping the hips together, not from digging the lead skate in
Key: Flow is a little backward motion on a rush — too much and you retreat into your own net

The shuffle — moving side to side without turning your skates, staying square throughout. You push off the far foot (the "drive" leg), bring it back to stance, and arrive stopped rather than drifting. This is your default for short lateral moves and for anything where the puck may be shot mid-movement, because you are square the whole way. What the lead skate should be doing is not settled. Mitch Korn's definition specifies only the motion and the size, with no edge detail at all. The BVHS goalie manual teaches the lead leg on its flats, not an edge: "When we do shuffle, we ideally want to be on our flats instead of an edge. This makes it easier to glide and stay light through your front leg." It also names the outside edge, not the inside, as the one that bites — and treats that bite as a fault rather than a braking technique: "If your front leg is on its outside edge, you will be anchored to the ice, and no matter how hard you push, you will be stuck." Practical reading: get your control from the size of the shuffle and from stopping the hips together, not from digging the lead skate in.
The T-push — for longer lateral distances. Turn the lead skate to point where you are going so your feet form a T, push hard off the back foot, and glide. Faster than a shuffle and it covers real ground, but you are momentarily not square, so use it when you have time — post to post on a puck behind the net, or recovering across after a rebound goes wide. The T-push is also the first motion of a two-pad slide.
Telescoping — moving straight out and straight back along the puck-to-net line, staying in your stance the whole time. This is how you add and remove depth. It should be brisk and explosive, never a stroll.
Backward C-cuts — retreating without turning around. You carve a "C" shape with one skate's inside edge, then the other, which pushes you backwards while your chest stays facing the play. This is how you retreat on a rush, how you back off a shooter who is closing on you, and how you get from a challenged position back into the net without ever taking your eyes off the puck. It is the goalie equivalent of a defenceman's backward skating and it is just as foundational.
Flow — a general principle rather than a specific move. On a rush or against a deke you want a little backward motion rather than being planted flat-footed; flow gives you rhythm and lets you react in either direction. Too much flow and you retreat into your own net.

On your knees

Technique: Butterfly slide — push laterally off the heel of the up leg and arrive with both pads down
Goal: Cover ground without getting back to your feet, when a pass across the slot gives you no time to stand up
Technique: Keep your head and hands at the same level throughout, and close the five-hole as you land
Convention: The recovery taught with the modern butterfly keeps the puck-side leg down and lifts the far leg first
Never: Stand up away from the puck first — that is how goalies end up out of position on the second shot

The butterfly slide (also called a power slide; the push itself is often called the backside push, but that names the mechanic rather than the move) — from a butterfly position with one pad down, you push laterally off the heel of the up leg and slide, arriving with both pads down. It lets you cover ground without getting back to your feet, which matters when a pass across the slot gives you no time to stand up. Keep your head and hands at the same level throughout and close the five-hole as you land.
Butterfly recovery — getting back up. The convention taught with the modern butterfly is to keep the puck-side leg down and lift the far leg first, then push toward the puck. Standing up "away" from the puck first is how goalies end up out of position on the second shot.

Post integration: VH and RVH

Read: Seal the post when the puck is below the goal line or very tight to it — otherwise there is a gap at ice level
Technique: VH puts the near pad up vertical against the post and the far pad down along the ice — a wall up the post
Technique: RVH puts the near pad down along the goal line and keeps the inside leg up and vertical — a wall along the ice
Key: RVH kills the low short-side shot and the wrap-around; VH is better against a shot that can go up the post
Technique: Dig the off-post pad into the ice at 45 degrees — without that anchor the first shot drives you back into your net
Risk: You can get locked onto the post, the high short side is exposed, and an early seal encourages you to stop reading
Convention: Onto the post late and off it early is the conservative North American default; the Swedish tradition teaches an earlier, defined trigger — ask what yours is
Never: Drop to a post out of habit, without a read — that is the one thing nobody defends

When the puck goes below the goal line or very tight to the post, standing normally leaves a gap between your pad and the post at ice level, which is exactly where wrap-arounds and stuff attempts go. Post integration is how you seal that.

VH (vertical–horizontal), also called the split butterfly or "loading the post." The pad nearest the post goes up, vertical, flat against the post; the far pad goes down, horizontal, along the ice. Named for the orientation of the two pads. It covers a quick short-side shot well while keeping you able to track a pass out front.
RVH (reverse VH) — the same idea reversed. The pad nearest the post goes down, horizontal, along the goal line, sealing the ice at the base of the post; the inside leg stays up and vertical, ready to push out. Your upper body leans into the post, with the seal made by skate, shin or pad depending on what you have been taught.

The load-bearing detail is the off-post leg, and it is the one most descriptions leave out: that pad has to be dug into the ice, not just held up. BVHS: "the pad off the post is dug into the ice at a 45-degree angle. It is super important that we dig this foot into the ice, as when the pad on the post faces impact, we need to be anchored into the ice to stay out of the net and in position." Without that anchor, "up and vertical, ready to push out" is the version that gets driven backwards into your own net by the first shot that hits the post-side pad.

RVH was developed in Sweden in 2010 by goaltending coaches Linda Blomquist and Daniel Henriksson at Luleå Hockey (Swedes call it "SMS"), specifically to fix three problems they had with VH: difficulty staying attached to the post, poor rebound control, and difficulty getting off the post. It is now in near-universal use at professional level — a characterisation drawn from goaltending-coaching sources rather than from any published count.

In plain terms: VH puts a wall up the post and RVH puts a wall along the ice. RVH kills the low short-side shot and the wrap-around; VH is better against a shot that can go up the post.

The honest limitations, all of which are actively debated among professional goalie coaches:

You can get stuck. The most common criticism of RVH is that goalies get locked onto the post and cannot detach in time for a play back to the slot. Bruins goaltending coach Bob Essensa, who teaches a shin-on-post seal, describes this as the standard objection he fields from other coaches.
The high short side is exposed. With your body low against the post, the space over your shoulder is real, and shooters at higher levels look for it.
It encourages passivity. Blomquist and Henriksson identified this as one of the three problems they had to solve before the technique was viable: a goalie who drops to a post seal early stops reading the play.

The practical rule — and it is one school, not the only one. The version taught here is the conservative North American default: post seals are for pucks that are genuinely below the goal line or genuinely on top of you; get on the post late, get off it early, and stay on your feet as long as the puck is still in front of the goal line. Other coaches, particularly in the Swedish tradition where RVH originated, teach an earlier and more systematic seal with a defined trigger line. Both are defensible, and the trigger is a coaching choice, so ask what yours is. What nobody defends is dropping to a post out of habit, without a read. Which seal your coach teaches — skate, shin or pad — is likewise theirs to set; learn it.

The load goaltending puts on your hips, and warming up for it

Action: Get a sweat on before you take live shots — the butterfly drops, slides and post seals of goaltending are force at the end of your hip range, and cold is where they cost you
Risk: A goalie coaching manual says jumping straight into live shots without a sweat "drastically increases the risk of pulled groin or hip flexor muscles" — its judgement, not a measured rate
Action: A goalie manual's pre-practice checklist is a routine, not a prescription — arrive 45 minutes early, mobility and stretching, hip activation, hydrate, check the gear for damage, one focus goal
Key: Warm up by moving rather than by holding stretches — Conditioning and Recovery finds the evidence favours dynamic work before play, and that pre-activity stretching is not injury prevention
Key: Among NHL goaltenders in a 2025 study, proximal adductor injuries were the largest injury category and cost the most days missed — Conditioning and Recovery carries its numbers and its population
Never: Take groin or hip pain to a document instead of a person — persistent or recurring pain wants a physiotherapist or sports physician, and when you play again is their call

The butterfly drops, the slides and the post seals set out in this section are all force produced at the end of your hip range, over and over, and they are the part of the position with the most obvious physical cost attached. The injury data, the warm-up structure, and an honest account of how thin the evidence for preventing any of it actually is are all in Conditioning and Recovery. Two things belong here rather than there, because they are about your ice time rather than your training.

Do not go from the dressing room straight into live shots. The BVHS goalie manual puts it bluntly, in its warm-up chapter: "The intense butterfly drops and side-to-side pushes require loose muscles. Jumping straight into live shots without a sweat drastically increases the risk of pulled groin or hip flexor muscles." ⚠️ That is a coaching manual's judgement rather than a study, and it puts no number on the risk — none is given here, because the manual gives none. What it lines up with is the one measured thing in reach: in Keshen and colleagues' 2025 American Journal of Sports Medicine study of musculoskeletal injuries in NHL goaltenders, proximal adductor injuries were the largest single injury category and accounted for more days missed than any other. Note that population — professionals, on the ice far more than you are — and take the figures and their caveats from Conditioning and Recovery, which owns them.
The same manual publishes a pre-practice checklist, and it is one goalie routine rather than a prescription: arrive 45 minutes early; complete a mobility and stretching routine; perform hip activation exercises; hydrate; visualise successful practice situations; check equipment for issues or damage; warm the hands and eyes up with tennis-ball work; set a focus goal for the practice. ⚠️ One qualification the checklist does not carry, and you should. It says "stretching" without saying which kind, and Conditioning and Recovery sets out evidence favouring dynamic movement before you play, together with a 2025 consensus-style paper concluding that stretch training "does not serve as an all-encompassing injury prevention strategy." So the part of that checklist doing the work is getting warm and moving through range, not holding a stretch. Stretch for range of motion at a separate time.

Save Selection

Note the word: selection. You are not reacting randomly; you are choosing the save that fits the situation, and the choice is made before the shot arrives, from your read of where everyone is.

Butterfly — dropping to your knees with both pads extended sideways and the five-hole closed. It covers the great majority of the lower net, and it is the base save of modern goaltending for that reason. (The supporting claim usually given — that most goals are scored low — is repeated widely in coaching material, but no measured source is offered for it here, so treat it as consensus rather than a figure.)
Half butterfly — one pad extends while the other stays underneath supporting your body. Mitch Korn calls it "probably the most used save" in hockey. It handles a low shot to one side while leaving you balanced and able to recover, and it can be executed while stationary, moving in any direction, or turning to stay square.
Glove save — catching cleanly with the trapper. The best possible outcome of any high shot, because it produces no rebound at all and stops play or gives you the puck.
Blocker save — deflecting with the rectangular pad on your stick hand. A blocker save always produces a rebound, so the technique is about where you send it: angle the blocker face so the puck goes to the corner, not back into the slot.
Pad saves — the leg pads, standing or in butterfly. Pads are big and reliable but they are also springy, so pad saves need active management (see rebound control).
Body / chest save — smothering the puck into your upper body by "caving in" your arms around it. Excellent for rebound control, poor if you have not tracked the puck, because a puck you have not seen into your chest will squirt out somewhere you are not looking.
Paddle down — laying the stick's paddle flat along the ice to seal the bottom of the net across a wide area. It is for wrap-arounds and scrambles in tight when you can smother the shooter, and it is heavily over-used by young goalies. It sacrifices everything above about shin height, so it only makes sense when a low play is the only play available.
Poke check — sliding your hand up the shaft and thrusting the blade out at the puck. Effective against a shooter who has the puck out in front of them on a breakaway or a wrap-around, or to clear a loose puck in the crease. It is a commitment: if you miss, you are down a stick-length of reach and your weight is forward.

The butterfly is a tool, not a religion

Never: Drop into a butterfly on every shot as a reflex — going down first and hoping the puck hits you
Risk: Dropping into a butterfly on every shot gives away the top of the net, and once you are down you cannot get back up in time
Risk: Dropping into a butterfly on every shot is worse the smaller you are — a twelve-year-old leaves a great deal of open net above them
Risk: Dropping into a butterfly on every shot removes save selection — if your answer to every situation is the same, you are not reading anything
Key: The butterfly is a save you select, not an identity — dropping to your knees does not make you a butterfly goalie
Convention: The style labels "profly", "hybrid" and "stand-up" are used inconsistently and which one dominates is not settled — what the coaching material agrees on is to read and react rather than drop by default
Action: Play the puck you can see, and stay up until going down is the answer

Dropping into a butterfly on every shot as a reflex — going down first and hoping the puck hits you — is a habit that beats you from above while you are still on your way down. Published goaltending material names it as a fault; how often it happens, and how it ranks against the other errors a young goalie makes, is not counted in any source this document draws on, so read it as coaching emphasis rather than a measured frequency. It fails for three concrete reasons:

Dropping into a butterfly on every shot gives away the top of the net, and once you are down you cannot get back up in time.
The reflex butterfly is worse the smaller you are. A 6'4" professional in a wide butterfly covers most of a six-foot net. A twelve-year-old does not, and there is a great deal of open net above them.
Dropping every time removes save selection. If your answer to every situation is the same, you are not reading anything.

The butterfly is a save you select, not an identity. Mitch Korn's glossary calls it "an overused term" and warns that "[j]ust because a goalie drops to his/her knees, does not mean they are butterfly goalies" — and he lists the half butterfly separately, as "probably the most used save".

⚠️ Be careful with the style labels themselves, because they are not used consistently. You will hear goaltenders sorted into "profly", "hybrid" and "stand-up". In the usage set out on Wikipedia's Butterfly style page it is the profly goaltender who uses the butterfly "as a base for the majority of their save selections", while "hybrid" is "commonly used to measure how far a goaltender strays from using the butterfly technique as a base save" — the opposite way round from how the two are often used casually. Which of them dominates is not settled. That same page calls the profly "the style most commonly used and taught", but the source it cites for that sentence does not say so; and the BVHS goalie manual, in the edition its cover dates to May 2026, declines to sort goalies at all, describing its aim as "not to create identical goalies or force athletes into one specific style" and listing "Forcing one style on every goalie" among the mistakes to avoid.

So take the instruction rather than the label. Corey Schwab, a former NHL goaltender and goalie development coach for the San Jose Sharks, puts it this way for young goalies: "I want them to learn how to react and not just drop and hope they stop the puck." Stay on your feet when staying on your feet is right, and get back to them after a save where you can.

Play the puck you can see. Stay up until going down is the answer.

Rebound Control

This is the most under-appreciated skill in goaltending. A save that produces a rebound into the slot has not really been a save; it has converted a shot from distance into a shot from six feet. Rebound control is what separates goalies who make a lot of saves from goalies who concede few goals.

Joe Bertagna's ordering of your options is the cleanest framework available, and it is a genuine priority order:

Prevent the rebound altogether.
Cover or clear the loose puck.
Direct the rebound somewhere safe.
Recover quickly for the next shot.

Preventing the rebound — absorbing

Goal: Kill the puck's energy so it drops dead in front of you or stays in your equipment
Technique: Let the stick blade give slightly on contact — a rigid stick sends the puck straight back out
Technique: Relax into the shot rather than bracing against it; a tensed goalie is a trampoline
Options: Kill a high shot by catching it cleanly, trapping it against your other equipment, or smothering it into your chest

Absorbing means killing the puck's energy so it drops dead in front of you or stays in your equipment.

A soft stick. On a shot along the ice into your stick, let the blade give slightly on contact rather than holding it rigid. A rigid stick sends the puck straight back out; a soft stick drops it at your feet where you can cover it.
Cushioning generally. The same principle applies to your body and pads: relax into the shot rather than bracing against it. A tensed goalie is a trampoline.
Three ways to kill a high shot: catch it cleanly in the glove; trap it with the glove hand against your other equipment; or smother it into your chest by caving your arms in around it.

Directing the rebound

A shot is on its way from the point, and an opposition forward is standing in the shaded slot waiting for what comes off you. A save that produces a rebound into that area has not really been a save; it has converted a shot from distance into a shot from six feet. When you cannot absorb the puck you have to aim it, and the target is the corners — wide and low toward the boards, below the goal line if you can, where nobody is standing and where the puck becomes a battle rather than a chance. Only the area to avoid is marked here; the corners are named in words rather than measured out. You aim by angling your surfaces: a pad or blocker turned even slightly changes where the puck goes, so on a shot to your blocker side rotate the blocker so its face points at the corner rather than back up the ice. The half that actually decides it is mental and happens before the shot. Look off the puck while it is still on the shooter’s blade and register who is where, and be specific about it — not "there’s a guy open" but "there’s a left shot open at the back post". That detail tells you both which save to select and where the rebound must not go. Nothing is drawn coming off the goaltender, because the rebound itself has no symbol in the notation this corpus uses.

Targets: The corners — wide and low toward the boards, below the goal line if you can
Technique: Angle your surfaces — rotate the blocker so its face points at the corner, not back up the ice
Never: Direct a rebound into the slot, where the other team's best players are standing
Action: Look off the puck before the shot is released and register who is where
Key: Be specific — "a left shot open at the back post", not "there's a guy open"

When you cannot absorb, you must aim. The target is the corners — wide and low toward the boards, below the goal line if you can, where no attacker is standing and where the puck ends up as a battle rather than a chance.

Angle your surfaces. A pad or blocker turned even slightly changes where the puck goes. On a shot to your blocker side, rotate the blocker so its face points at the corner rather than back up the ice.
Never direct into the slot. The area directly in front of you is where the other team's best players are standing.
Know where they are before the shot. This is the mental half of rebound control, and it is the half that actually decides it. You must look off the puck before the shot is released and register who is where. Be specific about it: not "there's a guy open," but "there's a left shot open at the back post." That detail tells you both which save to select and where the rebound must not go.

Freezing the puck — and the rules that govern it

Rule: You may hold the puck in your hands for up to three seconds unless actually being checked; longer is a minor (NHL Rule 67.3(i))
Rule: IIHF Rule 67.3(I) writes the same three seconds but says "checked / pressured" — pressure, not a check, is the UK test
Rule: Causing an unnecessary stoppage, dropping the puck into your pads or onto the goal net, or throwing it forward are all minors (NHL and IIHF Rule 67.3); USA Hockey Rule 610(f) writes the same pads limb, but Hockey Canada Rule 10.1(vi) names only the goal netting
Rule: Racing out to beat an attacker to a loose puck and jumping on it is a minor, but a save and then a cover is legal (NHL and IIHF Rule 63.2(vi))
Rule: A puck shot in from their own side of the centre red line and frozen by you leaves your own five unable to change before the draw — NHL and IIHF Rule 63.8, whose only exceptions in that paragraph are an injured player and a penalty that changes either team's on-ice strength
Rule: Outside your crease, freezing the puck to deliberately cause a stoppage is a minor — both books write the goalkeeper into that clause, and that clause alone stops at the crease line (NHL 63.2(i); IIHF 63.2(I))
Rule: The crease is no sanctuary — inside it, deliberately falling on the puck or holding it against the goal to cause a stoppage is a minor "unless he is actually being checked by an opponent" (NHL and IIHF Rule 63.2(vii))
Rule: While you are still in your net, piling snow or obstacles there is a bare minor under three books (NHL and IIHF Rule 67.3(v); USA Hockey 610(f)) — and under Hockey Canada a minor with no prevention test at all (8.3(a)), rising to a penalty shot where it actually prevents a goal (4.11(a)(iv))
Convention: No game is officiated on the literal reading of Rule 63.2(vii) — referees enforce it through Rule 67.3's "unnecessary stoppage" test instead; that is my reading of how the two rules interact, and the NHL publishes no interpretation of it
Read: Freeze when the rebound is contested and you have it clean, and with bodies in your crease — outside it the NHL and IIHF protect only a cover that follows your own save; USA Hockey protects more
Never: Freeze when your defenceman is arriving with time — it matters much less that you have the puck than that they don't

Freezing means covering the puck to stop play. It is a legitimate and important tool, and it is also regulated more tightly than most players realise.

The two books run in parallel here, and the numbering matches. Rules 63.2 and 67.3 carry the same subsection numbers in the NHL and IIHF books, so every citation below works under both — with wording differences flagged where they matter.

You may hold the puck with your hands for up to three seconds unless you are actually being checked by an opponent. Longer than that is a delay-of-game minor (NHL Rule 67.3(i)). ⚠️ The IIHF wording is looser and it is the wording you play under in Britain: IIHF Rule 67.3(I) penalises a goalkeeper who "holds the puck with their hands for longer than three (3) seconds unless they are actually being 'checked / pressured' by an opponent." The NHL says checked; the IIHF says checked or pressured. That single added word is what most of the argument below is about — see the note.
Deliberately holding the puck in any way that causes an unnecessary stoppage is a minor, as is dropping the puck into your pads or onto the goal net (Rule 67.3(ii) and Rule 67.3(iv)). Both books open Rule 67.3 with the same instruction to the referee: "The object of this entire rule is to keep the puck in play continuously and any action taken by the goalkeeper which causes an unnecessary stoppage must be penalized without warning." All four books write the goal-net half of that; three of the four write the pads half, and Hockey Canada is the one that does not. Where the NHL and the IIHF put the offence in a goalkeeper-specific rule, USA Hockey and Hockey Canada both put it in their general delay-of-game rule. USA Hockey assesses "[a] minor penalty for delay of game … to a goalkeeper who drops the puck into their pads or onto the goal net" (Rule 610(f)), and Hockey Canada lists "[a] goaltender who deliberately drops or throws the puck onto the top or back of the goal netting causing a stoppage of play" (Rule 10.1(vi), restated at 6.12(d)) — the only one of the four to say top or back, and the only one that does not write the pads at all: its clause reaches the netting and nothing else. That is not the same as saying the act is free there — Rule 10.1 opens by defining delay of game as any deliberate stoppage and says the list that follows "includes, but is not limited to, the following actions" — but the words are not in the book, and I could find no Hockey Canada interpretation applying 10.1 to a puck put into the pads. ⚠️ Watch where the word deliberately sits, because it is not in the same place in every book. Hockey Canada writes it into the clause itself; the NHL and the IIHF leave it out of 67.3(iv) and supply it in a second rule, 85.6, a delay-of-game minor on "a goalkeeper who deliberately drops the puck on the goal netting to cause a stoppage of play", which points back to 67.3. USA Hockey puts it in a different rule instead. Rule 610(f)'s own "deliberately" governs the snow clause that follows rather than the dropping clause — but Rule 614(c)(4) reaches a goalkeeper who "intentionally drops the puck on the back of the netting", so the intent element is in the book, one rule along, and that is the clause to expect an official to reach for. (614(c)'s four triggers are set out in full further down, under The trapezoid — the rule that defines what you can do*.)*
A puck that settles on the back of your net on its own is priced differently in each book, and the spread runs from nothing to two minutes. Under the NHL and IIHF Rule 85.2 you may smother it and the price is a faceoff: "Should the goalkeeper use his stick or glove to freeze the puck on the back of the net … the face-off shall take place at one of the face-off spots in the defending zone", with no penalty named — and the same rule stops play by itself once the puck "remain[s] on the goal netting for more than three (3) seconds." ⚠️ USA Hockey answers the identical facts with a minor. Its Casebook at Rule 610, Situation 8 puts a puck off the end boards onto the back of the net, has the goalkeeper "cover[] the puck with their stick, thereby preventing any player from playing the puck off the netting", and rules: "Stop play and assess a minor penalty to the goalkeeper for delay of game", because "[t]his action by the goalkeeper is not within the 'act of playing goal.'" So under USA Hockey you do not have to have put the puck up there to own it — which is why Situation 8 rests on 610(f) rather than on Rule 614(c)(4), whose "intentionally drops" would not reach a puck the goalkeeper never dropped. Hockey Canada lands nearer USA Hockey than the NHL, by a different route: Rule 6.12(b) penalises under delay of game any player who deliberately "makes it unplayable in order to gain a stoppage of play", while 6.12(c) lets play continue where the puck "comes off without any delay." The practical rule that is safe under all four: if it is going to fall off, let it. (USA Hockey's summary tables and that Situation cite the clause as 610(g); the printed rule prints it as 610(f), and this document uses the book's body lettering throughout.)
Throwing the puck forward toward the opponent's net is a minor (Rule 67.3(iii)). If an opponent takes the thrown puck and scores, the goal stands and there is no penalty; if they don't score, play stops and you get the two minutes.
Racing out of your crease to beat an attacker to a loose puck and then jumping on it instead of playing it is a minor (Rule 63.2(vi)). But — and both rulebooks say this explicitly, in the same Note — if you come out to cut down the angle, make the save, and then cover the puck, that is entirely legal.
Piling snow or obstacles at your net is a separate minor — and it is where the four books diverge most sharply on price. The NHL and the IIHF put it at Rule 67.3(v), straight after the clauses above: a minor on a goalkeeper who "[d]eliberately piles up snow or obstacles at or near his net that, in the opinion of the Referee, would tend to prevent the scoring of a goal" (the IIHF prints the same sentence with "their"). USA Hockey folds it into the second half of Rule 610(f) — "deliberately piles up snow or obstacles near the goal that, in the opinion of the Referee, could prevent the scoring of a goal." Under those three it is a bare minor and nothing more while you are still in your net. ⚠️ Read that last condition — it is the whole of the limit. Once you have been replaced for an extra attacker, NHL and IIHF Rule 67.5 turn the same piled snow into an awarded goal rather than a minor; that clause is set out under 6-on-5 with your net empty below. ⚠️ Hockey Canada is the outlier and it prices the same act far higher. It does not treat piled snow as delay of game at all: Rule 8.3(a) – Interference assesses a minor to "any player that deliberately piles snow inside their goal crease", and Rule 4.11(a)(iv) makes it a penalty shot "[w]here a goaltender deliberately piles snow or other obstacles at or near their net which, in the Referee's opinion, prevents a goal while the offending team's goaltender is legally on the ice" — with 8.3(a) adding that where the penalty shot is awarded "the Minor penalty will not be assessed", and that if the obstacle prevents a goal "after the offending team's goaltender has been legally substituted for another player, the Referee will Award a Goal." So the act that costs two minutes in three books can cost a penalty shot in the fourth. ⚠️ And the threshold is written three different ways. The NHL and the IIHF ask whether the pile "would tend to prevent" a goal; USA Hockey whether it "could prevent" one; Hockey Canada's minor limb asks nothing at all — "deliberately piles snow inside their goal crease" is the whole offence — and holds "prevents a goal" back for the penalty shot. The useful way to carry all of that is as a duty rather than a prohibition, which is how Hockey Canada's own Interpretation 1 to Rule 8.3(a) puts it: "It is the responsibility of the goaltender to keep the area near their net free of any obstacles that may prevent a goal from being scored." USA Hockey says nearly the same sentence, though under its stick rule rather than its snow one (Casebook, Rule 625, Situation 16). None of this is about the snow that gathers at every whistle; it is about banking it where it could stop a puck.
Outside your crease, freezing the puck to deliberately cause a stoppage is a minor for any player including you (Rule 63.2(i)) — and both books write the goalkeeper into that clause in terms rather than leaving it to be inferred. The NHL's 63.2(i) reaches "any player, including the goalkeeper, who holds, freezes or plays the puck with his stick, skates or body in such a manner as to deliberately cause a stoppage of play", and closes: "With regard to a goalkeeper, this rule applies outside of his goal crease area." The IIHF's 63.2(I) is the same sentence in its own style — "Regarding to a goalkeeper, this rule applies outside of their goal crease area" — identical in the 2025/26 and 2026/27 editions. So the crease line is what that clause turns on, not your position in the play: the same cover that is routine on your doorstep is two minutes out at the top of the circle, and "there were bodies around me" is not a defence out there. But do not read the crease as a sanctuary. Rule 63.2(i) stops at the crease line; Rule 63.2(vii) picks up inside it and makes a deliberate cover that causes a stoppage a minor "unless he is actually being checked by an opponent" — see the note immediately below for how that is actually enforced.

A note on strict reading versus practice. Rule 63.2(vii) is worded to penalise a goalkeeper who, inside their own crease, deliberately falls on or gathers the puck so as to cause a stoppage "unless he is actually being checked by an opponent." The IIHF's 63.2(VII) is word-for-word the same on this point. Read literally that is much stricter than what you see in any game, where goalies freeze pucks routinely with nobody near them. In practice referees enforce it through the "unnecessary stoppage" standard of Rule 67.3(ii) — a save followed by a cover is fine; killing play for no reason is not. This gap between the written rule and its enforcement is my reading of how the two NHL rules interact — the NHL publishes no interpretation of it.

⚠️ Under the IIHF book the gap is narrower, and that is the book you play under in Britain. IIHF Rule 67.3(I) writes the three-second limit as "unless they are actually being 'checked / pressured' by an opponent" — the NHL's 67.3(i) says only "checked". The IIHF has therefore written pressure, not contact, into the rule text itself, which is the standard the other two governing bodies reach through published interpretation. It does not repeat the word in 63.2(VII), so this is not a complete fix, but it means a British goalie arguing "nobody was on me, but I was under pressure" is arguing from the rulebook rather than from custom. Do not over-read it: the "unnecessary stoppage" instruction at the head of IIHF 67.3 is identical to the NHL's and says such an action "must be penalized without warning."

Two other governing bodies publish full official interpretations of the same question, and both land where the practice does. Hockey Canada's Interpretation 3 to Rule 10.1(a) states that a goaltender "may freeze the puck in the goal crease when under pressure from attacking players", that they "may come out of their crease to cut down the angle and catch the shot or, after stopping the shot, cover the puck", and that a minor is assessed "after one warning" to a goaltender who "freezes the puck in the crease when not under pressure from attacking players". USA Hockey Rule 610(b) penalises a goalkeeper who "has an opportunity to play the puck prior to being pressured by an attacking player, but instead intentionally causes a stoppage of play", with a Note that a goalkeeper "may only cover the puck while in the act of playing goal … and any action that makes the puck unplayable without an immediate scoring opportunity must be penalized." So the pressure test is written down in three of the four books — just not the NHL's. If you play in a league where the referees are strict about it, find out early.

When to freeze, tactically:

Freeze when the rebound is contested and you have it clean. A whistle beats a scramble.
Freeze when your team is under sustained pressure and needs a change — but know the one case where it backfires. Normally, after a freeze there is a defensive-zone faceoff and your tired skaters get a change and a breath, and this is one of the most valuable things you do that never shows up anywhere. The exception is NHL Rule 63.8: "In the event that the puck is shot into the end zone by the attacking team from their own side of the center red line, and the opposing goalkeeper freezes the puck resulting in a stoppage of play, the ensuing face-off shall be conducted at one of the end zone face-off spots in the goalkeeper's defending zone. The defending team shall not be permitted to make any player substitutions prior to the face-off." IIHF Rule 63.8 is the same rule with the same number, in near-identical words — "In the event the puck is shot into the end zone by the attacking team from their own side of the center line, and the opposing goalkeeper freezes the puck resulting in a stoppage of play … The defending team shall not be permitted to make any Player substitutions prior to the 'face-off'" — and the IIHF Situation Handbook confirms it at Situation 63.33. So on a routine dump-in from centre, freezing it locks your own tired five on the ice for the draw, and the attacking team even chooses which dot it is taken at. On that specific puck, if your defenceman has any chance of getting to it, leave it. Risk Management covers the same rule from the attacking side — it is why "puck deep when your line is tired" works — and Game Management covers shift length and change discipline generally, which is what you are buying your skaters when you freeze one.
Don't freeze when your team has a clean recovery available. Every stoppage is a defensive-zone faceoff you might lose. Bertagna's formulation is the right test: it matters much less that you have the puck than that they don't. If your defenceman is arriving with time, leave it or clear it and let them break out.
When in doubt with bodies around you in your crease, freeze. A defensive-zone faceoff you might lose is a much smaller problem than a scramble in your crease that you are already losing. ⚠️ The same instinct outside the crease is the one that costs two minutes: there a deliberate freeze is a minor under NHL and IIHF Rule 63.2(i) however many bodies are around you, and the only cover those books protect out there is the one that follows your own save (the Note to Rule 63.2(vi)). Out there, play it or clear it. ⚠️ That is the NHL's and the IIHF's answer, and USA Hockey's runs the other way — so do not carry this bullet into a game under that book. Its Casebook answers a cover made outside the crease no penalty in two cases that have nothing to do with your own save: where the attacking team is "in a position to pressure the goalkeeper" (Rule 614(c), Situation 11), and where a goalkeeper "completely outside of the goal crease and lying prone on the ice" reaches out to cover a puck that is "within their privileged area in front of the goal line" (Situation 12). Hockey Canada sits with the NHL and the IIHF — Interpretation 3 to Rule 10.1(a), clause v: "When a goaltender leaves their crease, they will not be allowed to freeze the puck. If they do, they will be assessed a Minor penalty. No warning will be issued." — though clause ii of the same Interpretation permits a cover "after stopping the shot", and the book never says which of the two governs. So "play it or clear it" is the instruction that is safe under all four books; under USA Hockey it is caution rather than the rule. The four-book treatment is under The trapezoid — the rule that defines what you can do.

Tracking the Puck

Key: Goalie coaches put almost every soft goal down to the same root cause — at some point you stopped seeing the puck; that is the coaching account, not a counted breakdown
Technique: Follow the puck's trajectory with your head, not just your eyes, so it stays in the centre of your vision
Technique: Track it all the way into the pad, the glove, the chest — if you saw it hit you, you know where it went
Never: Look past the puck at where it is going rather than where it is
Never: Explode — flailing arms and a snapping head lose the puck at contact. Keep a quiet head and quiet hands instead
Never: Be a spectator on a pass — your movement starts when the pass is released, not when it arrives
Convention: Read the release, not the player — but on a breakaway what to read is contested; see Breakaways
Mindset: The "cone of shame" — nothing outside the puck exists

Goalie coaches put almost every soft goal down to the same root cause: at some point in the sequence, you stopped seeing the puck. Nobody has counted them, so take that as the coaching account rather than a measured breakdown — but it is what the rest of this section is built on.

Tracking is what sports-vision researchers call object interception — the same task as batting in cricket or baseball, or receiving in volleyball. Your eyes and your body have to solve where a moving object will be, and get something there.

The practical version:

Follow the puck's trajectory with your head, not just your eyes. A small head turn keeps the puck in the centre of your vision, where your acuity is best, rather than at the edge.
Track it all the way into your body. The tracking failure to watch for is looking at where the puck is going rather than where it is — Korn calls this "looking past" the puck. Watch it into the pad, into the glove, into the chest. This is also what makes rebound control possible: if you saw the puck hit you, you know where it went.
Don't explode. Goalies who make saves with their arms flailing and their head snapping back lose sight of the puck at the moment of contact and are then guessing about the rebound. Quiet head, quiet hands.
Read the release, not the player. Watch the puck on the blade and the blade's angle. Body fakes are designed to move you; the puck is not. On a breakaway specifically, this is contested — one school reads the puck, another reads the shooter's chest and hips on the grounds that the puck is the thing being faked with. See Breakaways.
Don't be a spectator. Watching the puck travel on a pass instead of moving with it is the definitive positioning error. Your movement should start when the pass is released, not when it arrives.
The "cone of shame." John Carratu's image for this, via USA Hockey: think of a dog in a plastic cone — it can only attend to what is directly in front of it. That is what you want. Nothing outside the puck exists.

A note on how goalies actually see. Modern tracking research distinguishes two kinds of eye movement: smooth pursuit, where your eyes glide continuously along a moving object's path, and saccades, where your eyes jump ahead to a predicted point. Both are used, and which one dominates depends on the shot. This is an active area of study rather than settled coaching doctrine — the practical takeaway is unchanged: see the puck, keep seeing it, and keep your head still enough that you can.

Screens, Tips and Traffic

A screen is a player standing in your line of sight. In the ordinary case — a screen set outside your paint — it is legal. Nobody is going to blow a whistle for it, and nobody is coming to help you unless you make them. (The only clause that even reaches a screen set outside your paint is Rule 69.1, under which a goal can be disallowed if an attacker impairs your ability to move freely in the crease or defend the goal "either by his positioning or by contact" — but that is a judgement after the goal, not help in the moment, and do not count on it out there: both books' own worked situations answer "Goal is allowed" for a screen set outside the crease that obstructs your vision and impairs your ability to defend your goal, at NHL Reference Table 14 and IIHF 2025/26 Appendix IV Table 16, Situations 5C and 5E. Goaltender Interference below sets out why. In EIH or SIHA competition it is less than that: with no video review and no coach's challenge, it is whatever the referee saw live.) A body standing in your crease is a different rule with a different remedy, and there a whistle really can come — the IIHF's Rule 69.1 gives the referee the "possibility to stop the game" for an attacker who will not leave your crease, and USA Hockey's Rule 625(b) writes that stoppage as a shall rather than a possibility — but only while the puck is in the attacking zone, the attacking team has possession of it, and you are in contact with your crease. Do not read that "shall" as a whistle for every skate that crosses your paint. Its Casebook asks exactly that question at Rule 625, Situation 10 — must the referee stop play "every time an attacking player places their stick and/or skates in the opposing team's goal crease"? — and answers "No": "Play should not be stopped because a player momentarily places their stick and/or skates in the goal crease, unless they interfere with the goalkeeper in any manner." ⚠️ The same Situation then hands the other half of it straight back to you, and it is the half worth knowing: "However, if a goal is scored while an attacking player has their stick and/or skates in the opponent's goal crease while the goalkeeper is in the crease, the Referee shall have no alternative but to disallow the goal." So under USA Hockey a stick or a skate in your paint is not a whistle in the moment — and if they score while it is there and you are in your crease, the goal comes off the board. So the duty is real and the trigger is not a toe over the line; appealing for one is how you lose credibility with a referee for the rest of the night. See Goaltender Interference below. Handling traffic outside the paint is therefore a skill you own.

Fighting for a sightline

Convention: Around or over a screen is a genuine coaching split — this document's default is around, BVHS teaches over to maintain size
Key: The look-around and look-over schools agree on what matters most — commit to one side and see the puck cleanly there
Never: Half-see the puck on both sides of a screen
Action: Move to find the puck — a step or a small shuffle can open a lane through traffic
Key: Slightly off the perfect angle with a clear view beats perfectly square and blind
Action: Call "screen" loudly, early and every time — it means move, or move the man in front of me

Around or over — a genuine coaching split, so ask your own coach. This document's default is around: trying to see over a screen means standing tall, and standing tall means you cannot move, so drop your head to one side and find the puck through legs, under arms, around a hip. The BVHS goaltending manual teaches the opposite priority — "We want to be looking over shoulders to maintain size" — on the view that sacrificing size to get a clean look is the worse trade. Both schools agree on the part that matters most: commit to one side and see the puck cleanly there, rather than half-seeing it on both. This is the same split as the depth question above, and the two tend to travel together — coaches who want you deep want you looking around, coaches who want you tall and close want you looking over.
Move to find the puck. A step or a small shuffle to one side can open a lane through traffic. Being slightly off the perfect angle with a clear view beats being perfectly square and blind.
Call it. "Screen" is your call and it means move, or move the man who is in front of me. This is not a request. Say it loudly, say it every time, and say it early. See On-Ice Communication.

Playing bigger and deeper through traffic

Convention: Deeper against a screened point shot is the traditional adjustment — it costs net coverage but buys time to find the puck
Convention: At least one current manual calls the deep retreat a fault and keeps a close gap, looking through the short side of the screen
Action: Ask your coach which depth they teach against a screen; do not assume deeper is settled doctrine
Technique: Play bigger — hands out and wide, stick down and active, chest up
Key: When you may not see the release you are partly blocking rather than reacting, and that is the correct trade

Two adjustments, and they pull in different directions from your normal instincts:

Deeper — but this is the contested one. The traditional adjustment is to back off toward your goal line against a screened point shot: depth costs you net coverage but buys you the one thing you desperately need, time to find the puck. A screened shot you see late from four feet deep is savable; the same shot from the top of the crease is not. At least one current manual teaches the reverse and calls the deep retreat a fault — BVHS: "Goalies often fall deep in their crease when facing pressure; this is a common error. This opens too much net and does not help see more of the puck," preferring to "maintain a close gap to the shooter to eliminate room for the puck to move, as well as tips," and to solve the sightline by looking "through the short side of the screen" rather than by retreating. Ask your coach which they teach; do not assume deeper is settled doctrine.
Bigger. Since you may not see the release, make yourself a larger obstacle: hands out and wide, stick down and active, chest up. You are partly blocking rather than reacting, and that is the correct trade when you cannot see.

Reading a tip

A shot is coming from the point and an opposition forward is set in the shooting lane with his blade on the ice. Watch the sticks and not just the puck: a forward standing there makes every point shot a probable tip, and a tip changes the puck’s direction a few feet in front of you, where no reflex is fast enough to follow it. So you do not try. Stay tall and patient for as long as you can, because a tip that stays low will hit you if you are big and set, and a tip that goes up will not if you are already down. Your best chance is being in the right place with a wide body and a still head, not a heroic reaction. Getting that forward moved is your defenceman’s job, and shouting for it is yours. Two things this picture cannot show you. The forward is drawn further out from the goalmouth than he would really stand, because two player glyphs will not fit in the few feet of ice between a tipper and a goaltender. And the depth the goaltender is drawn at is a consequence of what fits on the page rather than an instruction: how deep to play a screened shot from distance is a genuine coaching split, one school wanting you deeper for time to find the puck and another calling the deep retreat a common error and wanting a close gap to take away room for the puck and for tips. Ask which one your coach teaches before you pick one.

Key: A tip changes direction a few feet in front of you and no reflex is fast enough to follow it — so do not try
Read: A forward set up at the goalmouth with their blade in the shooting lane makes every point shot a probable tip
Technique: Stay tall and patient as long as you can — a low tip hits you if you are big and set, a high one will not if you are already down
Key: Your best chance is the right place with a wide body and a still head, not a heroic reaction
Action: Shout to get the net-front player moved — that is your defenceman's job

A tip or deflection changes the puck's direction a few feet in front of you, and no reflex is fast enough to follow it. So you do not try.

Watch the sticks, not just the puck. If a forward is set up at the goalmouth — the immediate area directly in front of your net, at the edge of the crease — with their blade in the shooting lane, treat every point shot as a probable tip.
Stay tall and patient for as long as you can. Dropping early on a shot that gets tipped means it goes over you. A tip that stays low will hit you if you are big and set; a tip that goes up will not if you are already down.
Expect the puck to change direction and stay balanced. Your best chance on a tipped puck is being in the right place with a wide body and a still head, not a heroic reaction.
Get the net-front player moved. This is your defenceman's job, and it is the thing to shout about. See the skaters' section below.

Playing the Puck

The trapezoid — the rule that defines what you can do

The trapezoid — the goalkeeper’s restricted area — is the marked area behind the net inside which the goaltender is allowed to play the puck: 22 ft wide along the goal line, widening to 28 ft at the end boards, and 11 ft deep on an NHL sheet. It really is painted, in red — most of the rink’s named regions are not. Playing the puck behind the goal line outside it is a two-minute minor for delay of game — the position of the puck decides it, and the one exception is a goaltender playing the puck while keeping skate contact with the crease. Under the IIHF book — the British one — the shape is 6.80 m along the goal line and 8.60 m at the boards, within a few inches of the NHL figures, but deeper, because the IIHF goal line is 4.0 m from the end boards rather than 11 ft. Where it applies is the part to check rather than assume: the NHL and IIHF play have it, both read directly in the rulebooks, and the KHL is commonly said to as well though no KHL rulebook was available to check that one. Neither the USA Hockey book nor the Hockey Canada book marks one at all, so a league running on either has none. Both still restrict the goalkeeper back there: USA Hockey Rule 614(c) stops him freezing the puck outside the privileged area, corners excluded, and Hockey Canada assesses a minor with no warning for freezing it at all once he has left the crease. And in England and Wales England Ice Hockey’s own regulations say it is "not currently enforced" while the current In-House Rules are silent — so ask your league before assuming either way. Read that suspension narrowly if it applies to you: it frees where a goalkeeper may play the puck behind the net, never where they may freeze it. Freezing the puck to cause a stoppage is a separate two-minute minor anywhere outside the goal crease under IIHF Rule 63.2(I), and coming out to cut down the angle, saving, and then covering it stays legal.

Diagram from rink map and glossary

Rule: Playing the puck behind the goal line outside the trapezoid is a two-minute delay-of-game minor (NHL Rules 27.8 and 63.2(viii); IIHF 27.7); the one exception — skate contact with your crease — excuses playing, never freezing: none for a teammate nearby and none for pressure
Rule: 🇬🇧 England Ice Hockey's Rules & Regulations 22.3 say the restricted area is "not currently enforced" in England and Wales — assume it binds and ask your league; 22.3 suspends that rule alone, so IIHF 63.2(I) still bars freezing outside your crease and 63.2(VI)'s Note still allows a save-then-cover
Rule: The determining factor is the position of the puck, not of your body, and the IIHF numbers the trapezoid 27.7 not 27.8 (NHL Rule 27.8; IIHF Rules 27.7 and 63.2(VIII)) — so a puck you stop on the goal line is not behind it, and being hit by one is not playing it (Handbook Situations 27.6 and 27.9)
Key: Whether the KHL has a trapezoid is unverified here — no KHL rulebook was available to check; and how much rec, beer-league and youth hockey has one is a question about leagues, not about books
Rule: Hockey Canada writes no trapezoid at all, and that is not freedom — but read both halves: Interpretation 3 to Rule 10.1(a) clause v bars freezing once you leave the crease, a Minor penalty, no warning, while clause ii permits coming out to cut down the angle and covering after the save
Convention: Hockey Canada never says whether clause v of Interpretation 3 to Rule 10.1(a), no freezing once out of the crease, or clause ii, a cover permitted after the save, governs a save-then-cover outside the crease; treating ii as the exception is a reading, not a ruling. Clause iv is racing a loose puck
Rule: USA Hockey has no trapezoid but restricts where you may freeze the puck, on the same two minutes — and Rule 614(c) has four triggers, not one, and no skate-contact exception; that exception belongs to the trapezoid rule, printed twice (NHL 27.8’s own text and the Note to 63.2(viii))
Rule: USA Hockey Rule 614(c) makes two freezes a minor in terms — with the puck behind the goal line and your body entirely outside the crease (614(c)(1)), and outside the "goalkeeper's privileged" area, which reaches back from the faceoff-dot line but excludes the corners (614(c)(3))
Rule: Crease contact is not the test — the Casebook excuses a cover made prone and fully outside the crease if the puck is in the privileged area in front of the goal line, and penalises one you had time to play with your stick unpressured (USA Hockey Casebook, Rule 614(c) Situations 8 to 12)
Rule: No trapezoid applies in front of the goal line; the bar on play past the centre red line does — NHL 27.7 and IIHF 27.6 judge it on the puck in the rule itself, while the skates test is elsewhere: USA Hockey Casebook 407(c) Situation 13, Hockey Canada Rule 8.3(a)(ii) and Interpretation 2 to 4.13(c)
Action: Find out which rules you are under before your first shift, and take the trapezoid dimensions from Rink Map and Glossary — NHL Rule 1.8, never NHL 27.8 (stale); IIHF 1.8 and 27.7 give 6.80 m / 8.60 m

A goalkeeper may not play the puck behind the goal line outside the marked trapezoid. Doing so is a two-minute minor for delay of game (NHL Rules 27.8 and 63.2(viii)), and the determining factor is the position of the puck, not of your body.

There is exactly one exception: no penalty is assessed when you play the puck while maintaining skate contact with your goal crease. It belongs to the restricted-area rule and to no other, and the NHL prints it twice, in the same words: inside Rule 27.8 itself, and again as the Note to Rule 63.2(viii) — "The minor penalty will not be assessed when a goalkeeper plays the puck while maintaining skate contact with his goal crease." IIHF Rule 27.7 carries it in the same words too. It excuses playing the puck, and it says nothing about freezing it. There is no exception for a teammate being nearby, none for being under pressure, and none for the puck coming to you rather than you going and getting it. ⚠️ What the exception does not do is decide what counts as playing the puck, and the IIHF's Situation Handbook bounds that in your favour twice — in the same words in the 2025/26 (v1.1) and 2026/27 editions. A puck that comes off the glass and hits you while you are retreating is no penalty, because "the goalkeeper must play the puck to be penalized" (Situation 27.9). And a puck you stop on the goal line is not behind it, so stopping it there is not the offence (Situation 27.6). Neither is a reason to go out there, and the Handbook ranks itself below the Rulebook — "in case of any contradictions, the valid IIHF Rulebook is always the basis" — but neither should you believe you have taken a minor because a puck bounced off you.

Where it applies: the NHL and IIHF play — both read directly in the rulebooks, at NHL Rules 1.8 and 27.8 and IIHF Rules 1.8 and 27.7. The dates are a separate question, and the rulebooks do not answer it. The IIHF's own announcement of 5 June 2021 says it would "introduce a new Rule Book for the 2021/22 season" and lists among the rules to be integrated "A restricted area for goalkeepers behind the net", which is what dates the IIHF's adoption; the NHL's commonly given 2005-06 date is in no rulebook held here, so treat it as the received date rather than a checked one. The KHL is commonly said to have one as well, though that one is unverified here: no KHL rulebook was available to check it against. Neither USA Hockey nor Hockey Canada writes a trapezoid at all — the word appears nowhere in either book, neither marks out a zone behind the net that governs where a goalkeeper may go, and neither restricts where you may play the puck behind your net. Two qualifications on that, and neither of them gives you a trapezoid. Hockey Canada does print the phrase "designated area" once, at Rule 5.4(b), where it is the spot a Goal Judge stands in. And USA Hockey's "goalkeeper's privileged area" is a real marked-out zone — but it governs the freeze, not the play, and it is set out two paragraphs below. How much rec, beer-league and youth hockey that adds up to is a question about leagues rather than about books, and this document has no count for it. If you play under rules without a trapezoid, you are a genuine third puck-handler behind your net and your whole retrieval game — and your defencemen's — changes. ⚠️ But no trapezoid is not no restriction: both of those books restrict the freeze instead. USA Hockey's restriction is the next paragraph. Hockey Canada's is Interpretation 3 to Rule 10.1(a), clause v, and it is the blunter of the two: "When a goaltender leaves their crease, they will not be allowed to freeze the puck. If they do, they will be assessed a Minor penalty. No warning will be issued." ⚠️ Read that clause against clause ii of the same Interpretation, because Hockey Canada's own guideline permits the thing clause v appears to forbid: "The goaltender may come out of their crease to cut down the angle and catch the shot or, after stopping the shot, cover the puck." Clause iv sits between them and reaches the narrower case in terms — "When a goaltender comes out of their crease to beat an attacking player to the puck and simply jumps on the puck, causing a stoppage of play, a penalty will be assessed. No warning will be issued in this instance." Nothing in the book says which of ii and v governs a cover made after a save outside the crease, so read the permission and the prohibition together rather than either on its own, and ask your league which way its referees take it. Find out which rules you are under before your first shift.

🇬🇧 In England and Wales, treat the trapezoid as unsettled — and play as though it binds everywhere in Britain. The IIHF book is the base rule set for the NIHL, the English and Scottish recreational and junior game, university hockey and the GB sides — and for the Elite League too, though the League runs its own Casebook that nobody here has read (UK and England Rules), and the 2025-26 England Ice Hockey and SIHA In-House Rules do not amend it. But England Ice Hockey's own Rules & Regulations 22.3 say the restricted area is "not currently enforced to allow ice rinks the necessary time to make the changes to implement this rule." That edition is 2024-25 and the current In-House Rules are silent on the point, so the published documents do not settle whether the suspension still stands. Assume it binds, ask your league, and look behind the net to see whether the lines are painted at all. ⚠️ And if the answer comes back "not enforced", read what 22.3 suspends before you act on it: the Goalkeepers' Restricted Area, and nothing else. IIHF Rule 63.2(I) is a separate delay-of-game minor — nothing in the Rules & Regulations or in either edition of the In-House Rules searched for this document touches Rule 63 — and it reaches "any Player, including the goalkeeper, who holds, 'freezes' or plays the puck… in such a manner as to deliberately cause a stoppage of play", its goalkeeper limb applying "outside of their goal crease area". ⚠️ That boundary is your crease, not the trapezoid, so the whole designated area is outside it. A suspended restricted area frees where you may play the puck. It never frees where you may freeze it — which is the same split Rule 27.7's own skate-contact exception draws, and the IIHF prints the two as separate rows in its Appendix IV Table 13. ⚠️ Take the carve-outs with it or you will stop covering pucks you should cover: 63.2(VI)'s Note makes it legal to come out, "cut down the angle", make the save and then cover, and 63.2(VII) excepts a goalkeeper "actually being checked by an opponent" inside the crease. Freezing the puck — and the rules that govern it above has all three limbs in full. IIHF Rule 27.7 is the operative text and it says what the NHL's says: "A goalkeeper shall not play the puck outside of the designated area behind the net. Should the goalkeeper play the puck outside of the designated area behind the goal line, a minor penalty for 'Delay of Game' shall be imposed. The determining factor shall be the position of the puck. The minor penalty will not be assessed when a goalkeeper plays the puck while maintaining skate contact with their goal crease." The delay-of-game companion is IIHF Rule 63.2(VIII), the same subsection number as the NHL's.

⚠️ The rule number is not the same, and this catches people out. The NHL puts the restricted area at 27.8 and the centre-red-line rule at 27.7. The IIHF shifts both down one: the restricted area is 27.7 and the centre-red-line rule is 27.6. IIHF 27.8 is not a rule about you at all — it is a signpost to the appendix table of goalkeeper infractions: "A list of the infractions that shall result in a penalty to the goalkeeper can be found in Table 13." ⚠️ That table number is the 2025/26 book's. The 2026/27 edition merges three earlier tables and renumbers this one Table 11, with the same rows and the same rule references, the restricted-area row included. So quoting "Rule 27.8" at a British referee cites the index, not the offence. And the IIHF's own two publications disagree with each other — in the 2025/26 and 2026/27 editions alike: the Rule Book and its goalkeeper-penalties table both number the restricted area 27.7, while the Situation Handbook still answers every restricted-area question with "Rule 27.8" (Situations 27.6, 27.7, 27.9, 27.10 and 27.11) and cites 27.7 for the centre red line. The wording of IIHF 27.6 and 27.7 is identical in the two editions; only the table number moved. Cite the Rule Book's numbering; know that the Handbook's is one out.

⚠️ But "no trapezoid" is not "no restricted area" — USA Hockey restricts where you may freeze the puck, and it is the same two minutes. Rule 614(c) assesses a minor for delay of game to a goalkeeper who falls on or gathers the puck and causes a stoppage in four separate cases, and the first is the one that catches goalies out: "(1) The puck is behind the goal line and their body is entirely outside of the goal crease"; "(2) They fail to play the puck with their stick when provided the opportunity to do so prior to being pressured by an attacking player"; "(3) The puck is outside the boundaries of the 'goalkeeper's privileged' area"; and "(4) They hold or place the puck against any part of the goal frame or boards or intentionally drops the puck on the back of the netting." Trigger (1) is not limited by the privileged area at all — coming out behind your own net to smother a rimmed puck, with your body clear of the crease, is a minor under USA Hockey wherever on that line you are standing. That area is defined in the rule's own Note as "an area outlined by connecting the end zone face-off spots with an imaginary line and imaginary lines from each face-off spot running perpendicular to the end boards" — so it is a rectangle running from the faceoff-dot line back to the end boards. It is far more generous than a trapezoid and it does cover the ice directly behind your net — the Casebook asks that question directly at Rule 614(c), Situation 14, and answers "Yes", the area "extends to the closer end boards" — but it excludes the corners. So "behind the goal line" and "outside the privileged area" are two separate bars, not one; trigger (1) catches you behind your own net even though the privileged area reaches back there. So under USA Hockey you may skate into the corner and play the puck freely, and you may not smother it there. Play it; don't sit on it. ⚠️ And do not carry the skate-contact exception across to this rule. That exception is the trapezoid rule's — written into NHL Rule 27.8 itself and repeated as the Note to NHL Rule 63.2(viii), and in IIHF Rule 27.7 — and it excuses playing the puck outside the designated area. Rule 614(c) writes no exception into its own text, so a skate on the crease paint licenses nothing here: trigger (4) is violated by a goalkeeper standing on the paint holding the puck against the goal frame, and trigger (2) is a test of whether you could have played it before being pressured, with no location component in it whatsoever. The exceptions to 614(c) are published in the Casebook, and they are the next paragraph.

The exceptions live in the Casebook, and they are not a geography test. USA Hockey's Casebook answers Rule 614(c) through the Playing Rules' glossary definition of the "act of playing goal" — "Any action by the goalkeeper that prevents the puck from entering the goal, or prevents an immediate scoring opportunity within the goalkeeper's privileged area" — which is the same test Rule 610(b)'s own Note states for freezing generally: "A goalkeeper may only cover the puck while in the act of playing goal … and any action that makes the puck unplayable without an immediate scoring opportunity must be penalized." Fourteen worked situations sit under Rule 614 in the Casebook, ten of them about the goalkeeper, and they answer both ways. Several of the ones answered no penalty have you completely out of your crease. So the question is not where your skate is. It is whether you were making a save or taking a stoppage you could have avoided.

Under USA Hockey, crease contact decides exactly one of the ten goalkeeper situations. USA Hockey Casebook, Rule 614(c), Situation 7 puts a goalkeeper in the crease who dives on a puck outside it and whose momentum carries them out, and answers no penalty: "As long as some part of the goalkeeper's body is in contact with the goal crease when initial contact with the puck is made, this is considered to be in the 'act of playing goal'." Note what that is. It is body contact, tested at the moment you first touch the puck — not a skate held on the paint while you lie on it.

Away from the crease, three things decide it — and all three are USA Hockey's, not the IIHF's or the NHL's.

Where the puck is. USA Hockey Casebook, Rule 614(c), Situation 12 puts a goalkeeper "completely outside of the goal crease and lying prone on the ice" who reaches out to cover, and answers "No, if the puck is within their privileged area in front of the goal line." The same situation states its own inverse: "if the puck is behind the goal line or outside of the privileged area, a minor penalty for delaying the game must be assessed." Those are triggers (1) and (3), and note the Casebook's own verb on them: the minor must be assessed.
Whether you are being pressured. USA Hockey Casebook, Rule 614(c), Situation 11 — you outside the crease, a point shot stopped, the rebound three feet away, and you dive on it — is answered both ways in one sentence: "No, if the attacking team is in a position to pressure the goalkeeper. Yes, if the goalkeeper is not being pressured and has an opportunity to play the puck with their stick."
Whether you had time to play it with your stick. That is USA Hockey's trigger (2), and its Casebook applies it hard. Rule 614(c), Situation 8 (you skate out to cut down the angle and catch the shot in the air) and Situation 10 (you skate out to challenge and trap the puck between your pads) are both answered no penalty — neither answer turns on crease contact — and both attach the same limit: "If the goalkeeper had sufficient time to drop the puck and play it with no attacking players in their immediate vicinity, however, a minor penalty shall be assessed." Situation 9 is Situation 8 except that you drop the puck to the ice first and then hold it against the boards, net or ice, and it is a penalty: "If the goalkeeper had sufficient time to drop the puck to the ice they must be forced to play it." And Situation 6 — you leave the crease and beat a lone attacker to a loose puck inside your own privileged area, then fall on it — is a penalty too: "The goalkeeper has an obligation to play the puck with their stick, just like any other player."

So the practical version of USA Hockey's rule runs the other way from the caution above, and this is the part to carry onto the ice under that book — and under that book only: in front of your goal line, inside the privileged area, with attackers coming, you may smother the puck whether or not any part of you is touching the crease. ⚠️ Do not carry that sentence into an NHL or IIHF game, and if you play in Britain your book is the IIHF's: there the trapezoid governs where you may play the puck behind the goal line, and IIHF Rule 63.2(I) — the clause set out earlier under Freezing the puck — makes a deliberate freeze outside your crease a minor wherever on the ice you are, which is why the same cover that is routine on your doorstep is two minutes out at the top of the circle. What you may not do is take a stoppage you did not need — freeze a puck you had the time and the space to play with your stick, skate out to fetch one and fall on it, or carry the freeze behind your goal line or out into a corner. Two last USA Hockey situations round the picture out. Rule 614(c), Situation 13 answers no penalty where a puck is simply shot into a goalkeeper already lying prone outside the crease, because that "was not done in a deliberate manner". And Rule 614(c), Situation 5 answers no penalty for a goalkeeper who falls on the puck behind the goal line with the body entirely outside the crease — but for a reason that has nothing to do with the act of playing goal, and one you cannot plan around: it is a delayed penalty, so play stops the moment your team gains possession, and "[t]he goalkeeper is allowed to hold the puck for three seconds before being assessed a penalty" (Rule 614(c)(1) with the Note to Rule 409(a)).

In front of the goal line, no trapezoid applies to you. What still does is the bar on participating in the play beyond the centre red line, and all four books carry it in the same operative words: "participates in the play in any manner". NHL Rule 27.7 and IIHF Rule 27.6 are that sentence, with "(intentionally plays the puck or checks an opponent)" set inside it as a parenthetical gloss rather than as a limit on it. USA Hockey Rule 407(c) assesses a minor where a goalkeeper "deliberately participates in the play in any manner when they are beyond the center red line", and Hockey Canada Rule 4.13(c) reaches a goaltender who "intentionally participates in the play in any manner when they are beyond the centre red line" — carrying no penalty of its own, and sending the offence instead to Rule 8.3(a) – Interference, a minor. So it is not only a stick on the puck: the NHL's and the IIHF's own parenthetical names checking an opponent, and neither amateur book's own sentence limits the manner at all.

⚠️ And the test is the opposite way round in the two North American amateur books — this is the half almost nobody knows. Under the NHL and the IIHF the rule says in terms that "The position of the puck is the determining factor for the application of this rule", and the IIHF Situation Handbook takes the sharp version of it at Situation 27.5: a goalkeeper whose skates are still in their own half but who plays a puck that is over the centre red line takes the minor anyway. Under USA Hockey and Hockey Canada it is your skates that decide — and neither book writes that test into Rule 407(c) or Rule 4.13(c), the rules you would look up. USA Hockey's Casebook, at Rule 407(c), Situation 13, puts a goalkeeper "whose skates are beyond the center red line" playing a puck still on their own side, answers that it is not legal, and gives the reason: "In this situation the determining factor is the position of the goalkeeper's skates and not the puck." Hockey Canada's Interpretation 2 to Rule 4.13(c) puts the identical facts and rules the same way — "The determining factor is the position of the goaltender's skates and not the position of the puck. Assess the goaltender a Minor penalty for Rule 8.3 (a) – Interference." And Hockey Canada does not leave the skates test to an interpretation: Rule 8.3(a) itself assesses a minor to any goaltender who "plays the puck with their skates over the centre red line", in operative rule text — worded narrower than 4.13(c)'s "in any manner", though both routes end at the same minor. That sentence is the second of two Roman-numbered clauses printed inside 8.3(a), so the pinpoint for it is Rule 8.3(a)(ii) — the book's own citation form, not a sub-letter invented here: Hockey Canada heads the Interpretation glossing the first of the pair "Interpretation 2 Rule 8.3 (a)(i)".

So the two halves catch opposite mistakes, and one instruction satisfies all four: keep your skates and the puck both on your own side of the red line. That is legal everywhere, and if you do not know which book you are under it is the version to play. USA Hockey publishes a worked case on accidental contact — Casebook Rule 407(c), Situation 12, a goalkeeper on the way to the bench who is "accidentally struck by the puck" over the line, is no penalty, because "the goalkeeper is not considered to be participating in the play if the puck contact was accidental" — and the other three books have not been searched here for one of their own.

How big is it, exactly? Take the geometry from Rink Map and Glossary, which covers the rink's dimensions and gives the NHL figures, the depth and the IIHF metric equivalents in one place. The part to carry in your head, because it is your two minutes: under the NHL book the dimensions come from Rule 1.8, and never from Rule 27.8. NHL Rule 27.8 defines your penalty correctly but still describes the area as beginning "six feet from either goal post" — wording left over from before the trapezoid was widened by two feet on each side in 2014. That is stale, not self-contradictory: six feet each side gives eighteen feet at the goal line, diverging coherently to the twenty-eight feet at the boards that both rules quote. It is the old shape, accurately described — and it is two feet a side narrower than the lines you are actually looking at, which is exactly the margin you would be penalised in.

🇬🇧 The IIHF book does not have this defect, so if you play in Britain you can stop worrying about it. IIHF Rule 1.8 gives the marking as "6.80m" along the goal line and "8.60m" at the boards, and IIHF Rule 27.7 — the penalty rule — repeats exactly those figures rather than leaving a superseded one behind. The shape is the shape you already know: 6.80 m is 22 ft 4 in against the NHL's 22 ft, and 8.60 m is 28 ft 3 in against the NHL's 28 ft. What genuinely differs is the depth, because the IIHF goal line sits 4.0 m from the end boards where the NHL's sits 11 ft — so an IIHF trapezoid is about two feet deeper. See Rules Primer for the penalty rules, and Defender for the retrieval consequences.

Stopping pucks for your defence

A puck rimmed hard around the boards is coming behind your net, and the shaded area is the trapezoid — the marked area behind the goal line inside which you are allowed to play it. Follow the rim: it crosses the goal line out near the boards, well outside that area, and only then comes into it. Inside, the most useful thing you can do is often not a pass at all. Kill it dead, leave it for your defenceman, and call "leave it" early, while they are still coming back rather than as they arrive. You have turned a race into a pickup. Out where it crossed the line, get out of the way and let them have it. Under the IIHF book that is not caution, it is the rule: its Situation Handbook answers a goaltender who drops and blocks a pass with the leg pads out beyond that shaded area with a delay-of-game minor, so a pad in the way counts as playing the puck. Under the NHL book, whether a deliberate body block counts as playing it is this document’s reading rather than a quoted interpretation. In front of the goal line, and behind it inside the shaded area, blocking a rim with your pads is completely legal. One exception belongs to this rule and to no other: no penalty is assessed when you play the puck while keeping skate contact with your crease, and it excuses playing the puck rather than freezing it. Where a trapezoid applies is not universal — the NHL and IIHF play have one, neither the USA Hockey nor the Hockey Canada book marks one at all, and England Ice Hockey’s own regulations say it is "not currently enforced" in England and Wales. That edition is 2024-25 and the current In-House Rules are silent on the point, so the published documents do not settle whether the suspension still stands. Assume it binds, ask your league, and look behind the net to see whether the lines are painted. And no trapezoid still does not free you to freeze the puck out here — but that is not one rule, because the two books with no trapezoid draw the freeze on different lines. Hockey Canada keys it to your crease and is then in two minds: clause v of Interpretation 3 to Rule 10.1(a) forbids the freeze once you have left the crease, with no warning, clause ii permits covering a shot you came out and stopped, and the book never says which governs. USA Hockey keys it to a region instead, and the region excludes the corner this rim comes through: Rule 614(c) gives the same two minutes for gathering the puck into your body behind the goal line with your body entirely outside the crease, and again anywhere outside its "goalkeeper’s privileged" area — imaginary lines joining the two end-zone faceoff spots and running back from each of them to the end boards.

Action: Kill a rimmed puck dead behind the net and leave it stationary — you have converted a race into a pickup
Action: Call "leave it" early, while your defenceman is still coming back, not as they arrive
Technique: Blocking a rim with your pads is legal in front of the goal line, or behind it inside the trapezoid
Never: Body-block a puck behind the goal line and outside the trapezoid. Get out of the way instead and let your defenceman have it
Rule: Blocking a rim or pass with your leg pads behind the goal line and outside the trapezoid is "playing" the puck under IIHF rules, and a minor — not a grey area (IIHF Situation Handbook, Situation 27.7)
Rule: The offence is playing the puck, so a puck that comes off the glass and hits you while you retreat is no penalty — "the goalkeeper must play the puck to be penalized" (IIHF Situation Handbook, Situation 27.9, 2025/26 v1.1 and 2026/27 alike)
Convention: Whether the goalie plays the puck at all is a coaching choice — ask, and then be consistent

Even with a trapezoid, you have real value behind the net. The most useful thing you do back there is often not a pass at all:

Stop a rimmed puck and leave it. A puck rimming hard around the boards will end up in the far corner with a forechecker on it. If it comes through the trapezoid, kill it dead behind the net and leave it stationary for your defenceman. You have converted a race into a pickup. Call "leave it" so they know to come and get it, and say it early — while they are still coming, not as they arrive.
Get your body in the way — but mind where you are. You do not have to make a play with the puck; killing a rim with your pads so it dies behind the net instead of reaching the corner is often the most useful thing you can do, and in front of the goal line, or behind it but inside the trapezoid, it is completely legal. Behind the goal line and outside the trapezoid, do not do it. NHL Rule 27.8 says a goalkeeper "shall not play the puck outside of the designated area behind the net" and does not define "play" narrowly, and the determining factor is where the puck is, not where you are. Under the NHL book, whether a deliberate body block counts as playing the puck is still my reading rather than a quoted interpretation.

⚠️ Under the IIHF book it is not a reading at all — it is answered, and answered against you. The IIHF Situation Handbook 2025/26 puts exactly this case, at Situation 27.7: a goalkeeper retreating through the corner "drops down on the knees and blocks the pass using the leg pads which is clearly inside the restricted area." The answer: "Since the goalkeeper 'plays' the puck in the restricted area, the goalkeeper must be assessed a minor penalty for delay of game." No stick, no possession, no attempt to make a play with it — a pad in the way of a pass is playing the puck. That is the operative interpretation in Britain, so the conservative reading this document takes is not caution there, it is the rule. Two things the Handbook also settles, both in your favour, and in the same words in the 2025/26 (v1.1) and 2026/27 editions. A puck you stop on the goal line is not behind it, so stopping it there is not the offence — Situation 27.6 reasons that "the puck must be over the goal line to be considered to be in the restricted area." ⚠️ Read "restricted area" carefully in that sentence, because the IIHF's two publications use the phrase in opposite senses. The Handbook means the ice behind the goal line that you are barred from; the Rulebook means the trapezoid itself — Rule 1.8 is headed "Goalkeeper's Restricted Area" and describes the marked trapezoidal area, and the goalkeeper-penalties table lists the offence as "Playing puck outside restricted area". Everything that follows here uses the Rulebook's sense. And a puck that comes off the glass and hits you while you are retreating is no penalty, because "the goalkeeper must play the puck to be penalized" (Situation 27.9). Out there, get out of the way and let your defenceman have it.
Know your team's convention. Whether your goalie plays the puck at all is a coaching choice. Some teams want the goalie handling everything they legally can; others want the goalie to touch nothing and stay in the net. Both are defensible. Ask, and then be consistent.

The safe outlets

You have the puck behind your own net and three of your five options are drawn, ranked by risk. The short pass to your defenceman on the wall on your strong side is simple, and if it is intercepted it is intercepted below the goal line where it means less. The rim around the boards to the far winger concedes possession but relieves pressure, so aim it to arrive where a teammate can meet it. The third runs into the shaded slot, and it is the one to make almost never: a goalie’s turnover in the middle of the ice is a shot on an empty net, and you are the one standing in it. Two options are not drawn because a picture cannot carry them. Leaving the puck for a defenceman who has time is the lowest-risk option of all and always comes first when it is available — it is the one where you never touch the puck. And going off the glass and out is rarely wrong when you are in trouble, but along the glass, never over it: a puck you shoot directly out of the rink from your own end is a two-minute minor under NHL and IIHF rules, where USA Hockey’s clause reaches only a deliberate clear. Hockey Canada writes a limb aimed at you specifically — Rule 10.1, clause v, "a goaltender who shoots or bats the puck directly out of the playing surface, with their stick" — and it names no zone at all, so unlike the rule just described it is not confined to your own end. Read the rule rather than the clause, though. The clause carries no deliberateness word where the clauses either side of it do, but Rule 10.1 opens by saying delay of game occurs when a player "deliberately causes a stoppage of play", and calls the list that follows one that "includes, but is not limited to, the following actions" — so the deliberateness sits in the rule above rather than in the clause, and the book never says which reading wins. Treat an accidental clear there as unsettled rather than as free, and keep the puck in the rink. Its Interpretation 5 gives you back the puck that touches the glass, the one that deflects off a player or an official, and the one sent out where there is no glass, such as over a bench. Whether you play the puck at all is your team’s convention rather than a law — some coaches want the goalie handling everything they legally can and others want you to touch nothing. Ask, and then be consistent.

Priority: Rank your options by risk before you move the puck
Options: Leave it for a defenceman with time — lowest risk, and always first when it is available
Options: A short pass to a defenceman on the wall on your strong side, where an interception means less
Options: A rim around the boards to the far winger — concedes possession but relieves pressure
Options: Off the glass and out — but along the glass, never over it, because under NHL and IIHF rules a puck you shoot straight out of the rink from your own end is a minor; goalies are allowed to be boring
Never: Pass up the middle — a goalie's turnover there is a shot on an empty net, and you are standing in it

When you do move the puck, rank your options by risk:

Leave it for a defenceman with time. Lowest risk, and it starts a controlled breakout. Always first when it's available.
A short pass to a defenceman on the wall on your strong side. Simple, short, and if it's intercepted it's intercepted below the goal line where it means less.
A rim around the boards to the far winger. Concedes possession but relieves pressure. Aim it to arrive where a teammate can meet it.
Off the glass and out. Rarely wrong when you are in trouble, and goalies are allowed to be boring — but along the glass, never over it. A puck you shoot directly out of the rink from your own end is a two-minute minor under NHL and IIHF rules — USA Hockey's clause reaches only a deliberate clear, so an accidental one is no penalty there — and the next section is about the rules that make it one, in all four books.
A pass up the middle. Almost never. A goalie's turnover in the middle of the ice is a shot on an empty net, and you are the one standing in it.

Putting the puck out of play — the minor that is yours too, and the tier above it after a whistle

Rule: Deliberately shooting or batting the puck out of the playing area, from anywhere on the ice, is a minor — and both books print it against goalkeepers by name (NHL Rule 63.2(ii), at Reference Table 11; IIHF Rule 63.2(II), at Table 13 in the 2025/26 book, Table 11 in the 2026/27 one)
Rule: Shooting or batting the puck directly and undeflected out of the playing surface from your defending zone is a second, separate minor, with no deliberateness element in it (NHL Rule 63.2(iii); IIHF Rule 63.2(III), whose own words are wider at the bench)
Rule: Rules 63.2(ii) and 63.2(iii) both say "any player", and NHL and IIHF Rule 5.1 define that word as "both skaters and goalkeepers"; where a limb means to leave you out it says so, as Rule 63.2(v) does — but only 63.2(ii) is in the goalkeeper tables, so 63.2(iii) rests on that definition alone
Key: The defending-zone clause turns on where the puck was, not where you were — and almost every puck you play is inside your own zone when you play it, so you are in its fact pattern nearly every time
Rule: The minor reaches your clear, not your save — a stick save deflected over the glass is no penalty because you did not "shoot" the puck out (IIHF Situation Handbook, Situation 63.29); its reasoning that "Rule 63.2. talks about deliberate" is absent from 63.2(iii), so it is no general defence
Rule: The rebound relief is USA Hockey's alone — batting a rebound out of the rink before you have control is no penalty there (Casebook, Rule 610 Situation 5, on Rule 610(c)'s "deliberately"), but NHL and IIHF Rule 63.2(iii) has no such word and reaches it
Rule: USA Hockey writes no defending-zone limb at all — Rule 610's puck-out-of-the-rink clause is 610(c), which turns on "deliberately" not on where the puck was, and names goalkeepers in terms; but Rule 610 has other limbs that reach you, 610(b) for manufacturing a stoppage among them
Rule: USA Hockey does not stop at a minor for a puck put out of the rink during a stoppage — 610(c) is a minor, 601(c)(10) a misconduct, and the book does not say which governs; done "in protest of an official's decision" 601(d)(7) is a game misconduct
Rule: Hockey Canada writes a goaltender limb of its own, with no zone restriction, for shooting or batting the puck directly out of the playing surface with your stick (Rule 10.1(v)) — but Interpretation 5 to Rule 10.1(a) excuses a puck that touches the glass or deflects off a player or official
Rule: You do not serve a goalkeeper's minor yourself — a teammate on the ice, designated by your coach, serves it (NHL and IIHF 27.1; USA Hockey 407(a) adds misconducts) — but a game misconduct takes your place in the net (USA Hockey 407(b))
Action: Clear along the glass rather than up it, and if the puck is not settled on your blade put it down the boards instead of lifting it

Two of the delay-of-game limbs in Rule 63.2 are about pucks that leave the ice, and neither of them is written for skaters only.

The deliberate one, from anywhere on the ice. A minor is assessed "on any player who deliberately shoots or bats (using his hand, leg, foot, arm, or stick, etc.) the puck outside the playing area (from anywhere on the ice surface) during the play or after a stoppage of play" — NHL Rule 63.2(ii), and IIHF Rule 63.2(II) in the same words. This one is not an inference: both books print it in their own goalkeeper tables. The NHL's Reference Table 11, Summary of Goalkeeper Penalties, reads at its eighth row "Deliberately shoots or bats puck out of play — Rule 63", and the IIHF's Table 13 carries the same row, naming 63.2 (II) outright. (That table is renumbered Table 11 in the IIHF's 2026/27 edition, with the same row and the same reference.)
The one with no deliberateness in it, from your own end. The NHL's Rule 63.2(iii) assesses a minor "on any player who shoots or bats (using his hand or his stick) the puck directly (non-deflected) out of the playing surface from his defending zone, except where there is no glass", and "[t]he determining factor shall be the position of the puck when it was shot or batted by the offending player." Read what is missing from that sentence: there is no "deliberately" in it. Meaning to do it is not the test; where the puck was when you played it is, and the clause says so again in terms — "[i]f contact with the puck occurs while the puck is inside the defending zone, and subsequently goes out of play, the minor penalty shall be assessed." ⚠️ And that determining factor is what makes this clause yours rather than mainly a defenceman's problem. Almost every puck you play is sitting inside your own defending zone at the moment you play it, so where a defenceman meets this fact pattern occasionally, you are in it nearly every time you touch the puck. The IIHF's Rule 63.2(III) is the same rule written in its own words, and two of them are not the NHL's — it exempts a rink "where there is no protective glass", and where the NHL's clause catches a puck shot "over the glass 'behind' the players' bench", the IIHF's catches one shot "over the protective glass surrounding the Players' bench." Glass that surrounds a bench is more of it than glass behind one, so on its words the British clause is the wider of the two — that is a reading of the wording, and no published interpretation of it is held here. Both books then attach the same Note, and in each it cuts two ways: a puck shot into the players' bench carries no penalty, and neither does one that leaves the rink directly off a faceoff.
Why "any player" means you. NHL and IIHF Rule 5.1: "For the purposes of these playing rules, any reference to 'player' shall refer to both skaters and goalkeepers. Any reference to 'goalkeeper' shall mean that the section of the rule is specific to goalkeepers." Rule 63.2 uses that machinery deliberately — where a limb means to leave you out it says so, at 63.2(v), "On a player other than the goalkeeper", and where it means to name you it does that too, at 63.2(i), "On any player, including the goalkeeper". Rules 63.2(ii) and 63.2(iii) do neither, so both reach you. ⚠️ One honest difference in how well the two are evidenced. The goalkeeper tables put Rule 63.2(ii) beyond argument. Rule 63.2(iii) reaches you through Rule 5.1's definition alone — no table, and no published situation held here, states it of a goalkeeper in terms.

Two things sit alongside all of this, and a goalie who took the rule without them would start flinching at pucks they should be stopping. Read which book each one belongs to: the first is the IIHF's own, and the second is USA Hockey's alone.

It reaches your clear, not your save. The IIHF Situation Handbook puts exactly that case at Situation 63.29, identically in the 2025/26 and 2026/27 editions: a goalkeeper moving from post to post makes a stick save, and the puck comes off the stick and over the glass. The answer is "No. The goalkeeper was simply making a save and did not 'shoot' the puck over the glass. Rule 63.2. talks about deliberate, the save cannot be seen as falling under this criteria." ⚠️ Read that second sentence, because it cuts against the reading above. Rule 63.2(iii) carries no "deliberately" and the Handbook's reasoning does. The answer cites "Rule 63.2" without naming a limb, and the neighbouring limb 63.2(II) does carry the word, so it may be reasoning from that one — but nothing held here says which it means. So take the answer and not the argument for it. What the clause's own words give you is that a save is not a "shoot"; they do not give you a general deliberateness defence, and nothing else held here supplies one.
⚠️ USA Hockey excuses a rebound you bat away before you have control of it. The NHL and the IIHF do not. USA Hockey's Casebook, Rule 610, Situation 5: a shot hits the goalkeeper in the chest, rebounds into the air, and the goalkeeper bats it out of the air and out of the rink. No penalty — but the answer names the line: "Had the goalkeeper caught the puck first, thereby gaining control, and then deliberately batted the puck directly out of the playing area, a minor penalty for delay of game would be required." That turns on the word "deliberately" in USA Hockey Rule 610(c), which is the only rule the Situation cites. Rule 63.2(iii) has no such word, and it reaches "any player who shoots or bats (using his hand or his stick) the puck directly (non-deflected) out of the playing surface from his defending zone" — so a goalkeeper who bats a rebound out of the rink from their own crease is inside it. Control or no control, under the NHL and the IIHF expect the minor.

USA Hockey writes no defending-zone limb at all. Rule 610(c) is the deliberate clause and nothing else — a minor "to any player or goalkeeper who delays the game by deliberately shooting or batting the puck outside the playing area, including after a stoppage of play." Note that it names you expressly, so the deliberate clear is squarely yours. But a clear that leaves the rink by accident from your own end is two minutes under NHL and IIHF rules and no penalty under USA Hockey's. ⚠️ Rule 610 is not the whole of that book's answer for a puck put out after a whistle, though, and the rest of it is not two minutes. Rule 601(c)(10) assesses a misconduct penalty to a player who "[s]hoots or bats the puck outside of the playing area during a stoppage of play (when not done in protest of an official's decision or in the direction of a spectator)" — the same act Rule 610(c) prices as a minor. USA Hockey does not say which of the two governs, and none of its Rule 601 casebook situations concerns a puck put out of the playing area, so treat the tier as unsettled rather than settled at two minutes. That is a reading of two clauses side by side, not a ruling. ⚠️ What is not unsettled is the parenthesis, and it is the part that ends your night. Do it "in protest of an official's decision" and Rule 601(d)(7) makes it a game misconduct; send the puck "in the general direction of an on-ice official, or in the direction of a spectator during a stoppage of play" and Rule 601(d)(9) does the same; and the Note to Rule 601(d) reaches a match penalty for a player who "shoots the puck directly at an official or spectator in a manner that recklessly endangers the official or spectator." Rule 601(a)(4) prices the plainer version — "[s]hoots the puck after the whistle, if in the opinion of the Official such shot was avoidable" — as an unsportsmanlike minor, and prints its own ladder underneath it: "A misconduct penalty shall be assessed to any player who persists in such conduct and any further dispute by the same player shall result in a game misconduct penalty being assessed."
Hockey Canada writes a goaltender limb of its own, drawn differently again. Rule 10.1(v) lists among the delay-of-game actions "A goaltender who shoots or bats the puck directly out of the playing surface, with their stick" — no zone restriction at all, and confined to the stick. ⚠️ Whether that limb needs to be deliberate is not settled by the book. Rule 10.1 opens "Delay of Game occurs when any player or team deliberately causes a stoppage of play or delays the restart of play", and Rules 10.1(i), 10.1(ii), 10.1(vi) and 10.1(xi) each repeat "deliberately" while 10.1(iv) writes "by any deliberate action" — where Rule 10.1(v) carries no deliberateness element at all. Nothing held here says whether the opening sentence governs the limb, so do not assume it saves you. ⚠️ What Hockey Canada does publish is a narrowing, and it is worth more to you than the deliberateness question is. Interpretation 5 to Rule 10.1(a) gives "[c]larifications as it pertains to goaltenders shooting or batting the puck directly out of play", and its clause i takes three cases out of the limb: "When the goaltender shoots the puck directly out of the playing surface where there is no glass, such as at the Players' Bench or Penalty Bench, or if the puck touches the glass or deflects off a player or official, no penalty will be assessed." So under Hockey Canada a clear that clips the glass on its way out is not this offence at all — which is most of what along the glass rather than over it buys you. ⚠️ Its clause ii is about the rink rather than about you, and it can switch the rule off entirely: "In order to assess a penalty to a goaltender under this provision, both ends of the rink must be similar. If there is glass at one end only, then the rule would not apply. However, if the rink only has glass on one side of the ice, then a goaltender may be penalized, as both ends of the rink are similar and no goaltender has an advantage over the other." ⚠️ Do not read the whole of that across to the NHL and the IIHF. A deflection they already excuse in their own words — 63.2(iii) reaches only a puck put "directly (non-deflected)" out of the playing surface, so a clear that comes off a teammate or an official is outside the clause there too. What those two books do not write is the rest of it: they have no glass-touch carve-out — their only glass provision is the "except where there is no glass" exemption for a rink that has none — and nothing about the two ends of a rink being similar. So under the NHL and the IIHF a clear that merely glances the glass on its way out is not excused by anything in the text, and no interpretation of theirs saying otherwise is held here. ⚠️ And do not read Rule 10.1 as the ceiling either — Hockey Canada writes the after-the-whistle escalation somewhere else on purpose. Rule 10.1(d) says flatly "No Misconduct penalty may be assessed for Delay of Game", and 10.1(e) "No Game Misconduct penalty may be assessed for Delay of Game", so that rule could not carry one. The book instead lists "Shooting the puck out of the playing area, after the whistle" among the acts of Unsportsmanlike Conduct at Rule 11.1, preamble item (v) — the book runs two roman-numeral lists in that rule and they collide at (v), so the locator matters: 11.1(d)(v) is the separate Referee's-crease clause — a Minor or Bench Minor under 11.1(a), a Misconduct under 11.1(d)(i) for a player who "[p]ersists in Unsportsmanlike Conduct, after receiving a Minor penalty under Rule 11.1 (a)", and a Game Misconduct under 11.1(e) for persisting after either. ⚠️ Neither rung is one you have to be walked up to, because each of 11.1(d) and 11.1(e) carries its own Note 1 lifting the rung beneath it: a referee "is not required to assess a Minor penalty under this rule before assessing a Misconduct penalty, but may assess either penalty initially", and likewise "not required to assess a Minor or Misconduct penalty under this rule before assessing a Game Misconduct penalty." You do not get one free minor first. What the Notes lift is the requirement that the lower penalty have been assessed; 11.1(e)'s own requirement that the player "persists" stays. Clause (iv) of the same list reaches the neighbouring act, "Shooting the puck at or near the goal after the whistle."

And know who pays, because it is not you. NHL Rule 27.1: "A goalkeeper shall not be sent to the penalty bench for an offense which incurs a minor penalty, but instead, the minor penalty shall be served by another member of his team who was on the ice when play is stopped and the penalty assessed" — designated by your coach through the captain, and "[a] penalized player may not serve a goalkeeper's penalty." IIHF Rule 27.1 is the same rule in the IIHF's own words, and it moves in two places, not just the one you would expect: "shall not be sent to the penalty box… served by another member of their team." Both books then carry the same designation sentence and the same bar on a penalized player serving, word for word. So your two minutes are a teammate's two minutes and your team's kill, and you stay in the net to face the power play you created. USA Hockey extends that one rung further up: Rule 407(a), "A goalkeeper shall not be sent to the penalty bench for an offense that incurs a minor or misconduct penalty", with the same teammate designated by the coach through the captain. ⚠️ It stops there, and the rung above it is the one that takes you off the ice. Rule 407(b): "Should a goalkeeper incur a game misconduct or a match penalty, their place will be taken by a substitute goalkeeper or a temporary goalkeeper (see Glossary) or an additional skater" — a teammate still serves the time, but you are not the one finishing the game. Under USA Hockey Rule 404(b) a game misconduct is "the suspension of a player or Team Official for the balance of the game", and the player "shall also be suspended for the team's next game." ⚠️ Do not convert a misconduct into a fixed ten minutes either — Rule 404(a) reads "10 minutes, or the designated misconduct penalty time", and the Note above it authorises affiliates and governing bodies "(Except for Adults)" to reduce that length for games under their jurisdiction, so what a misconduct costs in minutes depends on the classification you play in.

⚠️ None of that ladder exists in the two books this section opened with. The NHL's and the IIHF's offence for putting the puck out of play is Rule 63.2, and neither writes a tier above it for that act — Rule 63.9 lists "Deliberately shooting the puck out of play" among the acts producing "a penalty (minor, bench minor, penalty shot or awarded goal)", with no misconduct in the list, and NHL and IIHF Rule 75, Unsportsmanlike Conduct, was read in full for a puck limb at all four of its tiers and contains none. So one of them after the whistle is two minutes in a British or NHL-rules game, where the same act can end your night in a USA Hockey or Hockey Canada one. ⚠️ What those two books do write is a misconduct for a different puck offence, and a way up by repetition. Rule 39.4(ii), and in the IIHF book 39.4(II), is a misconduct for a player who "intentionally knocks or shoots the puck out of the reach of an official who is retrieving it" — that one is about the official, not about the glass. And IIHF Rule 75.4(I) makes a misconduct of "Any Player who persists in any course of conduct for which they were previously assessed a Minor Penalty", with 75.5(I) a game misconduct above it, while the NHL's 75.4(v) states the same progression in general terms. Neither book says whether a repeated puck-over-the-glass minor is such a course of conduct, so take that as what the text leaves open rather than as a decided point. Find out which book your league runs before you decide that lifting it out is cheap.

What to do about it is small. Clear along the glass rather than up it. If the puck is not settled on your blade, put it down the boards instead of lifting it — a rim that dies in the corner is a worse outcome than a clean exit and a far better one than a minor. And never lift a puck out of the rink to buy yourself a whistle: that is Rule 63.2(ii), deliberately, in front of a referee who can see exactly what you did — and if the whistle has already gone and you do it in temper, USA Hockey and Hockey Canada both have a rung above the minor for exactly that, ending in a game misconduct.

The discipline of not playing it

This is the picture the section exists to stop you making. A loose puck is in the corner and you have left your net for it, and the forechecker is closer to it than you are — so look at where your net is. The best puck-handling decision a goalie makes is usually to leave the puck alone, and the first rule is not to leave your net for a fifty-fifty puck: if you lose the race, the net is empty and you are behind the play. The rulebook anticipates it as well. Racing out of your crease to beat an attacker to a loose puck and then jumping on it instead of playing it is a two-minute minor under NHL and IIHF Rule 63.2(vi). That is not a reason to hesitate over a puck you have already stopped — both books attach a note to the same clause saying that coming out to cut down the angle, making the save and then covering the puck is legal, and Hockey Canada permits it at clause ii of Interpretation 3 to Rule 10.1(a). Hockey Canada is not settled, though: clause v of that same interpretation says a goaltender who leaves their crease will not be allowed to freeze the puck at all, and the book nowhere says which of the two governs a cover made after a save outside the crease, so treating clause ii as the exception is a reading and not a ruling. The puck here is in front of the goal line, so nothing about the trapezoid is in play; this is only the race. And if you do commit, commit — the worst outcome of all is starting for the puck, changing your mind, and leaving both of you out of position. Call "I’ve got it" and mean it. A goalie who handles the puck well is a real asset; a goalie who believes they handle it well is a liability.

Key: The best puck-handling decision a goalie makes is usually to leave the puck alone
Never: Leave your net for a 50-50 puck — if you lose the race the net is empty with you behind the play
Rule: Racing out and jumping on a loose puck instead of playing it is a minor — but coming out to cut down the angle, making the save and then covering the puck is legal (NHL and IIHF Rule 63.2(vi))
Never: Handle it because you can — every touch is a chance to make a turnover you are out of position to save, because playing the puck takes you out of your net
Action: If you commit, commit — call "I've got it" and mean it
Mindset: A goalie who handles the puck well is an asset; one who believes they handle it well is a liability

The best puck-handling decision a goalie makes is usually to leave the puck alone.

Don't leave your net for a 50-50 puck. If you lose the race, the net is empty and you are behind the play. The rulebook even anticipates this: racing out and jumping on a loose puck instead of playing it is a minor (NHL and IIHF Rule 63.2(vi)). ⚠️ That is not a reason to hesitate over a puck you have already stopped. The NHL and IIHF books both attach a Note to that same clause saying so in terms — coming out to cut down the angle, making the save and then covering the puck is legal — and Hockey Canada's Interpretation 3 to Rule 10.1(a) permits it at clause ii, "after stopping the shot, cover the puck". ⚠️ Do not read Hockey Canada as settled, though: clause v of the same Interpretation says that "[w]hen a goaltender leaves their crease, they will not be allowed to freeze the puck", and Hockey Canada nowhere says which of ii and v governs a cover made after a save outside the crease, so treating ii as the exception is a reading and not a ruling. What the clause penalises is racing an attacker to a loose puck and smothering it instead of playing it.
Don't handle it because you can. Every touch is a chance to make a turnover you are out of position to save, because playing the puck takes you out of your net.
If you commit, commit. The worst outcome is starting to play the puck, changing your mind, and leaving both you and your defenceman out of position. Call "I've got it" and mean it.
Watch the clock and the pressure, not your ego. A goalie who handles the puck well is a real asset. A goalie who believes they handle the puck well is a liability.

Icing — you are the one who can wave it off

Hybrid icing, and why the end-zone faceoff dot is a deadline rather than a finish line. Both skaters reach the dot line at the same instant, and the marked box is the near dot — marked as the cut-off for the decision, not as a place a draw is taken. Under NHL Rule 81.1, and IIHF Rule 81.1 in the same words — though not the whole rule, since the IIHF adds a paragraph for when there is no race at all — the decision "will be made by no later than the instant the first player reaches the end zone face-off dots with the player’s skate being the determining factor" — and then, in the rule’s own clarifying sentence, "the determining factor is which player would first touch the puck, not which player would first reach the end zone face-off dots." So being level at the box settles nothing. What settles it is being clearly on course to reach the puck first, and a race too close to determine by that instant is icing. Your goaltender is drawn staying put on purpose: under those two books a goaltender who "feigns playing the puck, attempts to play the puck, or skates in the direction of the puck on an icing at any time" waves it off and leaves the other team a live puck in your corner (Rule 81.3). ⚠️ And this is not everybody’s icing. USA Hockey plays automatic icing, completed "the instant the puck has completely crossed the goal line" (Rule 624, Note), so there is no race to draw at all. Hockey Canada runs hybrid only in U18AAA, Junior and Senior at the Member’s option (Rule 6.7(e)). Ask which your league plays. ⚠️ The race is not a licence to hit. Unnecessary contact with a player playing the puck on an obvious icing play that results in him hitting or impacting the boards "is boarding and must be penalized as such" under NHL 41.1, IIHF 41.1 and Hockey Canada 7.2, word for word, and USA Hockey penalises the same contact without naming boarding, at Rule 624(d). If you are clearly beaten to the puck, do not run yourself into the end boards for nothing. ⚠️ And whoever wins it, how you arrive at the wall is the part that hurts people, in every league, checking or not. Never take that contact with your back to the boards, and never duck. Get your skates parallel to the wall instead, take it on your forearm and hip, head up and chin off your chest — a turned back makes it a hit from behind, which you can neither see nor brace for, and a tucked chin straightens the cervical spine.

Diagram from rules primer

Rule: Skating toward the puck, feigning at it or attempting to play it waves off an icing; your defencemen cannot (NHL Rule 81.3)
Action: Usually you want the whistle, so do nothing, deliberately — drifting toward the corner hands them a live puck in your end
Rule: Under NHL and IIHF Rule 81.4 the team that iced the puck cannot change — the exceptions are an injured player, a pulled goalie returning and a strength-changing penalty, plus a fourth for a broken skate in IIHF 81.4 alone; under USA Hockey Rule 624 they can change anyway
Rule: Do not plan a change around that fourth one — the same IIHF book states the bar again at Rule 82.1, whose trigger names Rule 63.8 and Rule 81, and that copy lists only the NHL's three. Neither rule says which governs, in either edition
Read: Wave the icing off only when your defenceman is arriving with time and their forwards have already turned for the bench
Action: Decide whether to wave the icing off before the puck arrives, not halfway through it — two strides is the whole action
Action: Talk either way — "leave it" or "I've got it"; silence produces two players and one puck
Rule: Going to the bench for an extra attacker does not wave off an icing, provided you make no attempt on the puck (NHL Rule 81.3)
Rule: Under USA Hockey only an actual touch waves an icing off — Rule 624(b) does not wave off for goalie movement
Rule: You can cause an icing too — Rule 81.1 stops play when "any player" shoots the puck from their own half beyond the far goal line, and Rule 5.1 makes that word include you (NHL and IIHF)
Rule: Knocking your own net off locks your bench too — a goal post accidentally displaced by a defending skater or goalkeeper, you included, bars your team from substituting before the draw (NHL and IIHF Rule 63.8)

The rule itself is in Rules Primer. What is specific to you is that under NHL and IIHF rules you can kill an icing without touching anything. Merely skating in the direction of the puck, feigning at it, or attempting to play it waves the icing off (Rule 81.3 in both books, same number), and so of course does any actual touch. Your defencemen cannot do that; only you can. The IIHF wording is "if … the goalkeeper feigns playing the puck, attempts to play the puck, or skates in the direction of the puck on an icing at any time, the 'potential icing' shall not be called" — and the IIHF Situation Handbook shows how little it takes: at Situation 81.5, a goalkeeper who extends the stick towards the puck with both feet still in the crease, then pulls it back, has already waved the icing off.

So the decision behind your net on every dumped puck is a real one, and it has to be made before it arrives:

Usually you want the whistle, so stay put. An icing against them means a draw in their end, and under NHL and IIHF rules (Rule 81.4) they cannot change — you have converted a dump-in into an offensive-zone faceoff for your team against five players who are stuck out there. Both books allow the same three exceptions, and IIHF Rule 81.4 prints a fourth, permitting a substitution to replace "a Player with a broken skate", which the NHL's three do not have. ⚠️ Do not plan a change around that fourth one, in either direction. The same IIHF book states the post-icing substitution bar a second time, at Rule 82.1 — a rule whose own trigger names Rule 63.8, Delaying the Game, and Rule 81, Icing — and that second copy lists only the NHL's three, in the 2025/26 (v1.1) and 2026/27 editions alike. Neither rule says which governs, so the book says both things and this document does not resolve it. Switching Positions carries the same pair. ⚠️ Under USA Hockey they can change: Rule 624 restricts no substitution and Rule 204(a) gives each bench the ordinary five seconds to do it — after which "no additional player substitutions shall be permitted until the face-off has been completed legally and play has resumed, except when a penalty or penalties are imposed that affect the on-ice strength of either or both teams" — so in North American rec and youth hockey you win the zone but not the tired line. ⚠️ Under Hockey Canada the rule is scoped, and most of its players never meet it. Rule 6.7(d) opens "[i]n categories of U18AAA, Junior, and at the option of the Member in Senior, the following 'no-change on icing' rule will apply" — the same scope appears again at Rule 6.1(f) — and 6.7(a), (b) and (c) carry no substitution bar at all, so below U18AAA, and in Hockey Canada minor and female hockey generally, an icing costs the faceoff and nothing else and you may change freely. ⚠️ Where 6.7(d) does apply, do not read its exceptions as the NHL's: its third one is wider. Rule 6.7(d)'s third exception permits a change "[w]hen a penalty or penalties have been assessed to either team" — with no on-ice-strength requirement, where NHL and IIHF Rule 81.4 both require the penalty to affect strength. ⚠️ And one more thing to expect to have to argue. Rule 81.4 grants the injury exception and it governs — but IIHF Situation 81.7 is worded as though it does not. Asked whether a lengthy delay for broken glass lets the icing team change, it answers no, and then reaches far wider than the question, stating that the "[o]nly time a line change is permitted is when a penalty is assessed which affects the on-ice strength of either team" and citing Rule 81.4 for it. Read literally, that withdraws the very injury exception the rule it cites plainly grants. The Situation Handbook's own Foreword ranks it below the Rulebook, so 81.4 wins and an injured player may still be replaced — but a linesperson quoting 81.7 at you is quoting the book, and you should expect to have to say which one governs. Rules Primer covers this. Drifting toward the corner "just in case" throws all of that away and hands them a live puck in your own end with a forechecker arriving. Do nothing, deliberately.
Wave it off only when the counterattack beats the whistle. If your defenceman is arriving with time and their forwards have already turned for the bench, a live puck with numbers is worth more than a stoppage. Two strides toward the puck is the whole action — but decide before it arrives, not halfway through it.
Talk either way. Your defenceman is skating back with his head down and has no idea which you have chosen. "Leave it" or "I've got it" settles it; silence produces two players and one puck.
Going to the bench for an extra attacker does not wave it off, provided you make no attempt on the puck (Rule 81.3). Nor does simply retreating to your crease if you were already out of it. You can leave without giving them a live puck.
Freezing a dumped puck can lock your own team on the ice. See Rule 63.8 under Rebound Control above — on a puck shot in from their own side of the centre red line, your freeze means your five cannot change.
And so does knocking your own net off — the other limb of the same rule, and the limb that names you. Under NHL Rule 63.8 a goal post "displaced accidentally by a defending skater or goalkeeper" gives the defending team a draw "at one of the end zone face-off spots in the defending zone", at the dot the attacking team picks, and "[t]he offending team shall not be permitted to make any player substitutions prior to the face-off." IIHF Rule 63.8 writes "a defending Player" instead, which its Rule 5.1 defines as covering goalkeepers, so the rule reaches you under either book. ⚠️ The two limbs do not carry the same number of exceptions. This one has three — a pulled goalkeeper going back in, an injured player, and a penalty that changes on-ice strength — where the freeze limb above has two, with no pulled-goalkeeper exception at all. Backing into your own net in a scramble is a whistle nobody gets to rest on.
And you can cause an icing yourself. Rule 81.1 stops play when "any player of a team, equal or superior in numerical strength (power-play) to the opposing team" shoots, bats or deflects "the puck from his own half of the ice beyond the goal line of the opposing team" — the same "any player" that Rule 5.1 defines as covering goalkeepers, and the same sentence in the IIHF book. Rule 81.5's list of what is not icing does not rescue you. It has three goalkeeper clauses and all three are about somebody else: a touch by the opposing goalkeeper, a goalkeeper dislodging the puck from the back of their own net, and the "any player (other than the goalkeeper) of the opposing team" who could have played it. None of them exempts the goalkeeper who shot it. This is a much rarer play than the delay-of-game minor above — it takes a hard rim or a stretch attempt from the trapezoid that carries the length of the ice untouched — but the cost is exactly the one you spend the rest of this section trying to impose on them: under NHL and IIHF Rule 81.4 it is your five who are stuck on the ice for the draw.

Under USA Hockey rules none of the movement part applies: Rule 624(b) does not wave off icing for a goalie moving toward or feigning at the puck. Only an actual touch does. Find out which rule set you are under, because the same two strides mean opposite things.

Communicating with Your Defence

This is the most valuable thing you do that is not a save. Read this section twice.

You see everything. You are stationary, and you are facing the play while your defenceman is not — and it is not only a turnover you are preventing. A player facing the end boards with a forechecker arriving behind them is the situation the checking-from-behind rules exist for — so your call is not just saving a possession, it is the warning that keeps a teammate off the boards. Your defenceman retrieving a puck in your corner is facing the end boards with a forechecker arriving from behind them — the exact view you have and they do not. If that information doesn't travel from you to them, they guess, and a guess in the defensive zone is a turnover in the highest-danger area on the ice.

A call converts a blind decision into an informed one, and it costs you nothing. The information was already sitting in your eyes, useless.

The core calls

Why the call exists at all: the player going to get the puck is the one who cannot see the danger, and in this picture the two who can see it are the two who cannot reach it. A defenceman is going back into his own corner for a loose puck; a forechecker is closing on him from behind, which is the one place his eyes do not reach; and his partner across the net and his goaltender can see both of them and can do nothing about it except say so. Both are labelled "calls it", because where two people can see it both should call it: the failure being guarded against is silence, not duplication. The words themselves are a team matter, not a law of hockey. Agree your own list: there is no official hockey vocabulary. Two honest limits. This notation has no facing, no head and no sightline, so the claim that the retriever cannot see him rests on which way he is travelling and is not something the drawing establishes. And which side the forechecker arrives from is one instance rather than a fixed arrangement. The mirror of this picture is the same corner with nobody arriving, where the call is "time" and the danger runs the other way, because a false "time" sends a teammate into contact he was not braced for. ⚠️ Which is the safety instruction this picture carries, since the warning is shouted at a player arriving at the wall who cannot see the check coming. Two separate postures injure a neck at the boards, and they are not the same warning. A back turned to the wall is one: it makes the contact a hit from behind, which USA Hockey warns could inflict a severe head or neck injury even when the hit is light. A chin dropped to the chest is the other: it straightens the cervical spine, and USA Hockey’s Heads Up Hockey guide, restating research by Charles Tator and colleagues, has it that almost all on-ice cervical spine injuries have come from the head being slightly flexed while making head-on contact with the boards or the goal post. So never take that contact with your back to the boards, and never duck. The posture that survives an arrival at the wall is skates parallel to it, the contact taken on your forearm and hip, head up and chin off your chest — never your back to the boards, and never a chin dropped to look for the puck. Protecting the puck never justifies squaring your back to an oncoming checker. The checker carries the legal obligation here, not you — but that is not something to lean on, because the penalty arrives after the injury does, and because in many leagues body checking is not allowed at all. Find out which book you are under, and whether you may body check in this game rather than merely in your division, before you plan on taking contact or making it.

Diagram from on ice communication

D-to-D: the pass across to your partner, changing which side the attack comes from and forcing the whole forecheck to reset and shift. Drawn in your own defensive zone at the left of the picture, with the strong side flooded and the far side free, which is the read the option needs — its real value is that it costs the opposition time, because everything they had covered comes uncovered while they travel. The route is the point of the picture, and it is the reason this diagram exists: go behind your own net, never through the shaded area. Intercepted below the goal line the pass means nothing, because there is no shot from there; the same pass in front of the net is a point-blank chance against, and it is one of the most punished mistakes in the game — coaching emphasis, not a counted ranking. Pass it quickly rather than skating it across, because carrying the puck toward your partner drags the pressure with you and hands him your problem.

Diagram from breakouts

The reverse, drawn in your own defensive zone at the left of the picture. D1 was working up the right wall; the forechecker has over-committed and skated past him, so D1 sends the puck back down the boards behind him, against the flow, into the space that forechecker has just left — where D2 is arriving, and calling for it, because D1 is putting the puck somewhere he cannot see. Two things this picture cannot draw. The play depends entirely on the forechecker’s momentum, so read the opponent above D1 as a player already past him and unable to stop. And the puck is a hard backhand banked off the wall; the drill notation has no symbol for a banked puck, so it is drawn simply as the pass it is. Keep it straight from the rim: a rim goes onward around the boards in the direction the puck was already travelling, a reverse goes back against it. And it beats one kind of forecheck only. A containing forechecker steers rather than chases, so he is never past you to begin with.

Diagram from breakouts

The rim: a hard shot along the boards that follows the curve of the rink around behind the net to a teammate further along, usually the far-side winger. Drawn in your own defensive zone at the left of the picture, and it travels onward in the direction the puck was already going — which is the whole difference between this and a reverse. The read is the one shown: a forechecker has sealed D1 against the boards and there is no passing lane through him, and it is also the standard release valve when you simply have no time. Two things decide whether it works — height and pace, low and flat enough to stay on the boards and hard enough to carry all the way round, because a soft rim dies in the corner and is a gift; and target, aimed to arrive where a teammate can actually meet it rather than simply “around”. Be honest about what this is: the rim is the play a forecheck most expects from a defenceman sealed on the boards — coaching emphasis, not a counted ranking — any forecheck can post a player at the far wall and most do, and it concedes possession more often than any option except an outright clear. That ranking, too, is a coaching judgement rather than a tracked rate. The trapezoid rules where you play change where a rim should be aimed, and that is its own section.

Diagram from breakouts

Convention: Goalie calls have a standard vocabulary, but the words vary by team — agree yours in the room, not on the ice
Options: Pressure — "time" means lift your head and make the good play; "man on" means get rid of it now
Options: Direction — "over", "reverse", "up", "wheel". Over means behind the net, never through the slot
Options: Ownership — "leave it" means I will stop it and leave it for you; "I've got it" means go to your breakout position
Key: "Screen" means move, or move the man in front of me — make it your first call, because nobody else can know you cannot see; that it is also the most ignored is observation, not a count
Key: "Back door" means an unmarked opponent at the far post, and the nearest player takes them right now
Key: "Shot" means you have the shooter, so your defenceman takes away the pass — not a warning that a shot is coming
Action: If your team already uses "shot" as a warning, pick a different word for the warning

These are the standard vocabulary. Words vary by team — agree yours in the room, not on the ice.

Pressure information — the category to get right first:

"Time" or "You've got time" — nobody is near you. Lift your head and make the good play instead of the safe one. This call is exactly as valuable as its opposite, because a defenceman who fears pressure that isn't there throws the puck away.
"Man on" — someone is on you right now, get rid of it. Some goalies use "one on" / "two on" to give the count, which is more useful still: one forechecker can be beaten with a reverse, two means you are being sealed and the puck has to leave.

Direction:

"Over" — move it to the other side, behind the net, below the goal line. Never through the slot.
"Reverse" — send it back the way it came, against the flow. The call for a forechecker who has over-committed and skated past your defenceman. Distinct from a rim, which goes onward around the boards and beats a forechecker who is sealing rather than over-running.
"Up" — to the winger on the boards on the strong side.
"Wheel" — skate it yourself, around behind the net and up the far side. You are telling them the route is clear, so they should commit.

Puck ownership:

"Leave it" — I will stop it and leave it behind the net for you. Two syllables, distinguishable from "up" and "over" in a loud rink at speed, which is why it beats one-word alternatives.
"I've got it" — I am playing this puck myself. Get to your breakout position, not to the puck.

Danger:

"Screen" — I cannot see. Move, or move the man in front of me. Make it your first call: it is the only one that reports something nobody else on the ice can know, which is that you cannot see the puck. That it is also the one most often left unmade is an observation, not a count.
"Back door" — there is an unmarked opponent at the far post. The nearest player takes them, right now. That is a tap-in from the slot, the most dangerous ice on the rink — Shooting owns the shot-location values behind that and the limits on them. How it ranks against every other unmarked position is not something anyone has counted; what makes the call necessary is that the person who can see it is almost never the person who can cover it.
"Shot" — not a warning that a shot is coming. It means you have the shooter, so your defenceman should take away the pass. This is documented word for word in published goaltending material: "When the puck is at the point, or when the opposing team has a two-on-one, it can be difficult for your defense to know what you want them to do. If you'd prefer that they take away the pass or guard the open man, call for 'shot!'... If you want the shot, call for it!" (Sportmentary — Ice Hockey Goalie: Communication Tips). Use it in that sense, because "a shot is coming" tells a skater nothing they can act on while "I have the shooter" tells them exactly where to put their stick. If your team already uses "shot" as a warning, pick a different word for the warning — the two meanings are incompatible and a defenceman has half a second to decode it. On-Ice Communication covers the same split from the defenceman's side.

How to call well

Action: Early beats loud — call while the play is still developing, not as the puck arrives
Action: Short beats descriptive — one or two syllables; nobody parses a sentence at full speed
Never: Call sometimes — a goalie who calls intermittently trains their defencemen to filter them out
Action: Say the same thing every time; consistency is what makes a call fast to act on
Action: Get answered — tell your defencemen you need an acknowledgement

Early beats loud. A call that arrives as the puck does is decoration. Call while the play is still developing.
Short beats descriptive. One or two syllables. Nobody parses a sentence at full speed.
Every time, or not at all. A goalie who calls sometimes trains their defencemen to ignore them, which is worse than silence, because the one time you shout something urgent it gets filtered out with the rest.
Say the same thing every time. Consistency is what makes a call fast to act on.
Get answered. A call with no response gets made quieter next time and then not at all. Tell your defencemen you need an acknowledgement.

Full treatment, including the whole team's vocabulary and who owns which call: On-Ice Communication.

Situational Goaltending

Breakaways

One attacker, you, and a lot of time to think — which is the actual difficulty. The answer drawn here is to meet them well out and then back in on C-cuts, matching their speed so the angle stays closed the whole way, rather than standing still at the top of the crease and letting them pick a corner, or charging out and letting them go around you. Keep a little backward motion the whole time: flow means you can react either way, and flat-footed means you can react to nothing. Stay on your feet as long as you possibly can, because their whole plan is to make you commit and the last one to move wins. How far out "well out" is is a read rather than a distance, and this document gives no figure for it, so treat the position drawn here as an example and not a measured instruction. What to watch is a genuine coaching split: one school says watch the puck and treats everything above it as theatre, and another says the puck is exactly what a shooter fakes with and asks you to read the chest and hips instead. The two agree on what they are against — the stick, the eyes and the shoulders. Ask your goalie coach which they teach and be consistent about it, because switching mid-play is how you end up reading neither. The poke check is available if the puck gets too far in front of them, and it is expensive: miss and you have neither reach nor balance.

Key: One attacker, you, and a lot of time to think — which is the actual difficulty
Technique: Meet them well out, then retreat on C-cuts, matching their speed so the angle stays closed the whole way
Technique: Keep a little backward flow so you can react either way; flat-footed means you can react to nothing
Never: Move first — their whole plan is to make you commit, and the last one to move wins
Convention: What to watch is a genuine coaching split — the puck, or the shooter's chest and hips. Ask your goalie coach and be consistent
Read: Puck out in front and winding up, respect the shot and stay big; pulled to the forehand with the head up, respect the deke
Risk: The poke check works when the puck gets too far in front of them — miss and you have neither reach nor balance
Rule: Deliberately removing your mask to force a stoppage is a delay-of-game minor in all four books (NHL and IIHF Rule 9.6, USA Hockey Rule 304(e), Hockey Canada Rule 3.6(d)) — do it on a breakaway, penalty shot or shootout and the NHL and the IIHF award the goal outright
Rule: USA Hockey Rule 610(e) and Hockey Canada Rule 4.11(a)(iii) price that same act as a penalty shot instead, and both add a last-two-minutes-and-overtime limb that neither the NHL nor the IIHF writes

One attacker, you, and a lot of time to think — which is the actual difficulty.

Come out and retreat with them. Meet them well out, then back in on C-cuts, matching their speed so the angle stays closed the whole way. Standing still at the top of the crease lets them pick a corner; charging out lets them go around you.
Keep flow. A little backward motion means you can react either way. Flat-footed means you can react to nothing.
Stay on your feet as long as you possibly can. The shooter's whole plan is to make you commit. The last one to move wins.
What to watch is a genuine coaching split. One school says watch the puck, not the body — everything above the puck is theatre, and a body fake exists only to move you. The other says the puck is exactly what the shooter controls and fakes with, so read the part of them that cannot lie: the BVHS goalie manual's breakaway checklist step 3 is "Read the play: Watch the shooter's chest and hips, not their stick or eyes. Hold your ground and wait for them to make the first move." Note that the two schools agree on what they are against — the stick, the eyes and the shoulders — and disagree only on whether the puck or the torso is the honest signal. Ask your goalie coach which they teach, and be consistent about it, because switching mid-play is how you end up reading neither.
Take away what they are showing you. If they have the puck out in front and are winding up, respect the shot and stay big. If they're pulling it to their forehand with their head up, respect the deke and stay patient.
The poke check is available but expensive. It works when the puck gets too far in front of them. If you miss, you have neither reach nor balance.

⚠️ Do not knock your own mask off to kill the play. Do it against a breakaway and under two of the four books it is not a penalty at all — it is a goal. Deliberately removing your helmet or face mask "to secure a stoppage of play" is a minor for delay of game under NHL Rule 9.6 and IIHF Rule 9.6, which write that limb in the same words, and under USA Hockey Rule 304(e), which extends it to skaters as well: "A minor penalty for delay of game shall be assessed to a goalkeeper or skater who causes a stoppage of play by deliberately removing their helmet/facemask during play" — and under Hockey Canada Rule 3.6(d), which routes it the same way: "If the goaltender deliberately removes their protective equipment to gain a stoppage of play, they will be penalized under Rule 10.1 (a) – Delay of Game." All four books write that floor. It is above it that they stop agreeing.

Do it while the other team is on a breakaway, or during a penalty shot or a shootout attempt, and the NHL and the IIHF do not give you a penalty at all — they give the goal. NHL Rule 9.6: "If the goalkeeper deliberately removes his helmet and/or face mask when the opposing team is on a breakaway, during the course of a penalty shot or shootout attempt, the Referee shall stop play and award a goal to the non-offending team." IIHF Rule 9.6 says the same, with the breakaway limited to one where the penalty-shot criteria are met "except for a foul from behind", and its Rule 25.4 repeats the penalty-shot half: a goal is awarded where a goalkeeper tries to stop a penalty shot by dislodging the goal "or removes their face mask to force an interruption." ⚠️ The NHL's own 25.4 omits that clause, so a reader who checks only the awarded-goal rule will not find it there — NHL 9.6 reaches the same facts and the outcome is identical. There is no shot to save at the end of this one.

The two amateur books price it as a penalty shot instead, and both reach further than the NHL and the IIHF do. USA Hockey Rule 610(e): "If a goalkeeper (all classifications) or player (excluding Adults) deliberately removes their helmet/facemask during a breakaway (see Glossary), a penalty shot/optional minor penalty shall be awarded" — with a second, separate limb for "the last two minutes of the game or any time during overtime", no breakaway required. ⚠️ Read that age scope carefully, because it runs the opposite way to most: goalkeepers in every classification, skaters in every classification except Adults. Hockey Canada Rule 4.11(a)(iii) awards a penalty shot "[w]hen a goaltender or any other defending player deliberately removes their helmet or facial protector during the course of a breakaway in the neutral or attacking zone", and separately "[w]hen a goaltender in their defending zone deliberately removes their helmet or facial protector, blocker or trapper during the last two minutes of regular playing time, or any time in overtime" — the only one of the four books to put your blocker and trapper in the same clause as your mask. Its Interpretation 11 to Rules 10.6(a) and 3.6 answers the same facts from the other side: a defender who removes their own helmet "in an effort to get a stoppage of play" against a breakaway concedes the shot. Neither the NHL nor the IIHF writes a last-two-minutes limb for any of this, and USA Hockey publishes no interpretation of 610(e) — none of Rule 610's eleven Casebook Situations mentions a helmet or a facemask, so the clause stands on its bare text. (One narrow exception, in USA Hockey's Disabled Hockey section: in sled hockey a goalkeeper who removes the mask to force a stoppage during a penalty shot gets a minor and the shot is re-awarded, not conceded. That is a sled rule and not a stand-up one.)

A mask that comes off by itself is a different rule and no penalty at all — and all four books stop the play for you, on three different tests. Under NHL and IIHF Rule 9.6 the test is possession: if your team has control of the puck, play stops immediately so you can recover it; if the other team has control, play stops "only if there is no immediate and impending scoring opportunity", and the ensuing face-off comes to one of your own end-zone spots. USA Hockey Rule 304(e) attaches no condition at all: "In all classifications, if the goalkeeper's helmet/facemask comes off during play, the officials shall stop play immediately" — and "the goalkeeper shall not be ruled off the ice prior to the face-off", the carve-out that keeps you in your net where a skater in the same position is sent off. Hockey Canada Rule 3.6(d) writes the widest version of all, and the widest list of equipment: "When a goaltender loses their helmet, facial protector, blocker or trapper, or skate blade, the play will be stopped immediately, unless there is an imminent scoring chance that does not pose a safety risk to the goaltender." ⚠️ Read that exception: it turns on your safety, not on who has the puck, and it covers a lost blocker, a lost trapper and a lost skate blade as well as your mask. So the whistle you were tempted to buy is usually coming to you anyway, on the referee's judgement rather than yours. ⚠️ A mask that stays on and takes the shot is a different question, and only two of the four books answer it at all — see If you take one off the mask under Equipment Notes.

Penalty shots

Rule: You must remain in your crease until the shooter has touched the puck, or the shot is retaken (NHL Rule 24)
Rule: A second violation adds a misconduct and a third a game misconduct, the third retake being against the alternate goalkeeper (NHL Rule 24.4)
Rule: Under IIHF Rule 24.4 the third violation is a game misconduct and "a goal shall be awarded" — no retake, no alternate goalkeeper
Rule: No goal can be scored on a rebound, with one exception — off the post or crossbar, then off you, then in (NHL Rule 24)
Rule: The spin-o-rama is not permitted; the lacrosse-style move is, below shoulder height and released below the crossbar (NHL Rule 24)
Rule: Only a designated goalkeeper or alternate goalkeeper may defend a penalty shot (NHL Rule 24.2)
Rule: The team a penalty shot was awarded against may swap goalkeepers to face it, and that substitute "is required to remain in the game until the next stoppage of play" — the NHL and the IIHF write that sentence in the same words (NHL and IIHF Rule 24.2)
Key: There is no clock on it, so be patient and let them run out of ideas

Same as a breakaway, plus rules you should know precisely (NHL Rule 24):

You must remain in your crease until the shooter has touched the puck. If you leave early and the shot fails, it is taken again. A second violation adds a misconduct; a third, a game misconduct — and the shot is retaken each time, the third retake being taken "against the alternate goalkeeper" (NHL Rule 24.4).

⚠️ 🇬🇧 The IIHF ends the ladder differently, and it ends it worse for you. IIHF Rule 24.4 tracks the NHL through the retake and the second-violation misconduct, then diverges at the top: "A third (3rd) such violation shall result in the goalkeeper being assessed a game misconduct penalty and a goal shall be awarded." No fourth attempt, no alternate goalkeeper, no chance to save it. Under the book you play in Britain, a third early departure simply concedes.
The shooter must keep the puck moving toward your goal line. Once they shoot, the play is complete. No goal can be scored on a rebound, with one exception: puck off the post or crossbar, then off you, then in.
The spin-o-rama (a full 360° turn on approach) is not permitted. The lacrosse-style move — picking the puck up on the blade and whipping it — is permitted, provided the puck is never raised above shoulder height and is not released higher than the crossbar.
Only a designated goalkeeper may defend a penalty shot — Rule 24.2: "Only a player designated as a goalkeeper or alternate goalkeeper may defend against a penalty shot." IIHF Rule 24.2 says the same thing in the same words. ⚠️ Both books then add the same further provision, so do not read it as an IIHF extra: the team against whom the shot was awarded may swap goalkeepers to face it, but "the substitute goalkeeper is required to remain in the game until the next stoppage of play." The two sentences are identical apart from the IIHF's quotation marks round "Penalty Shot".

Everything else in this list holds under the IIHF book too, in the same Rule 24 and with the same numbering — the crease requirement, the single rebound exception off post or crossbar then off you, the banned spin-o-rama, and the permitted lacrosse move below shoulder height and released no higher than the crossbar are all verbatim in IIHF Rule 24.2. Only the violation ladder differs, and that is flagged above.

Practically: they get one attempt, from centre ice, with a long approach and no rebound available, and the pressure is all on them. There is no clock on it — neither NHL Rule 24 nor the shootout provisions of Rule 84.4 sets a time limit, and neither does IIHF Rule 24, whose only timing provision (24.7) is that "The time required for the taking of a 'Penalty Shot' shall not be included in the regular playing time or overtime." So any "you have N seconds" figure you hear is folklore under either book. Be patient and let them run out of ideas.

2-on-1s — and what you want from your defenceman

A 2-on-1 — two attackers, one defender — with the attack moving right to left toward the defended net at the left. The defenceman sits in the shaded passing lane between the two attackers, biased slightly toward the middle of the ice, on the defensive side of both, and retreats with them rather than stepping toward either: the governing instruction is take away the pass and give up the shot, because the goalie can save the shot and cannot save the cross-ice pass. The goaltender is drawn set and square to the puck carrier, playing the shooter as though the second attacker did not exist, and the shot from the wing is the chance being conceded on purpose. That division of labour is a two-person agreement and it only works if both people have said it out loud — most goalies want it exactly this way, but some, especially at rec level and especially against a weak shooter, will ask you to pressure the puck instead, so ask yours before the game. One honest exception no picture can carry: if the second attacker gets picked up by a backchecker and the shooter is walking in unpressured with no realistic pass available, it is no longer a 2-on-1 and the defenceman should close on the puck.

Diagram from defending the rush

Convention: The standard convention is that your defenceman takes away the pass and you take the shot — a convention, not a law
Action: Play the puck carrier as if it were a one-on-none — square up, come out to your normal depth, make the save
Key: The cross-ice pass to an open forward is the chance you cannot stop; the shot is the one you can
Action: Say it out loud — "I've got the pass" / "take the shooter" — it only works if you both know which half is yours
Never: Let your defenceman slide or dive before the pass is released where your team plays the passing lane; that opens both options at once
Options: Some teams instead coach a timed slide across the lane to kill the pass and force the shot — there the slide is the plan, so expect it and play the shooter the same way
Action: Ask your defencemen and your coach what your team does — some take away the shooting lane instead, and what must not happen is the two of you holding different answers

The standard convention is that the defenceman takes away the pass and you take the shot. Your defenceman positions in the passing lane with their stick flat on the ice, and you play the puck carrier as if it were a one-on-none: square up, come out to your normal depth, and make the save. The cross-ice pass to an open forward is the chance you cannot stop; the shot is the one you can.

The call for it is "I've got the pass" / "take the shooter." Say it out loud rather than assuming it — this only works if both of you know which half is yours.

Name it as a convention, because it is one. Some coaches vary it: against a strong shooter with a weak trailer, or when a backchecker has picked up the second attacker, the defenceman may instead take away the shooting lane. And some teams play the alternative system outright — the defenceman times a slide flat across the passing lane to remove the pass and force the carrier to shoot. Where that is your team's method the slide is the plan, not an error, and it does not change your job: you still have the shooter, square and set. What must not happen is the defenceman sliding when your team plays the passing lane, because there it opens both options at once — and, more than either, the two of you arriving at the rush with different answers. Ask your defencemen and your coach what your team does, before the game rather than during it. The full treatment of every numerical situation, from the skaters' side, is in Defending the Rush.

3-on-2s

A 3-on-2 defended the way assumed here — "two wide, middle to the backchecker" — with the attack moving right to left toward the defended net at the left. Three attackers against two defencemen: each defenceman takes an outside attacker, and neither chases the puck carrier, who here is wide on the right and therefore belongs to the defenceman in that lane. The middle attacker belongs to the backchecking centre arriving from behind, who is the third own player in the picture but is not one of the two in the name. Notice that the two defencemen are level with each other and retreating at the same speed with the middle sealed between them — a staggered retreat opens a diagonal seam straight to the slot — and that they stop above the circles rather than backing all the way to the goal line, which would concede the whole slot. This is the two-wide default, and it is a coaching choice rather than a law: the realistic alternative is the next diagram, the two fail in different directions, and two defencemen playing different ones on the same rush is worse than either, so ask your coach which you play. If the backchecker is genuinely not coming, the defenceman on the puck side has to squeeze the middle and concede the far wide man — but not until they have looked.

Diagram from defending the rush

The same 3-on-2, defended the realistic alternative way — "strong side takes the puck, weak side splits" — with the attack moving right to left toward the defended net at the left. The three attackers are in exactly the positions they hold in the previous diagram; only the defence has changed. The strong-side defenceman takes the puck carrier wherever they are and plays it as a 1-on-1 with a tight gap, while the weak-side defenceman drops off and sits in the shaded lane between the middle attacker and the far attacker, splitting the two of them exactly as they would on a 2-on-1; under this version the backchecker’s job becomes the third attacker rather than the middle specifically, which is why that route finishes in open ice — which attacker it will be is not fixed, and this picture does not fix it either. The trade runs in both directions: this version never concedes the middle, but the weak-side defenceman is covering two people and the far attacker gets more room, where the default keeps three defenders on three attackers if the backcheck arrives and concedes the middle entirely if it does not. Ask your coach which one you are playing.

Diagram from defending the rush

Convention: The common default is each defenceman taking an outside attacker, the middle man left to whoever backchecks that lane
Read: A 3-on-2 is the same read as a 2-on-1, but with a wider back door
Action: Don't over-challenge. Stay a little deeper instead and prioritise lateral movement over the last foot of angle
Action: Call "odd man" to tell everyone to stop thinking about the puck and start counting
Action: Find out which 3-on-2 version your team plays, because the two fail in different directions

The common default is each defenceman taking an outside attacker and neither chasing the carrier, with the middle attacker left to whoever is backchecking that lane — usually the centre, though some teams instead have the strong-side defenceman take the puck carrier and the weak-side defenceman split the middle and far man. Both are coaching choices and they fail in different directions, so find out which one your team plays (Defending the Rush sets out both). From your side, the read is the same as a 2-on-1 but with a wider back door: don't over-challenge, stay a little deeper, and prioritise the ability to move laterally over the last foot of angle. Talk — "odd man" tells everyone to stop thinking about the puck and start counting. (An odd-man rush is any attack where the attackers outnumber the defenders who got back: a 2-on-1, a 3-on-2, a breakaway.)

Shootouts

Rule: Shootout attempts are governed by the penalty-shot rules, including staying in your crease until the shooter touches the puck (NHL and IIHF Rule 84.4)
Rule: Once the shootout begins you cannot be replaced unless injured, and a substitute goalie gets no warm-up shots (NHL Rule 84.4)
Rule: The IIHF reverses that no-replacement rule — "The goalkeepers from each team may be changed after each shot" (IIHF Rule 84.4(VI))
Rule: NHL shootouts run three shooters a side; IIHF championship shootouts run five (IIHF Rule 84.4(II))
Rule: In Britain the shootout count is three, not the IIHF's five — overtime runs only in NIHL and some SNL fixtures (In-House Rules, Rule 84 and Appendix 1)
Key: Each shooter gets a long, slow approach — patience is the whole thing
Never: Commit first; most shootout goals are scored on goalies who do

A shootout attempt is governed by the penalty-shot rules (Rule 84.4 in both books, and IIHF 84.4(VII) says so explicitly: "The shots will be taken in accordance with Rule 24 – Penalty Shot"), including the requirement that you stay in your crease until the shooter touches the puck. Two things worth knowing under the NHL book: once the shootout begins you cannot be replaced unless you are injured, and no warm-up shots are permitted for a substitute goalie. So there is no rescue and no easing in.

Whether you face a shootout at all in Britain is a competition question, not a rules one. Overtime is not universal in England Ice Hockey and SIHA competition, and where it is played the game-winning-shots format is set locally rather than by IIHF Rule 84.4 — the format, the shooter count and which competitions use it are in UK and England Rules. Check your league's regulations rather than assuming either the NHL or the IIHF championship procedure.

Approach: you get three or more shooters, each with a long, slow approach. Patience is the whole thing. Most shootout goals are scored on goalies who commit first.

Power play (your team is up a man)

Read: On your own power play, very few shots — and then occasionally a rush the other way against tired defencemen
Risk: The failure mode on a long power play is being cold and mentally elsewhere when that rush arrives
Action: Stay engaged — track the puck at the far end and move your feet at every stoppage
Action: Talk more, not less — your point men have their backs to the neutral zone and you have the clearest view of what is coming
Read: Be ready for the shorthanded rush, usually a 2-on-1 or a breakaway, because your team has committed bodies

Quiet. You will see very few shots and then, occasionally, a rush the other way against tired defencemen. The failure mode is being cold and mentally elsewhere when it arrives.

Stay engaged. Track the puck at the far end. Move your feet at every stoppage.
Talk more, not less. Your point men — the teammates stationed at the opposition blue line — have their backs to the neutral zone; you have the clearest view of a shorthanded break developing.
Be ready for the shorthanded rush, which is usually a 2-on-1 or a breakaway, because your team has committed bodies.

Penalty kill (your team is down a man)

Read: On the penalty kill expect a lot of traffic, a lot of shots you cannot see, and lateral puck movement designed to make you move
Action: Know whether your team runs a box, a diamond or wedge+1 — it tells you which lanes are conceded
Convention: In wedge+1 the +1's route is a coaching choice published descriptions differ on — straight out from the goal, sweeping across the top of the zone, or roaming; ask which one your team runs
Priority: Prioritise seeing the puck; whether that means playing deeper is the depth-against-a-screen coaching split, so follow your goalie coach
Goal: Use freezes to buy whistles, not seconds — fresh legs, a reset and a draw — but only a freeze you were entitled to make
Rule: Manufacturing a stoppage is itself the offence — a minor to a goalie who could have played the puck before being pressured and stopped play instead (USA Hockey 610(b), whose Casebook answers that exact act "must be penalized" at Rule 610 Situation 3)
Rule: Hockey Canada warns you first only inside the crease — Interpretation 3 to Rule 10.1(a) clause iii gives a Minor "after one warning" for freezing "in the crease when not under pressure"; clause v, once you have left the crease, is a Minor with "No warning will be issued"
Key: A freeze takes no time off the penalty, because play is stopped and the clock stops with it
Rule: Shorthanded icing is allowed only if your rule set grants it — USA Hockey Rule 624(b)(1) grants it to Youth 15-Only and above, Girls 16U and above, High School and Adult only, so below those levels your killers can be iced
Rule: NHL Rule 81.6 withdraws the shorthanded icing exemption from a team shorthanded by a major that has left the penalty bench empty
Rule: IIHF Rule 81.6 carries no such withdrawal, so under the UK's book shorthanded icing is unconditional

The opposite: a lot of traffic, a lot of shots you cannot see, and a lot of lateral puck movement designed to make you move.

The default shapes are the box (two forwards high, two defencemen low), the diamond (a single apex, used against a 1-3-1 because a box leaves the bumper in the middle of the slot unmarked), and wedge+1 (a tight triangle around the net plus a fourth player, the "+1", who pressures whoever has the puck rather than following it around the perimeter — when the puck moves, the nearest triangle player steps out in his place). The route that +1 takes — straight out from the goal, sweeping across the top of the zone, or roaming — is a coaching choice that published descriptions differ on. Know which shape and which version of it your team runs, because it tells you which lanes are being conceded and therefore where the shots will come from. See Special Teams.
Expect shots from the point through traffic, so prioritise seeing the puck. Whether that means playing deeper than usual is the coaching split flagged under Playing bigger and deeper through traffic — follow whichever your goalie coach teaches.
Use freezes to buy whistles — not seconds. But only a freeze you were entitled to make anyway. A freeze on the kill is worth more than a freeze at even strength, because it gets exhausted killers a change and forces the power play to set up again from a faceoff. Be clear about what it does not do: a freeze stops play, so the clock stops with it. No time comes off the penalty. What you are buying is fresh legs, a reset and a draw — which is plenty. ⚠️ What you may not do is manufacture the stoppage, because that is the offence itself, and being on the kill is no defence to it. USA Hockey Rule 610(b) assesses a minor to a goalkeeper who "has an opportunity to play the puck prior to being pressured by an attacking player, but instead intentionally causes a stoppage of play", and its Casebook rules on exactly that act — a goalkeeper who comes out, waits until the chasing attacker "is close enough" and then freezes — that it "must be penalized" (Rule 610, Situation 3). ⚠️ Neither the rule nor that situation writes a warning step, and the same rule writes one expressly where the book means one (610(g), a bench minor "after warning by the Referee") — but reading that silence as "no warning" is a reading of the text, not a ruling USA Hockey publishes. Hockey Canada does publish one, and it says how far the warning goes: Interpretation 3 to Rule 10.1(a), clause iii, assesses a Minor "after one warning" to a goaltender who "freezes the puck in the crease when not under pressure from attacking players" — in the crease. Once you have left it, clause v is a Minor with "No warning will be issued." So the whistle is a by-product of a save you had to cover, never the reason for covering it. (And remember Rule 63.8: if they dumped it in from their own side of the centre red line, freezing it stops your team changing too.)
Your team may ice the puck freely while shorthanded — if your rule set allows it. Say so, because killers under pressure sometimes try to make a play they don't need to make. But find out first: USA Hockey grants the exemption only "For all Youth 15-Only and above, Girls 16U and above, High School and Adult classifications only" (Rule 624(b)(1)), so below those levels shouting "ice it" buys your tired killers a defensive-zone draw instead of a rest. NHL Rule 81.6 also withdraws it from a team shorthanded by a major that has left the penalty bench empty. 🇬🇧 Under the IIHF book neither restriction exists. IIHF Rule 81.6 grants the exemption flatly — "If the puck was so shot by a Player of a side below the numerical strength of the opposing team, play shall continue, and the 'icing' violation shall not be called" — with no classification limit and no empty-penalty-bench clawback, and the England Ice Hockey and SIHA In-House Rules do not amend it. So in Britain "ice it" is always available to a killer, at every level. Full rule in Special Teams.

6-on-5 with your net empty

Action: Go hard and go early when called — a slow change risks a too-many-men penalty or a goal with you halfway up the ice
Rule: Leaving your stick or equipment near the net, or piling snow there, awards a goal to the other team — but only once you have been replaced for an extra attacker; otherwise it is a minor (NHL and IIHF Rule 67.5)
Rule: The NHL and the IIHF write Rule 67.5 in materially identical words — the IIHF writes "their Players' bench", "their stick" and "their net" where the NHL writes "his"
Rule: You may shoot at their empty net with your stick, but not throw the puck forward (Rule 67.3(iii)) or participate in the play past the centre red line — all four books penalise that (NHL Rule 27.7; IIHF Rule 27.6; USA Hockey Rule 407(c); Hockey Canada Rule 4.13(c))
Rule: NHL 27.7 and IIHF 27.6 judge play past the red line on the puck, in the rule itself; the skates test is elsewhere — USA Hockey Casebook 407(c) Situation 13, Hockey Canada Rule 8.3(a)(ii) and Interpretation 2 to 4.13(c) — so keep skates and puck both on your own side
Action: Coming back into your net after an empty-net shift, reset your references — posts, paint, depth — before the faceoff
Read: Defending a 6-on-5, play a little deeper and expect low-to-high plays and back-door passes rather than clean shots
Key: A whistle against a 6-on-5 does not run their clock down; what it destroys is the possession they spent thirty seconds building
Rule: Freeze a puck you had to save, in your crease — even there a cover that only manufactures a stoppage is a minor unless you are being checked (63.2(vii)); outside it the NHL and IIHF protect the cover that follows your own save alone (63.2(i), Note to 63.2(vi)), and USA Hockey protects more

When your coach pulls you for an extra attacker, your job changes completely.

Go hard and go early when called. A slow change to the bench is how you end up with a too-many-men penalty or a goal against with you halfway up the ice.
Do not leave anything behind. If you intentionally leave your stick or any equipment near the net, or pile snow there, and it would tend to prevent the puck entering, a goal is awarded to the other team (Rule 67.5 in both books). ⚠️ Both books attach the same condition to it, in the same words: "In order to award a goal in this situation, the goalkeeper must have been replaced for an extra attacker, otherwise a minor penalty shall be assessed." So it is an awarded goal once you have gone to the bench for an extra attacker, and a minor while you are still in the net. ⚠️ The other two books answer the same moment differently — and between the four of them there are three different answers. Take the case you are most likely to be in: the stick is behind you, you are on your way to the bench but not yet replaced, and the shot hits it. The IIHF's own Situation Handbook confirms the minor on exactly those facts — "Since the goalkeeper is still on the ice you cannot award a goal only a minor penalty" (Situation 67.5). USA Hockey awards the goal instead. Its Rule 625(c) awards one "regardless as to whether the goalkeeper is on the ice, in the act of leaving the ice or off the ice", and its Casebook answers those same facts "A goal shall be awarded" — while also narrowing that "regardless", since it adds that "[f]or a goal to be awarded, the goalkeeper must either be in the act of leaving the ice or actually off the ice" (Rule 625, Situation 14). Hockey Canada gives a penalty shot. Interpretation 4 to Rule 4.12(a) and 4.12(b) asks the same question and answers "A Penalty Shot will be awarded, as the goaltender is still on the ice", with an awarded goal only once you are off it. ⚠️ And USA Hockey does not require that you meant to do it. Its Casebook takes a goalkeeper who is bumped, loses the stick in front of the goal and carries on to the bench, and still rules a minor or an awarded goal, because "[i]t makes no difference whether or not the goalkeeper deliberately left their stick in front of the goal" (Rule 625, Situation 15) — where all four rule texts say intentionally or deliberately. Take your stick.
You are legally allowed to score. If the puck is loose in your own end and the other net is empty, you may shoot it — with your stick. You may not throw the puck forward toward the opponent's net (Rule 67.3(iii)), and you may not participate in the play beyond the centre red line — all four books penalise that (NHL Rule 27.7; IIHF Rule 27.6; USA Hockey Rule 407(c); Hockey Canada Rule 4.13(c), penalised as interference under its Rule 8.3(a)). ⚠️ And they do not measure it the same way. The NHL's and the IIHF's determining factor is the position of the puck, written into those rules. USA Hockey's and Hockey Canada's is the position of your skates — but not at the numbers just cited: it is USA Hockey's Casebook, Rule 407(c) Situation 13, and Hockey Canada's Rule 8.3(a)(ii) with Interpretation 2 to Rule 4.13(c). With your net empty and your team pressing, that is exactly when a goalie drifts up — so keep your skates and the puck both on your own side of the line, which is legal under all four. The full split is under The trapezoid — the rule that defines what you can do.
Coming back in. When play stops, get in fast and reset your references — posts, paint, depth — before the faceoff.

Defending against a 6-on-5 (their net empty, you facing an extra attacker): play a little deeper, expect low-to-high plays and back-door passes rather than clean shots, and freeze every puck you are entitled to freeze. ⚠️ Wanting the whistle is exactly the motive these rules are written against, and this is the game state where you will want it most. In your crease, a cover that follows a save you had to make is what you are entitled to. Outside the crease the NHL and the IIHF protect only that — Rule 63.2(i)'s deliberate-stoppage minor reaches a goalkeeper “outside of his goal crease area” however many bodies are around you, and the Note to Rule 63.2(vi) — come out, cut down the angle, make the save, then cover — is the whole of the exception. Under USA Hockey more is protected, and Freezing the puck — and the rules that govern it above sets out how much under each book. A minor taken defending a 6-on-5 is about as expensive as a minor gets. A whistle does not run their clock down — play is stopped, so the clock is stopped too. What a whistle does is destroy the possession: they have to win a faceoff and rebuild the setup they spent thirty seconds establishing, with the pulled goalie exposed to any clearance. That is the value, and it is a real one. (Watch Rule 63.8 here too: if the puck was shot in from their own side of the centre red line, freezing it means your five cannot change either.)

When a fight or a scrum breaks out

Rule: A goalkeeper who leaves the immediate vicinity of their crease during an altercation takes a minor penalty (NHL Rule 27.6; IIHF Rule 27.5) — this is why goalies stay in the net during a scrum
Rule: Where the altercation is at your own crease the referee "should direct the goalkeeper to a neutral location and not assess a penalty" — that is an instruction to the referee, so wait to be directed out (NHL Rule 27.6; IIHF Rule 27.5)
Rule: NHL Rule 27.6 and IIHF Rule 27.5 also excuse you if you were already legitimately on your way to the bench to be replaced by an extra attacker when the altercation started (NHL Rule 27.6; IIHF Rule 27.5)
Rule: USA Hockey Rule 615(e) is a minor for failing to move immediately to your crease or bench when the referee instructs you to during an altercation; its Casebook applies the same minor to a goalie who leaves and gets involved without permission (Casebook Rule 615, Situation 26)
Rule: Hockey Canada Rule 7.10(a) puts a minor on a goaltender who leaves their crease during a fight, and Interpretation 1 lets you go to the bench only "with the permission of the Referee"
Rule: Hockey Canada has a neutral-location route of its own — Rule 7.10(d) requires that "The goaltenders must stay in their goal creases or proceed to a neutral zone designated by the Referee", and CARHA's Note 2 to 59(a) matches bar one word (CARHA-affiliated adult leagues only)
Key: One instruction satisfies all five books read here during an altercation: stay in your net, and if you need to move, get the referee's permission first
Never: Go in to help a teammate — USA Hockey ejects the first player into an altercation, Hockey Canada ejects a peacemaker, and so does CARHA's own goalkeeper rule (CARHA-affiliated adult leagues only)
Rule: USA Hockey Rule 615(d) ejects "any player or goalkeeper who is the first to intervene in an altercation then in progress" — it names goalkeepers and sets no crease condition, so it reaches you wherever you came from
Rule: Hockey Canada Rule 7.10(e)(ii) ejects a player who "joins in a fight or acts as a peacemaker", and its Glossary settles that this reaches you — "The goaltender is considered a player, except where explicitly stated"
Rule: A fifth book writes the goalkeeper's version twice — CARHA 37(c) is a minor for leaving your crease during a fight unless the referee sends you, and 37(d) is a game misconduct for leaving it to act as a peacemaker, with 32(b) reporting you to the Chairman (CARHA-affiliated adult leagues only)

Gloves come off in front of you and the instinct is to go. Don't.

The default is a minor. Under NHL Rule 27.6 and IIHF Rule 27.5 — the same rule, one number apart — a minor is imposed on a goalkeeper "who leaves the immediate vicinity of" their crease during an altercation. Staying put costs you nothing and is right under every book.
Two carve-outs are written into that rule, and both are worth knowing. Where the altercation happens "in or near the goalkeeper's crease", the referee "should direct the goalkeeper to a neutral location and not assess a penalty for leaving the immediate vicinity of the goal crease." And if you were already legitimately outside the crease "for the purpose of proceeding to the players' bench to be substituted for an extra attacker" and are then drawn in, "the minor penalty for leaving the crease would not be assessed." ⚠️ Read the first of those the way it is written: it is an instruction to the referee, not a permission for you. The non-assessment is tied to the goalkeeper being directed to a neutral location — the rule tells the official what to do about a fight that lands on your doorstep, and it does not license you to leave the crease on your own judgement because the fight happens to be next to it. Stay where you are and wait to be directed out.
⚠️ The North American amateur books answer the crease-adjacent case differently, and one of them wants you to ask first. USA Hockey Rule 615(e) is written the other way round from the NHL's — it assesses a minor to any player who "fails to move immediately and directly to their players' bench (or goal crease for a goalkeeper) when instructed to do so by the Referee during an altercation" — and the book's own summary of penalties files it under goalkeeper infractions as "Leaving crease area during altercation." Its Casebook is generous on the facts: Rule 615, Situation 26 has a goalkeeper leave a crease-side altercation "to remain out of the altercation" and answers no penalty — but the same answer ends "if the Referee does not give their permission and the goalkeeper gets involved in the altercation outside of the crease, the minor penalty must be assessed." Hockey Canada Rule 7.10(a) states it flatly — a minor to a goaltender who leaves their crease during a fight — and its Interpretation 1 answers the crease-side fight this way: "With the permission of the Referee, the goaltender may proceed to their bench. If they do so on their own accord, they are to be assessed a Minor penalty for leaving their crease during a fight." Hockey Canada has a neutral-location route as well, so do not read it as the one book without one: Rule 7.10(d) requires every player to return to the bench or to a designated neutral area when a fight occurs, and names you in its own text — "The goaltenders must stay in their goal creases or proceed to a neutral zone designated by the Referee." That is Hockey Canada's counterpart of the NHL's and the IIHF's carve-out, and it runs the same way: the neutral zone is one the referee designates, not one you pick.
So there is one instruction that is safe under all four — and, as the fifth book below turns out to agree, under all five: stay in your net, and if you need to move, get the referee's permission first. Rules Primer sets out the four-book comparison in full.
Joining in is a separate and worse penalty, and it is in the playing rules rather than in a casebook. USA Hockey Rule 615(d): "A game misconduct penalty shall be assessed to any player or goalkeeper who is the first to intervene in an altercation then in progress. This penalty is in addition to any other penalty incurred in the same incident." Note how wide that is. It names goalkeepers expressly, it attaches no crease condition at all, and it stacks on top of whatever else you collect — so it reaches you whether you came from your crease, from the blue line or from the bench door. USA Hockey's Casebook then works the goalie's case at Rule 615, Situation 10 — a goalkeeper who leaves the vicinity of the crease and is first in takes "a minor penalty for leaving the crease, plus a game misconduct for being the first to intervene in an altercation, plus any other penalty they may receive" — and gives its authority as Rule References 615(a), 615(d) and 615(e). It is applying 615(d), not supplying it.

Hockey Canada ejects the same act under Rule 7.10(e)(ii), a game misconduct to a player who "joins in a fight or acts as a peacemaker" — and read that second limb, because it means going in to break it up is caught by the rule just as squarely as going in to fight. And 7.10(e)(ii) reaches you, even though it says only "a player." Hockey Canada's Glossary settles it: "PLAYERS: The members of the team physically participating in the game. The goaltender is considered a player, except where explicitly stated because special rules or privileges apply to them." Rule 7.10(e) states no such exception, so you are inside it. (Rules 7.10(a), 7.10(d) and 7.10(f) do name goaltenders separately — that is the Glossary's "except where explicitly stated" doing its work, not evidence that a bare "player" excludes you.) ⚠️ And if you play adult recreational hockey in Canada, a fifth book writes the goalkeeper's version twice over — ask whether your league is CARHA-affiliated, because the four books compared above do not govern it. CARHA Hockey Rule 37(c) writes the minor flatter than any of the four: "When a goalkeeper leaves the goal crease during a fight, they will be assessed a Minor penalty plus any other penalties they might receive" — leaving at all, with nobody to peacemake, and no permission clause written into it of the kind Hockey Canada's Interpretation 1 and USA Hockey's Casebook supply. ⚠️ Do not read that as strict liability, because the neutral-location route is in the book — it is just filed somewhere else. Note 2 to Rule 59(a) carries Hockey Canada's 7.10(d) sentence word for word: "The goalkeepers must stay in their goal creases or proceed to a neutral zone designated by the Referee." And it prices refusing: "Any player(s) refusing to do so after being instructed by the Referee shall be assessed a Game Misconduct penalty." So the one instruction in this section holds under the fifth book too — stay in your net, and move only when the referee sends you. Rule 37(d) then names the act this bullet is about: a goalkeeper who leaves the crease "to join in a fight, act as a peacemaker, or take part in another fight during the same stoppage of play… shall receive a Game Misconduct penalty plus any other penalties they incur." And CARHA writes the same thing for everybody else at Rule 59(b) — "Any player joining in a fight, acting as a peacemaker, or taking part in another fight during the same stoppage of play will be assessed a Game Misconduct penalty plus any other penalty the offender incurs under the rules." What that game misconduct costs is Rule 32(b): "ordered to the dressing room for the remainder of the game and shall be reported to the Chairman for further action." ⚠️ That is CARHA-affiliated adult leagues only — it is not a rec-hockey standard, and it is not your rule if you are under USA Hockey or Hockey Canada. ⚠️ Whether a further suspension follows is not settled by the text and none is claimed here: Rule 59(d) suspends "until dealt with by the Chairman" only players "assessed fighting penalties", and 32(d)'s automatic one-game suspension attaches to a game misconduct earned by way of a major, which a peacemaker's is not. Whichever book you are under, your team is short a goalie and short a player, and you are watching the rest of the game from the dressing room.

Goaltender Interference, From Your Side of It

The protection you have — and how it differs by book

Key: On a body in your paint when the puck goes in, the four books do not give the same answer, so find out which one your league runs before you rely on any of this
Rule: The blue paint is yours — an attacker who initiates contact with you inside your crease voids the goal (NHL Rule 69), and IIHF 69.1 adds what the NHL has not: the referee "has the possibility to stop the game" if an attacker in your crease will not leave
Rule: IIHF Rule 69 carries the same subsection numbers as the NHL's, so every NHL Rule 69 citation is your citation in Britain — but EIH and SIHA competition has no video review and no coach's challenge, so the referee's call stands (In-House Rules, Rules 37, 38 and 69.1)
Rule: NHL Rule 69.3 caps the penalty on an attacker who will not vacate your crease after you make contact establishing position at a minor; IIHF Rule 69.3 writes no ceiling on that clause, so in Britain do not assume two minutes — and both books' own tables assess none at all where the goal is scored
Rule: USA Hockey Rule 625(b) is a flat position bar — no goal with an attacking player in your crease whoever scored, unless the puck got there first, you are out of the crease area, or a defender put them in there; Casebook Situation 9 takes that middle one back if they stopped you returning
Rule: USA Hockey 625(b)'s push-in relief excuses the attacker's position and nothing more — 617(c)(4) still voids a goal for interfering with you; 625(b) also makes a neutral-zone faceoff a duty, but only with the puck in the attacking zone, their team in possession and you in contact with the crease
Rule: Hockey Canada Rule 8.5 is not flat — a teammate's goal from outside your crease stands if the crease player stays passive, and is disallowed if they play the puck, interfere with the play or obstruct your view or movements
Rule: Hockey Canada Rule 8.5 protects you outside the paint too — a goaltender is not "fair game" just because they are outside their crease, and unnecessary contact is a penalty anywhere on the ice
Rule: Neither USA Hockey nor Hockey Canada reaches a screen set from outside your crease — USA Hockey writes no goaltender-vision provision at all, its grounds being position in the crease and 625(a)(8) contact, and Hockey Canada's two references to your view reach only a player in the crease
Rule: Hockey Canada penalises an attacker fouled into you who makes no effort to avoid you (Interpretation 2 to Rule 8.5(a)); the NHL's and the IIHF's Rule 69.1 relieves that attacker only while they are making a reasonable effort to avoid you
Rule: Hockey Canada is not capped at a minor — 8.5(b) reaches a major plus game misconduct at the referee's discretion on the degree of violence of impact, and mandatorily for charging you and for any interference-with-goaltender foul that injures; 8.5(c) is a match penalty

You should know exactly what protection you have, because a lot of goalies believe they have more than they do and play accordingly. This section is the rule read from behind the goal line. Rules Primer covers Rule 69 — the premise (an attacker's position, inside or outside the crease, does not by itself decide anything), the two grounds on which a goal is disallowed, the strict inside-the-crease standard of Rule 69.3, and what all of it asks of an attacking player. Read it once. The short version from your side is that the blue paint really is yours: an attacker who initiates contact with you inside your crease voids the goal, incidental or otherwise.

🇬🇧 Every Rule 69 citation in this section is also an IIHF citation. The IIHF's Rule 69 carries the same subsection numbers as the NHL's — 69.1 the premise and the two grounds, 69.3 inside the crease, 69.4 outside it, 69.7 rebounds and loose pucks — and the substance is the same, with one difference in severity. ⚠️ The NHL caps the give-ground penalty at a minor and the IIHF does not. Both books disallow the goal where you make contact establishing your position and the attacker then fails to vacate your crease immediately; the NHL's 69.3 goes on to say that attacker "will receive a minor penalty for goalkeeper interference", while the IIHF's says they "will receive the appropriate penalty for 'Goalkeeper interference'". ⚠️ The range itself is common to both books, so do not read the NHL as capping Rule 69 at a minor. The parenthetical "(minor or major, as the Referee deems appropriate)" appears word for word at 69.2 in the NHL's book and the IIHF's alike, and Rule 69 as a whole reaches a major in each of them. ⚠️ And 69.2 does not govern the give-ground clause, so treat it as context rather than as the authority. Its opening confines it to cases where an attacking player initiates "intentional or deliberate" contact with the goalkeeper — and in the give-ground case it is you who initiated the contact, establishing position. The difference sits in 69.3 itself: the NHL writes a ceiling into that clause and the IIHF does not, so "the appropriate penalty" is not another way of writing "a minor" — under your book the severity there is left open. The IIHF's premise clause is materially identical: an attacking player's position "whether inside or outside the goal crease, should not, by itself, determine whether a goal should be allowed or disallowed." It is one word off the NHL's, which writes "the crease" where the IIHF writes "the goal crease". The drafting difference that matters is vocabulary — the IIHF writes "relevant contact" where the NHL writes "contact", and defines it in 69.1 as "any contact that is made between or among a goalkeeper and attacking Player(s), whether by means of a stick or any part of the body." That is a definition, not a narrower test: the standard you are protected by is the same one. ⚠️ What the IIHF's 69.1 does add is a sentence the NHL's has not got, and it is the only real-time relief anywhere in Rule 69: "If an attacking Player is in the goal crease and does not leave immediately, the Referee has the possibility to stop the game and the subsequent 'face-off' shall take place at the nearest neutral zone face-off spot outside the attacking zone of the offending team." Read both of its limits before you rely on it. The IIHF's stop-the-game sentence is a possibility, not a duty — nothing in Rule 69.1 obliges the referee to use it — and it reaches a player in your crease, not one screening you from in front of it. So it does not make a screen appealable; it is a whistle for a body in the paint that will not move. The NHL's Rule 69 has no counterpart — its only face-off provision, 69.6, follows a goal that has already been disallowed, and the whole of Rules 69.1 to 69.8 was read for one. And no published IIHF interpretation of this sentence is held here, so how readily referees actually reach for it is not something this document can tell you.

⚠️ 🇬🇧 What is not the same is whether anyone can look at it again — and for this rule that is the whole difference. IIHF Rule 69.1 ends by saying the rule "will be enforced exclusively in accordance with the on-ice judgement of the Referee(s), but may be subject to a Video Review … or to a Coach's Challenge." The IHUK In-House Rules delete that half. They amend Rule 69.1 to read "On-ice video review is not available in EIH or SIHA competition", amend Rule 37 to say video review "may not be used by referees, official scorers, timekeepers, or any other game official", and amend Rule 38 so that "a Coach's Challenge is not permitted in EIH or SIHA competition."

So in EIH and SIHA competition, goaltender interference is decided once, live, by a referee looking through traffic, and that is the end of it. Goals disallowed on review in NHL highlights are decided in your league by whether the referee happened to see the contact. This has two practical consequences and they pull in opposite directions. First: say it at the time or not at all. There is no later. If someone is in your paint, the moment to make it visible is before the puck goes in, not after. Second: expect to eat some. A goal that would be wiped out on review in a televised game will stand in yours. That is not an injustice to argue about for the next ten minutes; it is the competition you signed up to. See UK and England Rules for the full amendment and the other four IIHF rules it strips review from.

⚠️ Under USA Hockey and Hockey Canada you are protected by a differently shaped rule — stronger inside your paint, weaker outside it. Neither book runs 69.1's premise at all. Both start from an attacker's position in your crease rather than from whether you were impaired — but only USA Hockey's version is flat. Hockey Canada's is not, and the two books give opposite answers on a situation you will meet at the net front.

USA Hockey Rule 625(b): "No goal may be scored with an attacking player in the goal crease unless the puck has preceded the player(s) into the goal crease or the goalkeeper is out of the goal crease area." The same clause stops play before it gets that far — a neutral-zone face-off "any time an attacking player stands, holds their stick, or skates through the goal crease provided the puck is in the attacking zone, the attacking team has possession of the puck and the goalkeeper is in contact with the crease." Note the last condition: that stoppage is yours only while you are in contact with your crease. And note what 625(b) does not ask: it does not matter who shot it, and the preconditions it does set are whether the puck "has preceded" the attacker in and whether you were out of the crease area. That second one runs out the moment the attacker is what stopped you getting back to it. ⚠️ And there is a third way the goal stands that is not about you at all, because one of your own team caused it. The rule's next paragraph: "However, if the attacking player has been physically interfered with by the actions of a defending player that causes them to be in the goal crease, play shall not be stopped and any legal goal scored shall be allowed." If your own defenceman shoves an attacker into your paint, the position bar gives you nothing — though the relief answers only for where that attacker is standing, and Rule 625(a)(8) is still a minor for physical contact that interferes with your movement.

⚠️ That last precondition is only half the answer, and the half you are missing is the one that protects you. The rule text stops at "the goalkeeper is out of the goal crease area"; the USA Hockey Casebook 2025-29, Rule 625, Situation 9 puts exactly the play you will meet — you leave the crease to stop a shot, an attacker gets into it ahead of the puck, and a teammate scores — and answers "Yes", the goal is good: "If the goalkeeper is completely out of their crease, an attacking player may precede the puck into the crease and any legally scored goal in this situation shall be allowed." Then it gives the goal back to you if that attacker is what stopped you getting home: "However, if the goalkeeper is attempting to return to the goal crease and there is any interference by the attacking player who prevents the goalkeeper from making a play, then the goal must be disallowed and an interference penalty shall be assessed." So being out of your paint does not surrender the crease — it surrenders it only for as long as you are genuinely out of the play. If you were fighting your way back and somebody stood in the way, that is a disallowed goal and two minutes for them, and it is worth knowing so you say it at the time rather than assuming there was nothing to say.
Hockey Canada Rule 8.5 — and read the sentence after the one everybody quotes. Its Goal Crease Area paragraph begins the same way: "Unless the puck is in the goal crease area, a player of the attacking team may not stand in the goal crease. If the puck should enter the net while such conditions prevail, the goal will NOT BE ALLOWED." Then it carves that case straight back out: "However, if an attacking player is in the goal crease but does not interfere with the Goaltender and another attacking player (who is outside the goal crease) scores, the goal WILL BE ALLOWED provided that the player who was in the goal crease does not attempt to play the puck, interfere with the play or obstruct the Goaltender's view or movements." So a body in your paint while a teammate scores from outside it does not by itself take the goal off the board under Hockey Canada — and it does under USA Hockey. What takes it off is that player doing something, and Hockey Canada writes that as a test in its own right: Interpretation 3 to Rule 8.5(a) says an attacker is "NOT committing a foul by simply standing in the goal crease", but "if while standing in the crease, the attacking player attempts to play the puck, interfere with the play, or impede the goaltender's vision or movements, then no goal may be scored." That is an impairment test and it names your vision — the counterpart of NHL Rule 69.3, not of 69.1. Hockey Canada also separates disallowing the goal from punishing anyone, in terms: it is "reasonable for a Referee to judge that a situation may warrant disallowing a goal under this rule without assessing an attacking player a penalty." And it states the balance in a sentence no other book has: "The onus is always on the attacking player and players who do not make an effort to avoid the goaltender must be penalized."

Outside the paint the difference between the books narrows almost to nothing, and that is the half to plan around. Rule 69.1 does name an attacker's positioning alongside contact — the NHL's clause (1) is the first of two grounds, and the rule reaches them under the words "Goals should be disallowed only if": "an attacking player, either by his positioning or by contact, impairs the goalkeeper's ability to move freely within his crease or defend his goal", and the IIHF's first ground is the same clause written in "their", with "a 'relevant contact'" where the NHL writes "contact" — word for word the same in the 2025/26 and 2026/27 editions. ⚠️ But that "only if" is a ceiling on when a goal may come off the board, not a direction to take one off — and every sentence in Rule 69 that actually disallows a goal for where an attacker stood is keyed to your crease. Rule 69.1's own disallowing sentence reaches one who "enters the goal crease"; Rule 69.3's no-contact screening ground asks for a "significant position within the goal crease"; and Rule 69.4, the rule for outside it, has no positioning limb at all. Both books then answer the screening case in terms, and against you: NHL Reference Table 14 and IIHF 2025/26 Appendix IV Table 16, Situations 5C and 5E — an attacker outside the crease, or planted on the crease line, who obstructs your vision and impairs your ability to defend your goal — both answer "Goal is allowed." ⚠️ That is a reading of the rule's structure rather than something either book states in terms, and both add that Rule 69 "will be enforced exclusively in accordance with the on-ice judgement of the Referee(s)" — so it is what the text supports, not a promise about the call you will get. What it means from behind the goal line is that 69.1 is not the lever against a screen that its wording suggests, and your defencemen are still the answer. Neither of the other two books writes even a clause that reaches outside the crease without contact — inside it both of them have one, and those are the crease rules set out above. ⚠️ That is a statement about what those two books write, and not a claim that they stop protecting you once you are outside your crease — both of them can still take a goal off the board out there, and USA Hockey's route is the easy one to miss. Rule 617(c)(4) disallows a goal scored while an attacking player was "interfering with the goalkeeper", a limb its own words do not confine to the crease, and its Casebook applies that limb to a player who is plainly outside one: Rule 625, Situation 13 allows a goal with an attacker slid inside the goal frame behind the goal line, who is "not in the goal crease area as the rulebook defines it", on the express condition that "the player must not interfere with the goalkeeper in any way." What every one of those routes runs on is contact, and both books say so in their own definitions. ⚠️ So do not read any of this as the other books protecting you less once you leave the paint — on contact they protect you more. Hockey Canada 8.5 writes it in terms: "A Goaltender is not 'fair game' just because they are outside their goal crease. A penalty under this rule will be called where an opposing player makes unnecessary contact with the goaltender anywhere on the ice." And its Interpretation 1 disallows the goal for any contact an attacker initiates, "regardless of whether the contact occurs inside or outside of the goal crease" — narrower than the NHL's incidental-contact allowance, not wider. USA Hockey's playing rules contain no provision about screening a goaltender or obstructing their vision at all — its grounds are position in the crease and physical contact, 625(a)(8) reaching "physical contact, using their stick or body, in a manner that interferes with the movement of the goalkeeper, unless otherwise specified in the rules." Hockey Canada mentions your view twice and both times only for a player who is in your crease — the two clauses quoted above, one conditioned on standing "in the goal crease" and the other on "while standing in the crease". For a penalty it asks for more again: it defines the foul as impeding you "by actual physical contact", and no penalty follows "unless the attacking player's body or stick makes actual physical contact with the goaltender." So under those two books a screen set outside your paint, without contact, is not merely "normally legal" — there is no provision to call it under. Your defencemen are the entire answer. (That is a search of the two playing rule books, and the separate USA Hockey Rules and Casebook has since been searched as well: its seventeen situations under Rule 625 reach the crease repeatedly and the goaltender's vision not once, and the word "screen" appears in the whole volume twice, neither time about a goaltender. So the USA Hockey half stands on both books. Hockey Canada's interpretations are printed inside the playing rules book already searched.)

All four books address in terms the attacker who lands on you because your own defenceman put them there — but Hockey Canada is the only one that writes a mandatory penalty on the attacker into that clause itself, and the only one that also sends the referee after the defenceman who caused it. Hockey Canada Interpretation 2 to Rule 8.5(a): where an attacker is "tripped, hooked, cross-checked, or otherwise interfered with, falls, and makes contact with the goaltender, there must be an effort by the attacking player to avoid making contact with the goaltender. If the player does not make an effort to avoid contact with the goaltender, then they must be penalized for interference with the goaltender" — and "The referee should also penalize the defending player who committed the initial foul under the appropriate rule." Its Interpretation 1 is the relief and it is narrow: the exception is an attacker "fouled by a defending player and, as a result, is unable to avoid contact with the goaltender."

⚠️ The NHL's and the IIHF's version of this sits in Rule 69.1, and the reason Hockey Canada stands out is not that those two books let the attacker off. Both write that where an attacker "has been pushed, shoved, or fouled by a defending player so as to cause him to come into contact with the goalkeeper, such contact will not be deemed contact initiated by the attacking player for purposes of this rule, provided the attacking player has made a reasonable effort to avoid such contact" — that is NHL Rule 69.1, and the IIHF's Rule 69.1 is the same sentence with "them" where the NHL writes "him". The proviso is the whole clause. The relief runs only while the attacker is making a reasonable effort to avoid you. Without it the sentence does not apply at all, and you are back to the ordinary question of whether they initiated the contact — which, inside your crease, is exactly what the first sentence of Rule 69.3 turns on, incidental or otherwise, subject to the rebound and loose-puck exception at Rule 69.7 that both books carry. And neither book is short of mandatory penalty wording once it gets there: Rules 69.2 and 69.3 in each of them say the attacking player "will receive" a penalty. What neither writes anywhere in Rule 69 is a word about penalising the defenceman who put them there. Their 69.7 does name him — but only as a reason a goal can be permitted, never as somebody to penalise. Under USA Hockey the same push-in is relieved more broadly than under any of the other three — "play shall not be stopped and any legal goal scored shall be allowed", with no effort proviso at all — but that relief reaches the attacker's position only. Rule 617(c)(4) disallows the goal on a second limb, "or interfering with the goalkeeper", which the relief never touches.

⚠️ And Hockey Canada prices what was done to you, not only whether the goal counts — the tier that ejects sits in the same rule. Everything above decides a goal. Rule 8.5's penalty limbs decide whether the player who ran you is still in the game. 8.5(a) is the minor. 8.5(b) reaches "A Major penalty and Game Misconduct penalty" at the referee's discretion "based on the degree of violence of impact" — and mandatorily, "will be assessed", in two named cases: "to any player who charges the goaltender" (Note 1 sends the definition of charging to Rule 7.4(b) Interpretation 2), and "to any player who injures an opponent by an Interference with the Goaltender infraction that would otherwise call for a Minor penalty." 8.5(c) is a match penalty for a player who "attempts to injure or deliberately injures a goaltender by Interference." 8.5(e) makes the game misconduct automatic on any 8.5(b) major, and 8.5(d) rules a misconduct out altogether — "No Misconduct penalty may be assessed for interference with the goaltender" — so there is no ten-minute rung between the two minutes and the ejection. (Those are Hockey Canada's limbs. The other three books have since been read for the same question, and all three write tiers above a minor — USA Hockey's is set out in the next subsection. ⚠️ The four do not line up on one axis, so no single book is simply "the strongest". On the floor, USA Hockey and Hockey Canada both refuse to price running you at two minutes flat, and the NHL and the IIHF do not: NHL Rule 42.1 offers "[a] minor, major or a major and a game misconduct" for charging a goalkeeper in the crease, so a bare minor is available there and under the IIHF. On charging specifically, Hockey Canada is the highest of the four and the only mandatory one — 8.5(b) "will be assessed". On the spread of tiers, USA Hockey's Rule 607 is the one with no bare minor at any limb at all.)

Find out which book your league runs before you rely on any of this. On a body in your paint while the puck goes in, the four books do not give the same answer.

The tier for running you — and which of the four books prices it highest

Key: Everything above decides whether a goal counts; this decides whether the player who ran you is still in the game, and it is a protection you have rather than a restriction on you
Rule: USA Hockey has no bare minor for it — Rule 607(c) assesses "a minor plus a misconduct or a major plus a game misconduct" to a player who body checks or charges a goalkeeper in the goal crease or privileged area, and 607(e) adds that a match penalty "may also be assessed for charging"
Rule: Your protected area there is bigger than your crease — USA Hockey 607(d) Note 2 runs the privileged area from the end-zone faceoff spots perpendicular to the end boards, and Casebook 607 Situation 6 confirms it "extends to the closer end boards"
Rule: USA Hockey 607(d) also protects you outside it — "A goalkeeper is NOT 'fair game' because they are outside the privileged area", and a penalty for interference or charging should be called in every case of unnecessary contact
Rule: Do not ask for the top tier on every bump — USA Hockey 607(d) Note 1 sends accidental or unavoidable contact to the Interference rule, a 625(a)(8) minor, and only deliberate body contact or a check to charging
Rule: USA Hockey Casebook 607 Situation 4 gives three rungs — no penalty only where a defending player forced them into you and they clearly tried to avoid it; minor plus misconduct on an honest attempt; major plus game misconduct or match where they accelerate through
Rule: The NHL and IIHF price charging you in your crease from a minor upward at the referee's discretion — NHL 42.2 to 42.5 run minor, major, match, and a game misconduct on a major causing a face or head injury; IIHF 42.2 to 42.4 run minor, major, major plus game misconduct
Rule: In Britain that IIHF ladder applies unamended — the IHUK In-House Rules 2026-27 amend Rule 69 for goaltender interference but leave Rule 42 alone, so charging you is priced by the IIHF book itself; no IHUK Rule Bulletin has been obtained here
Rule: Hockey Canada is the only one of the four that mandates ejection for it — 8.5(b) "A Major penalty and Game Misconduct penalty will be assessed to any player who charges the goaltender", 8.5(d) removes the misconduct rung, and 8.5 protects you "anywhere on the ice"
Action: Say what happened, not what you want — "he drove through me" gets you the charging rule; "that's a penalty" gets you nothing

USA Hockey Rule 607(c): "A minor plus a misconduct or a major plus a game misconduct penalty shall be assessed to a player who body checks or charges a goalkeeper while the goalkeeper is within the goal crease or privileged area." Rule 607(e) sits above it: "A match penalty for reckless endangerment may also be assessed for charging." So the floor is two minutes plus a misconduct, and the ceiling ends their night. ⚠️ How long that misconduct runs is not fixed at ten minutes outside adult play. Rule 404(a) writes it as removal "for a period of 10 minutes, or the designated misconduct penalty time", and the Note above it authorises affiliates and governing bodies, "(Except for Adults)", to reduce it by period length — 8:00 where periods run "[m]ore than 12 but less than 17 minutes", and 6:00 at "12 minutes or less". It is an authorisation, not an automatic cut: ten minutes stands unless your affiliate has set otherwise, and it stands for adults whatever the periods run. None of that moves the ladder — 607(c) still writes no bare minor — it changes only how long the player who ran you actually sits.

⚠️ And the area USA Hockey protects you in is much larger than your paint, which is the half most worth knowing. USA Hockey Rule 607(d) Note 2 defines the privileged area as "an area outlined by connecting the end zone face-off spots with an imaginary line and imaginary lines from each face-off spot running perpendicular to the end boards", and the Casebook answers the obvious question at Rule 607, Situation 6 — "Does the goalkeeper's Privileged Area include the area behind the goal line? Yes… The goalkeeper's Privileged Area extends to the closer end boards." So you carry it out to the top of the circles, across the goal line, and behind your own net — the whole of the ice you play the puck on, minus the corners. Rink Map and Glossary has the shape. And USA Hockey 607(d) does not abandon you outside it either: "A goalkeeper is NOT 'fair game' because they are outside the privileged area. A penalty for interference or charging should be called in every case where an opposing player makes unnecessary contact with a goalkeeper."

No penalty at all — and it needs both of two conditions, not either one. It applies only "[i]n the case where a defending player has forced the attacking player into their own goalkeeper", and then only "provided the attacking player has clearly made every attempt to avoid the contact with the goalkeeper." ⚠️ Both halves. Your own defenceman shoving someone into you is not on its own an answer.
A minor plus misconduct — where the attacker was "going hard to the goal" and "makes an honest attempt to avoid the goalkeeper once it is realized contact is unavoidable".
A major plus game misconduct, or a match penalty — where they "make[] no attempt to avoid the goalkeeper and recklessly endanger[] the goalkeeper by accelerating through the contact, or by extending the arms or dropping the shoulder to deliver the hit."

The other three books all write tiers above a minor too — but only one of the three refuses to start at one. NHL Rule 42.1 puts the range in the rule text: "A minor, major or a major and a game misconduct shall be imposed on a player who charges a goalkeeper while the goalkeeper is within his goal crease." Its 42.2, 42.3 and 42.4 then place the minor, the major and a match penalty at the Referee's discretion — the match where the player "attempted to or deliberately injured" you — and 42.5 adds a game misconduct where a major is imposed for an infraction "resulting in an injury to the face or head of an opponent". IIHF Rule 42.1 — your book in Britain, and one nothing domestic alters — writes the shorter sentence, "A penalty shall be imposed on a Player who charges a goalkeeper while the goalkeeper is within their goal crease", with 42.2, 42.3 and 42.4 running minor, major, and major plus game misconduct for reckless endangerment. ⚠️ Neither of those two books has a privileged area — the word appears in neither — so outside your crease you are back on Rule 42.1's "not 'fair game'" sentence and on Rule 69.4, not on a drawn boundary. ⚠️ And read those two ranges for where they start: both books put a bare minor at the bottom of them, so under the NHL and the IIHF running you can be priced at two minutes and nothing else, at the referee's discretion. Hockey Canada is the one that cannot be, as set out above: 8.5(b) "will be assessed" — a mandatory major plus game misconduct for charging you, with 8.5(d) removing the misconduct rung between, and 8.5's protection running "anywhere on the ice". ⚠️ So the honest comparison is not that one book is strongest. Hockey Canada writes the highest and the only mandatory floor for charging a goaltender; USA Hockey's Rule 607 is the only one of the four with no bare minor at any of its limbs, for a goalkeeper or anyone else; and the NHL and the IIHF leave the whole range, minor upward, to the referee. Which of those you are playing under is the thing to find out.

⚠️ 🇬🇧 That "your book in Britain" is not an assumption. The IHUK In-House Rules 2026-27 open by recording that IHUK and the British Universities Ice Hockey Association "adopt the latest IIHF Official Rule Book (Version 1.1, published July 2025) as the foundation for the rules of the game to be applied in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland (the Home Countries)", and that "[u]nless otherwise stated, all rules will be enforced in line with the IIHF Rule Book." And nothing in their amendments reaches Rule 42. The amended rule numbers run up to 38 and then resume at 60, leaving 42 in the gap, and no charging provision appears anywhere in the document — so the IIHF ladder above is the ladder you play under, unaltered. Two gaps in that go with it, and UK and England Rules sets them out: the In-House Rules say IHUK "may also issue Rule Bulletins from time to time" and no such Bulletin has been obtained here, and the individual leagues' competition regulations are not held either.

What to do with it. Describe the act, not the verdict. "He drove through me" and "nobody pushed him" are the two facts 607(d) Note 1 and Situation 4 actually turn on, and a referee who hears them is being handed the rule. "That's a penalty" is not information. ⚠️ And in EIH and SIHA competition there is no review of any of it — say it while it is happening or not at all.

What it changes about what you do

Rule: Outside your crease incidental contact is permitted while you play the puck, if the attacker made a reasonable effort to avoid it (NHL and IIHF Rule 69.4)
Rule: On rebounds and loose pucks incidental contact — and only incidental contact — is permitted and the goal counts under the NHL and IIHF (69.7); neither USA Hockey nor Hockey Canada writes that carve-out, and the Hockey Canada clauses standing in its place bind the attacker, not you
Rule: A screen from outside your crease without contact is normally legal; inside the crease only a significant position voids the goal — a substantial part of a body there for more than an instantaneous period, obstructing your vision and impairing your ability to defend (NHL and IIHF Rule 69.3)
Rule: An attacker who pushes you into the net together with the puck after you made the stop kills the goal and may take a penalty with it — unless one of your own players fouled them into you, when it can be allowed (NHL and IIHF Rule 69.7; disallowed-goal lists 78.5(ix))
Rule: You can be penalised too — Rule 64.1 makes it a minor for diving/embellishment if you deliberately initiate contact other than to establish position in the crease, or if you otherwise act to create the appearance of other than incidental contact: selling it is two minutes, IIHF and NHL alike
Action: Establish and hold your crease position early, and shout for whoever has your net front rather than dropping to the ice — a defenceman under a low zone collapse, a forward under man-on-man
Never: Embellish — referees see everything you do all night, and a goalie who sells contact gets fewer calls when it matters
Rule: Establishing crease position is not immunity — if you do it with excessive force, or in a manner that would otherwise warrant a penalty, the penalty is yours at 6G and 6H: a minor at NHL Reference Table 14, "the appropriate penalty" and no cap at IIHF 2025/26 Table 16
Rule: 6F is your excessive force plus the attacker refusing to give ground — the NHL's Table 14 answers "Coincidental minors (goalkeeper/attacking player)"; the IIHF 2025/26 Table 16 says only "the appropriate penalty/ penalties to the goalkeeper and/or attacking Player", so it may be you, them or both
Rule: The stick and body fouls bind you as they bind a skater — slashing, cross-checking, roughing and the rest are written for "a player", which NHL and IIHF Rule 5.1 define as including goalkeepers; a blocker punch is a match penalty at NHL 51.3, a major plus automatic game misconduct at IIHF 51.3
Rule: An attacker who will not give ground after your contact may still be penalised — at 6D, NHL Table 14 and IIHF 2025/26 Table 16 both answer "a minor penalty is not assessed (loss of goal only)", but NHL 69.3 mandates a minor; IIHF 69.3 writes "the appropriate penalty", which may be no penalty at all

You are not "fair game" just because you are outside your crease (NHL and IIHF Rule 69.4). Contact other than incidental contact that produces a goal means the goal is disallowed, and unnecessary contact should be penalised in every case. But incidental contact is permitted when you are in the act of playing the puck outside your crease, provided the attacker made a reasonable effort to avoid it. So leaving the paint to play a puck costs you some of your protection — not all of it, but some. Know that before you go.
Rebounds and loose pucks are the one place contact with you is permitted — and only incidental contact, under the NHL and IIHF books (Rule 69.7). Under those two books, when you and an attacker are simultaneously going for a loose puck, inside or outside the crease, incidental contact is permitted and a resulting goal counts. ⚠️ That is a carve-out for a scramble, not a licence to run you — 69.7's very next paragraph disallows the goal where an attacker pushes you into the net together with the puck after you made the stop. ⚠️ Neither USA Hockey nor Hockey Canada writes a rebound carve-out at all — and the Hockey Canada clauses that stand where it would be bind the attacking player, not you. Its Interpretation 1 to 8.5(a) disallows the goal for any contact an attacking player initiates, "regardless of whether the contact occurs inside or outside of the goal crease", and Rule 8.5's onus sentence puts the mandatory minor on them: "The onus is always on the attacking player and players who do not make an effort to avoid the goaltender must be penalized." So Hockey Canada is stricter than 69.7 — but stricter against the attacker. Do not wait for a whistle in a scramble; win the puck.
A screen set from outside your crease, without contact, is normally legal — both qualifiers belong to the legality claim itself; a significant vision-obstructing position established inside the blue paint voids the goal under Rule 69.3. ⚠️ But read what that rule actually asks for, because it demands a good deal more than "he was in my paint and I could not see." It disallows the goal where an attacking player "establishes a significant position within the goal crease, so as to obstruct the goalkeeper's vision and impair his ability to defend his goal" — and it then defines the first half rather than leaving it to the eye: a player does that "when, in the Referee's judgment, his body, or a substantial portion thereof, is within the goal crease for more than an instantaneous period of time." That is NHL Rule 69.3; the IIHF's Rule 69.3 is the same test written in "their", identical in the 2025/26 and 2026/27 editions. So a body that crosses your paint and is gone does not meet it — and the limb asks for the obstruction and the impairment, not the obstruction alone. Argue past that and you are arguing for a call the rule does not give you. See Screens, Tips and Traffic above, which is where the skill of dealing with it lives. Rule 69.1 names positioning as well as contact, but under a "should be disallowed only if" ceiling, and Rule 69.1's own disallowing sentence reaches an attacker who "enters the goal crease" — so do not read it as a lever against a screen set outside your paint, where both books answer that exact case "Goal is allowed" (NHL Reference Table 14 and IIHF 2025/26 Appendix IV Table 16, Situations 5C and 5E). It is in any event a post-goal judgement rather than real-time relief — 69.1's one real-time limb, which is the IIHF's and not the NHL's, reaches a player in your crease who will not leave, never one standing in front of it — and outside the paint under USA Hockey and Hockey Canada, not even that. USA Hockey has no goaltender-vision provision at all to hang it on, and Hockey Canada's does not reach past the crease line: its ground is a player "standing in the crease" who impedes your "vision or movements". If you are blind, that is a problem for you and your defencemen to solve.
Being pushed into your own net with the puck by an attacker means the goal is disallowed — and that is written into 69.7 itself, and again on both books' disallowed-goal lists. The NHL's words: "In the event that a goalkeeper has been pushed into the net together with the puck by an attacking player after making a stop, the goal will be disallowed. If applicable, appropriate penalties will be assessed." The IIHF writes the same paragraph at the same number, and both books list the play among the goals that must be disallowed — NHL 78.5(ix) and IIHF 78.5(IX), "When a goalkeeper has been pushed into the net together with the puck after making a save." ⚠️ But it is not automatic, and the exception is in the same paragraph: "If, however, in the opinion of the Referee, the attacking player was pushed or otherwise fouled by a defending player causing the goalkeeper to be pushed into the net together with the puck, the goal can be permitted." So your own defenceman shoving an opponent into you can cost your team the goal. One more paragraph covers the version where the puck is under somebody in front of you: where the puck is under a player in or around the crease, deliberately or otherwise, "a goal cannot be scored by pushing this player together with the puck into the goal" — and 69.7 adds that if the puck is "deemed to be covered in the crease deliberately" the appropriate penalties follow, a penalty shot among them (the rule points you to Rule 63, delaying the game).
You can be penalised too, and not only for interference. If, by your actions outside your crease, you deliberately interfere with an attacker trying to play the puck or an opponent, that is on you. And the ordinary stick and body fouls bind you exactly as they bind a skater. Slashing, cross-checking, high-sticking, roughing, hooking, holding and tripping are each written for "a player" in the NHL and IIHF books — none of them mentions a goalkeeper at all — and Rule 5.1 defines that word as "both skaters and goalkeepers". So a chop at an attacker's stick in your blue paint, or a cross-check to move a body off your doorstep, is the same two minutes it would be anywhere else on the ice. Body Contact and Battles sets those fouls out in full, and it is written for you as much as for the other five. ⚠️ One of them is written about you specifically, and it is not a minor. Punching an opponent with the blocking glove appears in both books' goalkeeper tables — the NHL's Reference Table 11 at its thirteenth row, and the IIHF's Table 13 — Table 11 in the IIHF's 2026/27 edition, same row, same 51.3 reference — and the two books price it differently. NHL Rule 51.3 allows a match penalty where a goalkeeper uses the blocker "to punch an opponent in an attempt to or to deliberately injure an opponent". IIHF Rule 51.3 — your book in Britain — allows "a major penalty and an automatic game misconduct penalty to a goalkeeper who uses their blocker glove to punch an opponent and the action is likely to result in injury to the opponent." Note where the IIHF threshold sits: likely to injure, not intending to. And note who pays for the smaller stuff — under NHL and IIHF Rule 27.1 a teammate designated by your coach serves your minor, so your retaliation is your team's penalty kill and you are the one who has to stop it.
Don't embellish — there is a named penalty for it, and it names goalkeepers. The rule is enforced on the referee's on-ice judgement, subject to a coach's challenge in the NHL — and to nothing at all in EIH or SIHA competition, as above. Rule 64.1 writes a goalkeeper-specific clause into diving/embellishment in both the IIHF and NHL books, in identical terms. The IIHF's, which is your book in Britain: "A goalkeeper who deliberately initiates contact with an attacking Player other than to establish position in the crease, or who otherwise acts to create the appearance of other than 'incidental contact' with an attacking Player, is subject to the assessment of a minor penalty for 'diving / embellishment'." Selling it is not just reputationally expensive under the rules you play — it is two minutes. And referees see everything you do all night, so a goalie with a reputation for it gets fewer calls in the games where it matters.

Practically: establish and hold your crease position early; if someone is standing in it, make it visible and shout for the player whose job the net front is, rather than dropping to the ice. ⚠️ That is a coaching choice rather than a law of hockey — under a low zone collapse the net front is the weak-side defenceman's, under man-on-man it belongs to whoever's check went there, which can as easily be a forward. Find out which your team plays, because it decides who you are shouting at; Defensive Zone Coverage sets out who has it under each. And accept the part you cannot change — a screen set from outside your crease, without contact, is legal, and dealing with it is a skill, not an injustice. What is not legal is a significant position established inside your blue paint — a substantial part of a body in the crease for more than an instantaneous period — that obstructs your vision and impairs your ability to defend the goal (Rule 69.3). That voids the goal, so say so out loud at the time. ⚠️ Rule 69.1's other limb — positioning anywhere that actually stops you moving or defending — is the weaker of the two, and do not expect it to rescue you from a screen set outside the paint. Both books publish worked situations on that exact fact pattern: NHL Reference Table 14 and IIHF 2025/26 Appendix IV Table 16, Situations 5C and 5E — an attacker outside the crease who obstructs your vision and impairs your ability to defend your goal — and both answer "Goal is allowed." They are appendix interpretations rather than operative rule text, so they do not repeal 69.1, but they are printed in both rulebooks and both come down on the screener's side. ⚠️ The IIHF table numbers in this section are the 2025/26 book's. The 2026/27 edition merges three earlier tables in the same appendix, which shifts every later one down by two, so this table is numbered Table 14 there — the situation letters and their answers are identical in both. Rules Primer carries the full comparison. Under USA Hockey and Hockey Canada that positioning limb does not exist at all, and the crease rule is written differently in each of them: under USA Hockey a body in your crease voids the goal on position alone; under Hockey Canada it voids the goal only once that body plays the puck, interferes with the play, or obstructs your view or movements. Outside the crease, neither book disallows a goal for anything an attacker does to you short of contact — Hockey Canada's Interpretation 1 to Rule 8.5(a) disallows the goal for contact an attacker initiates "regardless of whether the contact occurs inside or outside of the goal crease", and USA Hockey's Rule 617(c)(4) disallows one scored while an attacking player was "interfering with the goalkeeper", a limb its own words do not confine to the crease and which Rule 625(a)(8) reaches only through "physical contact, using their stick or body, in a manner that interferes with the movement of the goalkeeper, unless otherwise specified in the rules." The IIHF Situation Handbook confirms the blunt version at Situation 69.1: a player standing in the crease screening the goalkeeper when a goal is scored means "The goal shall be disallowed, and no additional penalty assessed." And it answers the mirror image at Situation 69.2 — the one where you are the one who moves. A goalkeeper comes across the crease and initiates contact with an attacker standing with one foot in the paint; the puck goes in as the contact is made. The answer: "No. If a goalkeeper, in the act of establishing its position within the crease, initiates contact with an attacking player who is in the goal crease, and this results in an impairment of the goalkeeper's ability to defend the goal, and a goal is scored, the goal will be disallowed. No goal – no penalty. The attacking player must give ground to the goalkeeper to play its position within the goal crease." ⚠️ Note the second half: no goal and no penalty. Both books' appendix tables answer the same play the same way — NHL Reference Table 14 and IIHF 2025/26 Appendix IV Table 16, both at Situation 6D: "Goal is disallowed. A minor penalty is not assessed (loss of goal only)." ⚠️ But the tables and the rule text disagree here — and it is the NHL's book, not the IIHF book you play under in Britain, where they disagree outright. Rule 69.3's third paragraph reaches exactly 6D's facts — an attacker who, after your contact, does not immediately vacate their position in the crease, which the rule glosses as giving ground to the goalkeeper. The NHL's sentence leaves the referee nothing: "In all such cases, whether or not a goal is scored, the attacking player will receive a minor penalty for goalkeeper interference" — set against its own Table 14 answering that a minor "is not assessed." The IIHF's 69.3 writes "the appropriate penalty" into that same slot, and no penalty at all is one of the things that phrase can carry, so the IIHF book accommodates its own table where the NHL's cannot. ⚠️ Nothing published reconciles the NHL's two answers, and nothing outside that rulebook ranks one of them above the other — Table 14 is printed in the same book as Rule 69.3, so the conflict is internal to it, and this document does not pick a side in it. What survives under either book is the narrow thing: do not tell an opponent standing in your crease that the rules give them a free one — under the NHL's own rule text they are penalised, and under the IIHF's they get whatever the referee judges appropriate, which may be nothing. ⚠️ And the row beside it is the one that protects you, so know it is there: an attacker does not have to refuse to move for the goal to come off. Both tables carry a Situation 6C — you initiate contact to establish position and the attacking player "vacates the position immediately at the time a goal is scored" — and the answer is still "Goal is disallowed", because "Even though the attacking player vacates his position immediately, the contact impairs the goalkeeper's ability to defend his goal" (the IIHF's row is the same sentence in "their"). The IIHF Situation Handbook gives it in its own words at Situation 69.6: "The goal is disallowed, even though the attacking player vacates the established position immediately, the contact impairs the goalkeeper's ability to defend its goal." What 6C turns on is the impairment, not their refusal, and its authority is Rule 69.3's second paragraph rather than the third: the goal is disallowed where a goalkeeper, "in the act of establishing his position within his goal crease, initiates contact with an attacking player who is in the goal crease, and this results in an impairment of the goalkeeper's ability to defend his goal". ⚠️ Do not carry 6D's "no penalty" across to it, in either direction: 6C says nothing at all about a penalty, where 6D states in terms that none is assessed. Neither book's 6C row, nor the Situation Handbook at 69.6, says anything either way — and no published interpretation of that silence was found for this document. ⚠️ But do not read that as immunity for you, because it is not. Rule 64.1's "other than to establish position" carve-out is scoped to diving / embellishment and nothing else. Where you establish position "by using excessive force or acting in a manner which would otherwise warrant a penalty", the penalty is yours: IIHF 2025/26 Table 16 Situations 6G and 6H put it on the goalkeeper alone, the table saying only that the Referee "must assess the appropriate penalty to the goalkeeper", which caps nothing — where the NHL's Table 14 answers those two rows in minutes: "A minor penalty to the goalkeeper and the goal is disallowed" and "Minor penalty to goalkeeper." ⚠️ Situation 6F is the one row where the penalty can reach both of you — and it takes both halves to get there. It is not simply the row where an attacker will not move: 6F is where you establish position "by using excessive force or acting in a manner which would otherwise warrant a penalty" and the attacking player "refuses to give ground at the time a goal is scored." The difference between 6F and 6D is your own conduct, not theirs. The two books do not price it the same way. The NHL's Table 14 answers "Coincidental minors (goalkeeper/attacking player)" — two minutes each, both of you, every time. The IIHF's is looser: the Referee assesses "the appropriate penalty/ penalties to the goalkeeper and/or attacking Player", which caps nothing and does not require that both of you are punished. So under the IIHF book you play in Britain, Situation 6F — your excessive force plus an attacker who will not give ground as the goal goes in — may land a penalty on the goalkeeper alone. The Situation Handbook answers 6G's facts at 69.5 — it reaches neither 6H nor 6F — and it does cap that row where the table does not: "A minor penalty to the goalkeeper and the goal is disallowed." ⚠️ Its own rule reference on that answer points at "Table 16 (Rule 69 Situation 6C)", which is the wrong row — the facts 69.5 sets out are 6G's, excessive force and all. That is the Handbook's slip, recorded here so it does not throw you when you look it up. Even a clean attempt is judged, in identical words in both books at 6B: "A possible penalty depends on the Referee's judgment as to the degree of contact and degree of resistance with the attacking player and whether the goalkeeper was truly trying to establish a position." ⚠️ But read who pays at 6B, because it is not you. What that sentence governs is a penalty on the attacking player: the NHL's Table 14 answers "Minor penalty. This player runs the risk of 'bad things' happening by being in the crease", and the IIHF's Table 16 says it outright — "The Referee in their judgment must assess the appropriate penalty to the attacking Player." 6B judges whether your attempt to establish position was genuine; it does not price it against you. The rows that do reach the goalkeeper are 6E — where you initiate contact "other than to establish position in the crease, or otherwise act[] to make unnecessary contact" — and 6F, 6G and 6H, all three of which turn on establishing position "by using excessive force". Rules Primer carries the same table-against-rule-text tension for Rule 69.1 and the screening rows.

One thing worth knowing that is not in Rule 69 at all. An attacker who holds a glove or a stick directly in front of your face to blind you is not doing a legal screen — under the IIHF's published answer it is not judged under Rule 69 but under Rule 75, unsportsmanlike conduct, and it is a minor. IIHF Situation Handbook, Situation 69.3, asks whether an attacking player "can … hold its hand/glove or stick directly in front of the goalkeeper's eyes/face with the obvious intent of impairing the ability to see the puck/play" and answers: "No. This shall be treated as unsportsmanlike conduct and penalized with the assessment of a minor penalty under Rule 75 if witnessed by the Referee(s)." Note the last four words. With no video review in EIH or SIHA competition, "if witnessed" is the whole rule — so call it loudly while it is happening.

What a Goalie Needs From Their Skaters

This section is written for the other five players. Many net-front goals against are not goalie errors at all — they are skater habits that make the goalie's job impossible. That is a coaching judgement rather than a measured share: no goaltending source here counts goals by cause. Two measurements in reach answer narrower questions: Game Management counts the tip, deflection and rebound share of goals scored with an extra attacker on the ice, and Offensive Zone Play counts the share of all goals that arrive within three seconds of a preceding shot — a proxy for the rebound, counted from the attacking side. Neither reaches the screen: the play-by-play feed both use carries no marker for one, so the net-front cause this section leans on hardest is exactly the one that stays uncounted.

In front of your own net

Defending your own net front, the net at the right. The opposition forward has planted on the spot they want, clear of the blue paint, and your defenceman is underneath them on the side away from the corner — shoulder beneath the armpit, legs doing the driving, a body position no diagram can draw and the reason the two marks sit further apart here than two players in a battle ever are. Whose job the net front is in the first place is a coaching choice rather than a law of hockey — under a low zone collapse it is the weak-side defenceman’s, under man-on-man it belongs to whoever’s check went there, which can as easily be a forward — so find out which your team plays. The one route drawn is the attacker’s: out toward the corner, away from the goal. They are not choosing that line. The notation has no position-neutral shape and no mark for a player being walked off a spot, so a defenceman is drawn and an ordinary skating arrow does that work. ⚠️ Which league you are in decides whether you may move them at all, and it is the game in front of you that settles that rather than your age group — USA Hockey Rule 604(a) lets a local governing body prohibit body checking in any classification, and Rule 604(b) bars it any time a Competitive Contact team plays a Body Checking team. So unless body checking is legal in the game you are actually playing, stop at the position and a stick lift taken below their bottom hand. ⚠️ Which way you move them decides what they hit, and that half applies in every league. Never walk anybody across the front of your own net. That path has a steel goal frame at one edge and your own goaltender at the other, and it is the player being moved who meets the post, travelling sideways or backwards and unable to choose what lands first. Taking them to the corner instead is caution drawn from that hazard rather than a rule anyone writes — but the worst version of it is priced, and never at two minutes. USA Hockey Rule 608(b) is a major plus a game misconduct where a check from behind “causes them to go head first into the boards or goal frame”; Hockey Canada Rule 7.5(c) is a match penalty where a player is pushed from behind into the boards or goal frame and left “unable to protect or defend themselves”, the first of its four verbs being the one a walk-out is; and neither the NHL’s book nor the IIHF’s writes a minor for checking from behind at all, at Rule 43.2 in both. And where your league does let you drive from under the arm: establish the position before you drive from it, and keep their skates on the ice, because a player whose edges are gone cannot brace at all. And in every league, checking or not, if you are the one being moved: head up, chin off your chest. USA Hockey puts the goal post in the same spinal-injury mechanism as the boards, and says that injury can happen at walking speed.

Diagram from body contact and battles

Action: Clear the net front with technique — inside shoulder ahead of theirs, box out, and lift their stick up rather than sideways, taking it below their bottom hand
Convention: Whose job the net front is in the first place is a coaching choice — the weak-side defenceman's under a low zone collapse, whoever's check went there under man-on-man, which can as easily be a forward. Find out which your team plays
Never: Screen your own goalie, or back into the crease when you are being pushed. You arrive backwards onto a goaltender who is down, square to the shot and unable to see you coming
Never: Block a shot from a screening position. Get to the shooter and block from close instead, head up and out of the shot lane, or get out of the lane entirely
Action: Box out on rebounds — inside position on the body arriving at the second puck, and hold it. Walking them off an established spot is a push: it needs a full-checking league, and is not free even there
Never: Move a body across the front of your own net, whatever your league lets you do to them — the goal frame is at one edge and your own goaltender at the other. Take them toward the corner instead
Never: Lift a net-front opponent off their edges, even where your league lets you drive from under the arm — a player whose skates are off the ice cannot brace and cannot choose what meets the post first
Risk: A tucked chin straightens the cervical spine, and the injury from that head-down, head-first collision with the boards or a goal post can occur at walking speed. Head up, chin off your chest
Rule: Nobody prices a body put head first into the boards or goal frame at two minutes — USA Hockey 608(b) is a mandatory major plus a game misconduct, Hockey Canada 7.5(c) is a match penalty, and the NHL and IIHF write no minor for checking from behind at all (43.2 in both)

Clear the net front, with technique. ⚠️ Whose job that is in the first place is a coaching choice rather than a law of hockey — under a low zone collapse it is the weak-side defenceman's, under man-on-man it belongs to whoever's check went there, which can as easily be a forward. Find out which your team plays, because it decides whether the net front is yours before anybody shouts for it; Defensive Zone Coverage sets out who has it under each. Get your inside shoulder ahead of theirs, box out, and lift their stick — up rather than sideways, and below their bottom hand, because at or near the hands it is hooking under three of the four books — on the location alone under the IIHF's 55.1, and under USA Hockey's 623 and Hockey Canada's Interpretation 1 to 8.2(a) where it stops the opponent playing the puck. ⚠️ One qualification on the IIHF, and the book does not resolve it: 55.1's very next sentence exempts contact that is stick-to-stick only "when a Player is checking another" — which a lift under the shaft is — so the two sentences pull against each other, no IIHF interpretation reconciling them is held here, and the caution here may be stricter than the rule. Note the scope of the exemption even so: it covers a player checking an opponent, not stick-on-stick contact generally. Low is still the answer. Only the NHL leaves a clean lift there alone, so do not carry that book's answer into the others. Position usually beats strength — Body Contact and Battles covers that claim and flags it as coaching consensus rather than a measured law, with a large enough strength gap winning anyway — and a stick lift takes away the tip and the rebound without giving up your own body position — while repeated cross-checks to the back put your team down a man. Full detail in Body Contact and Battles.
Do not screen your own goalie. Standing in front of your own net with your back to the shooter, in your goalie's sightline, is a cause of goals against that goalies raise constantly and skaters almost never think about — coaching observation, not a counted ranking. If you are the one blocking the view, move. ⚠️ And do not back into the crease when you are being pushed — a goal against is not the only thing it costs. You arrive there backwards, onto a goaltender who is usually down, square to the shooter and unable to see you, with the post beside the pair of you — so it is a collision as well as a screen, and the answer is to fight the shove early rather than ride it into the paint. That second half is coaching caution: no source here counts injuries from it. From your side of the play this is what the "screen" call is for, and it is the argument for making it before the shot rather than after. Body Contact and Battles → Defending the net front is the same collision written for the skater doing the backing.
Do not block a shot from a screening position. Half-blocking a puck your goalie cannot see is worse than not blocking it, because you have just deflected an unseen puck. Get to the shooter and block from close, head up and out of the shot lane, or get out of the lane entirely. There is no useful middle. Body Contact and Battles has the rest of what to protect, and the full list of when not to block at all.
Box out on rebounds. After the save, the goalie is on the ice recovering. The most dangerous player is the one arriving unmarked at the second puck. Take the inside position on that body and hold it — that is the box-out, and it needs no checking league to be legal. ⚠️ The authority for that is USA Hockey's Standard of Play and Rule Emphasis, not the Note to Rule 604(c) that everyone reaches for. The Note describes the act better than anything else in the book — it blesses a player "simply maintaining established body position" — but it sits under a rule scoped to the categories where checking is barred. The sentences that are scoped to nothing are the Standard of Play summaries: "A player is entitled to use proper body position and competitive contact in all age classifications in order to gain a competitive advantage" (Body Checking, Summary) and "Players are entitled to the ice they occupy as long as they are able to maintain their own foot speed and body position between opponent and puck" (Restraining Fouls, Summary). Take the description of the act from the Note and the entitlement from those. Holding a position you have already established is written as legal in three of the four books — the NHL and the IIHF at Rule 56.1, and USA Hockey in those summaries — with Hockey Canada silent rather than against it: its Rule 7.3 defines body-checking, not the box-out, as deliberate contact with "opposite-directional force," and its own preamble defines mere body contact as "incidental contact of two opposing players in pursuit of the puck on the ice in the same direction" — neither sentence grants the box-out, and neither forbids it. Walking them off a spot they have already established is a different act, and it needs a full-checking league — and a checking league does not make it free. Where checking is barred it is a minor — USA Hockey's same Note, on "deliberate physical contact with an opponent, with no effort to legally play the puck," in every Competitive Contact classification (604(a): 12U and below, all girls'/women's, all non-check adult — and that list is a floor, not a ceiling, because 604(a) continues that a local governing body "may prohibit body checking in any classification", so find out what your own league permits rather than reading your age off it) — and Hockey Canada's 7.3(a), which reaches anyone who "intentionally body-checks, bumps, shoves, or pushes" an opponent, in divisions of U13 and below, in female hockey, and in any other division a Member of Hockey Canada has approved. ⚠️ And the minor is not the ceiling in either book — USA Hockey 604(d) is a major plus a game misconduct for a player who "recklessly endangers an opponent with a body check in a Competitive Contact category" and 604(e) a match penalty that "may also be assessed" — permissive where 604(d) is mandatory — while Hockey Canada 7.3(b) reaches the same pair "At the discretion of the Referee, based on the degree of violence of the impact" with nobody hurt, is compulsory where the check injures, and 7.3(c) is a match penalty for a player who "deliberately attempts to or deliberately injures an opponent by body-checking", which the attempt alone reaches and which needs nobody hurt. ⚠️ And it is the game rather than the age group that settles it: USA Hockey 604(b) prohibits body checking any time "a team from a Competitive Contact category … plays a team from a Body Checking category", so a checking-age team can be in a no-checking game tonight purely because of who it drew, and its Blind Hockey rules bar it in every Blind Hockey game with no age or classification limb at all, penalised "under the guidelines within Rule 604". 🇬🇧 In women's hockey the British book draws the same line itself — IIHF Rule 101.1 lets a player "'hold their ground' any time that they have established their position on the ice" and makes the move onto her an illegal hit: "[a]ny move by a Player to step or glide into an opposing Player will be assessed at least a minor penalty (2')", with a major (5') and an automatic game misconduct above it. And even in a checking league, a stationary opponent cannot simply be displaced. NHL and IIHF Rule 56.1 protect the body position you are standing in, not a lateral move into someone else's — "[m]oving laterally and without establishing body position, then making contact with the non-puck carrier is not permitted and will be penalized as interference" — and USA Hockey Rule 625(a)(4) penalises a defender who "changes their skating lane or foot speed in an effort to play the body of an opponent who is no longer in control of the puck." Anywhere else, hold the position and let your goalie find the puck under you.
Whichever way your league lets you move somebody at the goalmouth, move them toward the corner and not across the front of your own net. ⚠️ That half is not scoped to checking leagues even though the walk-out is, and a legal box-out puts a body on the same path an illegal shove does. The route across your own goalmouth has a steel goal frame at one edge and your goaltender at the other, and the player being moved travels it sideways or backwards and can see neither of them. USA Hockey writes the goal post into the head-first spinal-injury mechanism alongside the boards — with the chin tucked to the chest the cervical spine straightens, and the injury that follows "can occur at walking speed" (Heads Up Hockey Program Guide). Taking them to the corner instead is coaching caution drawn from that hazard rather than a rule anyone writes — what the rules do price is the worst version of it, and never at two minutes: a major plus a game misconduct under USA Hockey 608(b) where a check from behind "causes them to go head first into the boards or goal frame", a match penalty under Hockey Canada 7.5(c) where the player is "unable to protect or defend themselves", and no minor for checking from behind at all in either the NHL's book or the IIHF's (43.2 in both). ⚠️ And where your league does let you drive from under the arm, their skates stay on the ice — a player whose edges are gone cannot brace and cannot choose what meets the post first, and no book here prices that lift on its own, so the reason to keep them down is the collision rather than the tariff. If you are the one being moved, in any league: head up, chin off your chest. Body Contact and Battles → Defending the net front owns the technique, and Receiving a Hit Safely the other end of it.

The puck, the calls and their stick

Action: On a 2-on-1 take the pass and give your goalie the shot, and don't slide before the pass is released unless the timed slide is your team's system
Action: Let your goalie play the puck when they call for it — "I've got it" means get to your breakout position — and tell them what you want while you are still coming back, not as you arrive
Rule: If your goalie's stick breaks, carry the replacement and put it in their hand — NHL Rule 10.4 bars throwing or shooting it and IIHF 10.4 requires the stick be "passed from hand to hand", a minor to you either way
Rule: Hockey Canada names sliding it too, and does not cap it at a minor — Interpretation 1 to Rule 3.2(c): a minor under 10.5(a), a penalty shot if you slide it at the puck or puck carrier in your defending zone, and a second minor to the goalie who picks it up (10.6(a))
Never: Shoot at your goalie's head in warm-ups, or fire pucks at them from ten feet in drills — only two books stop play for the hit itself; the rest need a referee to judge the goalie hurt first
Rule: Warm-up is inside the rules — all four books keep each team in its own half (NHL and IIHF Rule 86.6; USA Hockey 636(c); Hockey Canada 2.2(i)); USA Hockey 502(b) and Hockey Canada 2.2(j) let officials penalise it there, while the NHL and the IIHF report it instead
Never: Blame the goalie out loud. Answer their calls instead, because one word back is enough

On a 2-on-1, take the pass and give your goalie the shot — and do not slide or dive before the pass is released, unless your team plays the timed slide as its method, in which case the slide is the plan. Say which half you are taking, and make sure your defenceman has the same answer you do.
Let your goalie play the puck when they call for it. "I've got it" means get to your breakout position, not to the puck. Two players arriving at the same puck behind your own net is how goals get scored on empty nets.
Tell your goalie what you want before you need it. If you want the puck stopped and left behind the net, say so while you are still coming back for it — a defenceman who calls "leave it" from the neutral zone gets a dead puck waiting for them; the same call as they arrive gets a collision.
If their stick breaks, hand them yours. A goalie may not go to the bench for a replacement and must receive one from a teammate on the ice — NHL and IIHF Rule 10.4, USA Hockey Rule 605(c), which puts a minor for delay of game on the goalie who goes to the bench during a stoppage. Carry it and put it in their hand — never throw, shoot or slide it. NHL Rule 10.4 puts a minor on the teammate who throws or shoots it, IIHF Rule 10.4 requires that "[t]he stick must be passed from hand to hand", and Hockey Canada's Interpretation 1 to Rule 3.2(c) puts a minor on you under 10.5(a) for throwing, shooting, kicking or sliding it — and, unlike the other books, a second minor on your goalie under 10.6(a) if they pick it up off the ice. ⚠️ Note which book each limb comes from, and note that Hockey Canada does not stop at two minutes. The slide is named by Hockey Canada and reached by the IIHF's hand-to-hand requirement; NHL Rule 10.4 names only throwing or shooting — though its own index routes "sliding stick" to that rule, so do not read the gap as a permission. And the same Hockey Canada interpretation adds that "A Penalty Shot may be awarded under this rule, if the player throws, shoots, kicks, or slides the stick at the puck or puck carrier in their defending zone." The minor is the floor there, not the exposure. ⚠️ One permission runs the other way, and it is the IIHF's alone: a stick your goalie dropped intact is not the same as a replacement for a broken one. IIHF Rule 10.4 lets an abandoned, intact stick "accidentally dropped by the goalkeeper" be "passed from hand to hand to the goalkeeper, or moved, pushed, or slid toward the goalkeeper by a teammate near the goalkeeper on the ice" — provided the moved stick does not interfere with play or distract opponents, and "a minor penalty or 'penalty shot'" if it does. The NHL writes the opposite, extending its throw-or-shoot ban to "situations where the goalkeeper has lost his stick and a teammate is trying to return it to him." Put it in their hand and you are right in all four books. You can play a shift without a stick far more cheaply than they can.
Answer their calls. A goalie whose calls get no response stops making them, and then you have lost the only player with a full view of the ice. One word back is enough.
Don't shoot at your goalie's head in warm-ups, and don't fire pucks at them from ten feet in drills. Both are more common than they should be. Not shooting there is a coaching caution rather than a rule of hockey — and there are two separate reasons to take it seriously, one about their head and one about the penalty sheet.
- ⚠️ Only two books stop play for the hit itself — everywhere else a referee has to judge the goalie hurt first. Every book does write a stoppage for an injured goalkeeper (NHL and IIHF Rule 8.1, USA Hockey Rule 206(a), Hockey Canada Rule 2.4(b), CARHA Rule 20(d)), so "no rule covers them" would be wrong. The catch is the trigger: all of those ask an official to read an injury off a player, which is what a goalie behind a cage supplies least of. Only IIHF Rule 9.6 and Hockey Canada Rule 6.18(a) key a stoppage to the puck hitting the mask, and both are narrower than they sound — the IIHF's is a "may" that turns on the referee believing the goalkeeper is "dazed" and is cancelled by an immediate scoring chance; Hockey Canada's "shall" reaches only "categories of U13 and below". The NHL, USA Hockey's stand-up rules and CARHA write no mask-specific counterpart at all — USA Hockey's only version of it is a Sled Hockey rule, and CARHA's Rule 24(f) stops play when a goalkeeper loses their helmet rather than when one takes the shot and keeps it on. So a shot you take at their head in a drill is one no official is obliged to notice. The full picture, and what a goalie should do about it, is under If you take one off the mask.
- ⚠️ And the warm-up is inside the rules, not outside them. All four books confine each team to its own half of the ice: NHL and IIHF Rule 86.6 — "each team shall confine its activity to its own end of the rink", both cross-referencing their own fighting rule at that point — USA Hockey Rule 636(c), which gives each team its warm-up "on their half of the rink", and Hockey Canada Rule 2.2(i) — the letter, in a list running (a) to (l), not a Roman numeral — under which "players will be restricted to their own half of the ice". So shooting at the opposition's goalie in warm-up breaks a rule in all four, which shooting at your own does not. ⚠️ What happens next splits two-and-two, and the half that matters to a British reader is not the penalty half. USA Hockey Rule 502(b) says "[p]enalties may also be assessed during the warm-up period", and Hockey Canada Rule 2.2(j) that the referee "will penalize any player who commits a violation of the rules during the pre-game warm-up", with the penalty "served at the start of the game". 🇬🇧 The NHL and the IIHF report it rather than penalising it — NHL 86.6 has a violation "reported to the Commissioner", IIHF 86.6 "reported to the Proper Authorities", both under Rule 86.6, which is the operative one. ⚠️ IIHF Rule 5.6 is often reached for here and will not carry it: its "No penalties are to be assessed but a report of the incident must be submitted to the Proper Authorities" — word for word in the 2025/26 (v1.1) and 2026/27 editions — follows three provisions about protective equipment, players not on the roster sheet and warming up at a stoppage, 5.6 does not confine the teams to their own halves at all, and the same book penalises fighting before the drop of the puck at Rule 46.10. Neither rule is a licence — reporting routes the incident past the referee to the people who decide whether you play next week.
Never blame the goalie out loud. They already know. The only thing your comment changes is their next twenty minutes.

Equipment Notes

Brief here — full treatment in Equipment.

Protection, and the neck laceration protector

Rule: Everything except your skates and stick must be built solely for protection, with no undue assistance in keeping goal (NHL and IIHF Rule 11.1)
Rule: Your mask is required equipment and it is not a skater's helmet — IIHF Rule 11.8 (same words in both editions), USA Hockey 304(d) HECC-certified below Adults, Hockey Canada 3.6(b) a CSA helmet with a CSA facial protector attached
Rule: An expired certification sticker is no certification — USA Hockey Rule 304(c); and Hockey Canada 3.6(b) says any alteration to a certified helmet or facial protector "automatically destroys the certification"
Rule: Across the Home Countries — England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland — a neck laceration protector is mandatory for everyone, adults included, with no warning and an immediate 10-minute misconduct (IHUK In-House Rules 2026-27, Rule 9.12)
Rule: If it comes off in play you must leave the ice and may not retrieve it, and a second offence escalates to a game misconduct (IHUK In-House Rules 2026-27, Rule 9.12)
Rule: Nothing exempts university hockey — the BUIHA adopts the In-House Rules alongside IHUK and they are "the overriding interpretation" domestically, but Rule 9.12's own competition list names IHUK, EIH and SIH and not the BUIHA, so wear it and ask your league (IHUK In-House Rules 2026-27)
Rule: IIHF Rule 9.12 is the base — mandatory in all categories, minor penalty after a warning; the In-House Rules remove the warning
Rule: Neck laceration protection is mandatory and a dangler does not satisfy it — Hockey Canada Rule 3.6(c) requires a BNQ-certified throat protector for players registered in minor and female hockey
Rule: USA Hockey Rule 304(g) requires a HECC-certified neck laceration protector in every age classification except Adults
Action: Borrow the pads, blocker, trapper and chest protector; buy the mask — an in-date sticker is a certification clock, not a condition report, and tells you nothing about a loaned mask's impact history
Action: Replace gear you have outgrown — gear that hurts you teaches you to flinch, and that cannot be coached out; fit and comfort beat brand and looks, and dull edges destroy lateral movement first

Everything except your skates and stick must be built solely for protection (NHL Rule 11.1, and IIHF Rule 11.1 in near-identical words). You may not wear anything that gives "undue assistance in keeping goal." At professional level, pad width, pad height, chest protector and pant dimensions are all regulated and inspected. The pad specifics are in Rule 11.2, not 11.1: NHL leg pads "shall not exceed eleven inches (11") in extreme width when on the leg of the player", and each goalie's maximum pad height is set individually by the League from their own floor-to-knee and knee-to-pelvis measurements. IIHF Rule 11.2 sets the same width in metric — "The leg guards worn by goalkeepers shall not exceed 28cm in extreme width" — but sets no individual height entitlement, so the NHL's per-goalie height calculation is a League scheme, not something to expect anywhere else.
Your mask is required equipment, it is not a skater's helmet, and its certification is the part you can actually check. IIHF Rule 11.8, in the same words in the 2025/26 (v1.1) and 2026/27 editions: "Goalkeepers must wear their face mask at all times during game action. Protective face masks of a design approved by the IIHF must be worn by goalkeepers…" and "[t]he face mask must be constructed in such a way that a puck cannot penetrate the openings." USA Hockey Rule 304(d) requires "[a]ll players, including goalkeepers, in all age classifications below Adults" to wear a HECC-certified facemask, and Rule 304(c) makes an expired sticker no certification at all — "a helmet that has an expiration date that has expired is no longer considered certified." Hockey Canada Rule 3.6(b) requires "all players, including goaltenders" to wear a CSA-certified helmet "to which a CSA-certified facial protector must be securely attached and not altered in any way", and adds that "[a]ny alteration to a CSA-certified helmet or facial protector automatically destroys the certification." ⚠️ So under USA Hockey and Hockey Canada, look at the sticker on anything you are loaned or handed down — and then read the second half of this bullet, because the sticker is where the checking starts and not where it stops. 🇬🇧 There may be no sticker for a British goalie to look at, and its absence is not a fault. The IIHF book names no outside certification body — Rule 11.8 asks only for a mask "of a design approved by the IIHF" — and neither the IHUK In-House Rules nor England Ice Hockey's Rules & Regulations names a mark or a standard number, so ask your league what it accepts and judge a loaned mask on its history instead. An expiry date is a certification clock, not a condition report: it tells you when the certification lapses, and nothing at all about how many pucks that shell has taken or what state the liner underneath is in. Foams absorb energy by crushing, and crushed foam does not un-crush. A club's spare mask has been on more heads and stopped more pucks than any hand-me-down, and nobody has logged them. So the working answer is the one Equipment lands on: borrow the pads, the blocker, the trapper and the chest protector; buy the mask. Ask what a loaned mask's age and impact history are by all means — but a mask nobody can account for is one you do not put your head in. (That last step is a reading of the certification rules above rather than a sentence any rule book writes: no book distinguishes a loaned mask from an owned one.)
🇬🇧 Neck laceration protection is mandatory for you, whatever your age, and this is the rule most likely to catch out a British goalie who learned the game from North American material. This is the signature catastrophic injury in your position, so treat it as the first line of the section rather than the last. Across all four Home Countries — the IHUK In-House Rules are adopted by Ice Hockey UK and the British Universities Ice Hockey Association, and applied "in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland (the Home Countries)" — a neck laceration protector is "mandatory for all players in all IIHF categories and IHUK/EIH/SIH competitions" — adults included — with no warning given and an immediate 10-minute misconduct for going without, a requirement to leave the ice if it comes off in play, and a second offence that escalates to a game misconduct. If you play in Wales or Northern Ireland, that is your rule too, and if you play university hockey it reaches you as well: the In-House Rules are "the overriding interpretation of how the IIHF Rule Book is to be applied domestically", the BUIHA adopts them alongside IHUK, and the BUIHA section of the book routes a fixture against a non-BUIHA opponent back to the standard IHUK in-house rules. Rule 9.12's own competition list names IHUK, EIH and SIH rather than the BUIHA, and no clause says in terms that the list reaches university hockey — but nothing exempts it either, and the underlying mandate is the IIHF's own, which covers every category of IIHF competition. That is stricter than the IIHF book it amends: IIHF Rule 9.12 already makes it mandatory "For all Players in all categories of IIHF Competition" but assesses only a minor "after warning by the Referee." The In-House Rules delete the warning. Enforcement detail, the visor and chin-strap rules that sit beside it, and the rest of the amendment list are in UK and England Rules.

The dangler is an addition, not a substitute, under every book that addresses it. IIHF Rule 9.12 permits it separately — "A goalkeeper may attach a throat protector to the chin of their facemask" — as a permission alongside the mandate, not in place of it. Hockey Canada Rule 3.6(c) says so outright, requiring a BNQ-certified throat protector for players registered in minor and female hockey and adding that "goaltenders who wear an attachment to the mask or helmet designed to protect the throat, must still wear a BNQ-certified throat protector." USA Hockey Rule 304(g) requires a HECC-certified neck laceration protector "that covers as much of the neck area as possible" for all players including goalkeepers in every age classification except Adults (BNQ-certified protectors also satisfy it through the 2026-27 season; Adults are strongly recommended to wear one) — and that adult exemption is the North American position, not yours. Full standards, certification periods and the Canada/US/Europe divergence are in Equipment.
Equipment confidence is a real thing, and old gear destroys it. Knowing your arm pads will handle a high shot, and that your pads will not be overpowered when you close the five-hole, is what lets you stay in the shot instead of turning away from it. Gear that hurts you teaches you to flinch, and flinching is a technique problem you cannot coach out — so if you are an adult returning to the position in equipment you bought as a teenager, replacing it is probably the single largest available improvement to your game. Fit and comfort beat brand and looks, and a properly sharpened, correctly profiled skate matters more than either: dull goalie edges destroy lateral movement first.

If you take one off the mask

Rule: 🇬🇧 The IIHF is the book that writes you a stoppage for this — hit on the face mask by a hard shot and believed dazed, the referee "may stop play for safety reasons if there is no immediate scoring chance for the attacking team" (IIHF Rule 9.6, 2025/26 v1.1 and 2026/27 alike)
Rule: Read both of IIHF Rule 9.6's limits — it is "may" and not shall, and an immediate scoring chance for the attacking team defeats it outright, so the whistle you need may never come
Rule: Hockey Canada writes the stronger version for a narrower group — a goaltender struck in the head by the puck means the referee "shall stop play as soon as it is safe to do so", but only "In categories of U13 and below" (Rule 6.18(a))
Rule: Hockey Canada 6.18(a) also tells the officials what the stoppage is for — "always allow team staff to evaluate the goaltender during a stoppage under this rule … to allow for concussion protocols be applied"
Rule: The NHL, CARHA and USA Hockey's stand-up rules write no mask-specific counterpart — none covers a mask that stays on and takes the shot, and USA Hockey's only version of it is a Sled Hockey rule
Rule: Every book still stops play for an injured goalkeeper — NHL and IIHF 8.1, USA Hockey 206(a), Hockey Canada 2.4(b), CARHA 20(d) — but each needs a referee to judge you hurt, which is what a cage hides
Rule: NHL 8.2's "must be ready to resume play immediately" is a rule against delaying the game, not a verdict on your head — and the same rule lets you stay in where the Trainer comes on and there is no undue delay
Action: Say it at the next stoppage — to the nearest official, to your bench, to your captain. You are the only player on the ice whose face nobody can see
Never: Play on to find out how it feels. A concussion needs no knock-out and no body check, and judgement is one of the things it impairs
Key: The symptoms, the red flags that mean an ambulance and what happens next are in Conditioning and Recovery; when you play again is a qualified medical professional's decision, not yours

A puck off your mask is the one impact in this position nobody else can assess for you, because your face is behind a cage and the rest of you looks fine. Only two of the four books write a stoppage keyed to the hit itself — one discretionary, the other capped by age — and CARHA, the adult rec book, writes no mask-specific stoppage either. ⚠️ What every one of them does write is a stoppage for an injured goalkeeper, so "no rule covers me" is the wrong thing to carry onto the ice. The catch is in the trigger: those rules ask an official to judge that you are hurt, and yours is the one face on the ice they cannot see. So the whistle is not the thing to rely on.

🇬🇧 The IIHF book has a clause for exactly this, and it is the book you play under in Britain. IIHF Rule 9.6 — the same rule as the lost-mask and mask-removal limbs above — carries one more sentence, in identical words in the 2025/26 (v1.1) and 2026/27 editions: "When a goalkeeper is hit on the face mask by a hard shot with the puck and the Referee believes the goalkeeper is, or may be, dazed by that hard shot, the Referee may stop play for safety reasons if there is no immediate scoring chance for the attacking team." Nothing in the IHUK In-House Rules searched for this document touches Rule 9.6 — their Rule 9 amendments run 9.1, 9.3, 9.7, 9.8 and 9.12 — so it reaches you unaltered. ⚠️ Read both of its limits, because together they mean the whistle may not come. It is may and not shall, and it turns on a referee's belief about a face they cannot see; and an immediate scoring chance for the other team defeats it outright — which is precisely the moment you are least able to make the save and most likely to take a second one.
Hockey Canada writes the stronger version, for a narrower group. Rule 6.18(a): "In categories of U13 and below should a Goaltender be struck in the head by the puck the Referee shall stop play as soon as it is safe to do so", unless the puck deflects directly in, in which case the goal stands. That is a shall — and it stops at U13. A fourteen-year-old under the same book gets nothing. The rule also says what the stoppage is for: "Officials should always allow team staff to evaluate the goaltender during a stoppage under this rule (if necessary) to allow for concussion protocols be applied."
Every book does stop play for an injured goalkeeper — the gap is in the trigger, not in whether a stoppage exists. NHL Rule 8.1 and IIHF Rule 8.1 stop play once a player is "injured so that [they] cannot continue play or go to [their] bench", and let an official stop it at once where "it is obvious that a Player has sustained a serious injury" — and both books' Rule 8.2 then presupposes exactly that: "When play has been stopped by the Referee or Linesperson due to an injured goalkeeper…". USA Hockey Rule 206(a) writes the same stoppage and puts goalkeepers inside it by carving them out of a different consequence — "A player other than a goalkeeper, whose injury appears serious enough to warrant the stoppage of play, may not participate further in the game until the completion of the ensuing face-off" — which is only necessary if you are inside the stoppage to begin with. Hockey Canada Rule 2.4(b) does it the same way, its Note 2 excluding the goaltender only from having to leave the ice. And CARHA, the adult rec book, writes the lowest threshold of the five: Rule 20(d) stops play immediately, and its Note 1 reads "Where there is suspicion that a player has sustained an injury, the Referee may stop the play immediately" — no serious, no obvious — with the book's own definitions settling that it reaches you: "Except where special rules apply, the goalkeeper is to be considered as one of the players." ⚠️ So the honest version is not that no rule covers you. It is that every one of these rules asks an official to see that you are hurt — and a goalie who stays upright behind a cage is the hardest player on the ice to see it in. That is what IIHF 9.6 and Hockey Canada 6.18(a) are for, it is why they are the only two that trigger on the puck rather than on your condition, and it is why saying something yourself is still the part that is genuinely yours.
The NHL, CARHA and USA Hockey's stand-up rules write no mask-specific counterpart — and USA Hockey's one exception is in a section that does not govern you unless you play sled hockey. NHL Rule 9.6, USA Hockey Rule 304(e) and Hockey Canada Rule 3.6(d) all cover a mask that comes off; none of them covers a mask that stays on and takes the shot. CARHA — the adult rec book, which governs CARHA-affiliated adult leagues only — is the same: its Rule 24(f) stops play "[w]hen a goalkeeper loses their helmet", and its face-protection clauses are about what you must wear rather than about what a shot does to it — 24(d), "Goalkeepers must still wear a full face mask", and 23(d), which has you take the face protector off for identification if the referee asks. Nothing in the book reaches a mask that stays on and takes the puck. ⚠️ The one place USA Hockey writes the IIHF's clause is its Sled Hockey rules, under Goalkeeper's Equipment — Helmet: "Should a hard shot hit the goalkeeper's facemask while play is in progress, the play may be stopped at the discretion of the Referee only if no immediate scoring chance is presented to the opposing team." That is the same discretionary test as IIHF Rule 9.6, and it is written for sled hockey — so if you are a stand-up goalie under USA Hockey rules, it is not yours. (The same book writes the broken-stick play-on allowance in the same place and nowhere else; see If your stick breaks below.) ⚠️ And do not read NHL Rule 8.2 as a verdict on your head. Its "must be ready to resume play immediately or be replaced by a substitute goalkeeper and no additional time shall be allowed" is a rule about not delaying the game — and quoting it that far and stopping loses the counterweights in the same rule. It substitutes you "only if he has to proceed to the players' bench to receive medical attention"; "[i]f the Trainer has come onto the ice to attend to the goalkeeper and there is no undue delay, the goalkeeper may remain in the game"; and where a goalkeeper is "removed from the game for mandatory medical evaluation/injury, the replacement goalkeeper may be afforded a brief warm-up." IIHF Rule 8.2 reads the same way and adds that a team doctor may come onto the ice "without waiting for the Referee's consent". Hockey Canada runs furthest the other way: under Rule 2.4(c), where no alternate goaltender is dressed, an injured goaltender "will be allowed 10 minutes to recuperate", and fifteen if a replacement is needed. ⚠️ None of that is a clearance to carry on. It is the books declining to rush you, which is a different thing from telling you that you are fine — and it is still an official's judgement, not a medical one.

So the part that is genuinely yours is small, and it is not optional: say something. At the next stoppage, tell the nearest official, your bench and your captain. The position rewards toughness in a way that makes this hard, and it is worth being blunt about the arithmetic: a goalie who comes off and turns out to be fine has cost their team a goalie change, and a goalie who stays on and is not fine has taken a second impact on an injured brain. ⚠️ A concussion does not require being knocked out and does not require a body check. Conditioning and Recovery has the symptoms, the red flags that mean an ambulance, and why nobody returns the same day. What it will not give you — and neither will this document — is a timeline for coming back. That is a decision for a qualified medical professional who has assessed you.

Your stick — paddle length

Rule: Paddle length is capped at 26 inches (NHL Rule 10.2), and only players 6'6" or taller may apply for the exemption
Rule: IIHF Rule 10.2 allows 71 cm, about 28 inches, with no exemption process
Key: Too long a paddle makes you stand taller, drifts your stick hand from your body and opens the six-hole

Paddle length is capped at 26 inches (Rule 10.2 — the widened portion of the stick may not extend more than 26 inches from the heel, nor exceed three and a half inches in width). There is an exemption process, and only players 6'6" or taller may use it: a longer paddle must be requested in writing and approved by Hockey Operations before the stick is used. (Oddly, the 2025-26 rulebook sets the maximum length of an exempted paddle at "twenty-six inches (26")" — the same as the ordinary limit, which makes the exemption as written do nothing. The parallel provision for skaters' sticks in Rule 10.1 does grant real extra length, 65 inches against 63. Read the goalkeeper's figure as probably stale; it is not something to plan equipment around.) For everybody else 26 inches is the ceiling under the NHL book. 🇬🇧 Under IIHF Rule 10.2 the limit is 71 cm — about 28 inches — with no exemption process at all, and a 9.0 cm width cap that works out at 3.54 inches against the NHL's three and a half — the same limit for practical purposes. So the stick that is illegal in the NHL is legal in Britain, which is a licence rather than an instruction: the extra two inches are exactly the two inches that make you stand taller, drift your stick hand from your body and open the six-hole. Get this right before you rework your technique.

If your stick breaks

Rule: In stand-up hockey, playing on with a broken stick is a goalkeeper's permission under NHL and IIHF Rule 10.4 alone — you are not required to drop it there, and neither USA Hockey's stand-up rules nor Hockey Canada writes you that allowance
Rule: Hockey Canada bars it in terms — "A goaltender may not continue to play with a broken stick of any kind" (Rule 3.2(c)), penalised as a minor for illegal equipment under 3.2(d) and 10.6(a)
Rule: USA Hockey's stand-up rules write a goalkeeper no play-on allowance — 605(a) names you once, only to grant "reasonable time to be aware that the stick is broken", so on the rule as written you take the minor a skater would; its sled hockey rules do grant it, and they do not govern stand-up play
Rule: Never go to the bench for a replacement stick — a teammate hands you one on the ice (NHL and IIHF Rule 10.4; USA Hockey 605(c), a minor for delay of game on a goalie who goes during a stoppage)
Rule: A whistle does not release you: at a stoppage, going to the bench for a stick, equipment, repairs, an injury or instructions "without first obtaining permission to do so from the Referee" means immediate replacement or a bench minor (NHL Rule 27.6; IIHF Rule 27.5)
Rule: A skater's stick is legal for you until a goalkeeper's stick reaches you, under all four books — NHL and IIHF 10.4, USA Hockey Casebook Rule 605 Situation 5 within goalkeeper stick measurements, Hockey Canada 3.2(c) until the next stoppage
Rule: Under Hockey Canada leave a slid stick where it lies — Interpretation 1 to Rule 3.2(c) assesses the goaltender a minor under 10.6(a) for picking it up, and none at all if they do not
Rule: Tell your skaters not to slide it either — Hockey Canada's Interpretation 1 to 3.2(c) puts a minor on them under 10.5(a) and reaches a penalty shot where the stick is slid at the puck or puck carrier in your defending zone
Never: Assume the NHL and IIHF play-on allowance travels to USA Hockey play — under its rules that is a question for your league

If your stick breaks, the rule that applies to you is not the same in every book. Under NHL Rule 10.4 a goalkeeper "may continue to play with a broken stick until a stoppage of play or until he has one legally provided to him by a teammate", and IIHF Rule 10.4 says the same in its own words — "until they have one legally handed to them by a teammate". You are not required to drop it, which is the opposite of the skater rule. ⚠️ Neither of the other two books gives you that in stand-up play. USA Hockey's stand-up rules write no equivalent allowance. Its Rule 605(a) opens "Any player whose stick is broken must drop their stick prior to participating in the play" and closes "A minor penalty for an equipment violation shall be assessed for participating in play with a broken stick", and neither sentence carves you out. The rule names you exactly once, in the sentence between them — "A player or goalkeeper shall be allowed reasonable time to be aware that the stick is broken" — and what that grants you is time to notice, not permission to play on. 605(c) covers only where the replacement comes from. So on the rule as written a USA Hockey goalie who plays on with a broken stick takes the minor a skater would. The one place USA Hockey does grant it is its Sled Hockey rules, which say in terms that "A goalkeeper is allowed to play with a broken stick until the next stoppage of play or until the goalkeeper has been legally provided with a new stick. The goalkeeper can go to the bench and change their stick when the play is in progress." That reverses 605(c) as well as 605(a) — and it governs sled hockey, not the stand-up game, so do not carry it across. Hockey Canada bars it outright, at Rule 3.2(c): "A goaltender may not continue to play with a broken stick of any kind", penalised under 3.2(d) as a minor for illegal equipment — but read the whole of 3.2(c), because its first sentence is a permission, and it is the one you will actually use: "A goaltender who breaks or loses their stick may use a player's stick that has been handed to them until the next stoppage of play. In this case the players' stick will not be considered illegal equipment." What you do instead is in the books, so do not improvise it: you may not go to the bench for one (NHL and IIHF Rule 10.4, and USA Hockey 605(c)), a teammate hands you a replacement on the ice, and a skater's stick is legal in the meantime — NHL Rule 10.4 permits it "until such time as he is legally provided with a replacement goalkeeper's stick", the USA Hockey Casebook allows it at Rule 605, Situation 5 on one condition, "[a]s long as the stick does not exceed the maximum measurements set forth for goalkeeper sticks", and Hockey Canada 3.2(c) allows "a player's stick that has been handed to them until the next stoppage of play", at which point a proper goalkeeper's stick must reach you. ⚠️ Under Hockey Canada, take it from a hand and not off the ice: Interpretation 1 to 3.2(c) says that if a teammate slides it and "the goaltender picks up the stick, they will be assessed a Minor penalty under Rule 10.6 (a) – Illegal Equipment", and none at all "if they do not pick up the stick." Tell your skaters what sliding it costs them, because it is not only your problem: the same interpretation puts a minor on the teammate under 10.5(a) and adds that "A Penalty Shot may be awarded under this rule, if the player throws, shoots, kicks, or slides the stick at the puck or puck carrier in their defending zone." Until it reaches you, you have a blocker, a glove and your body, and that is the trade the rule makes. Do not assume the NHL allowance travels to USA Hockey play; if you are a goalie under USA Hockey rules, ask your league. Full treatment in Rules Primer.
⚠️ A whistle does not release you, and this is the limb most goalies never hear. Rule 10.4 is not the only rule about your bench trip. A second one sits in the same rule that keeps you in your net during a fight — NHL Rule 27.6 and IIHF Rule 27.5, whose operative words are the same in both books. Quoting the IIHF's, which is the one Britain plays: "during stoppages of play in the game" a goalkeeper "must not proceed to their Players' bench for the purpose of receiving a replacement stick or equipment or repairs thereto, or due to an injury, or to receive instructions, without first obtaining permission to do so from the Referee." Otherwise they "must be replaced by the substitute goalkeeper immediately (without any delay) or be assessed a bench minor penalty" — the NHL writing the same sentence with "he" and "his" and adding "for delay of game" at the end. Note who pays. A bench minor is served by a teammate, so those two minutes come off your team rather than off you, and the alternative is being pulled for your backup on the spot. Note also that this is a different penalty from 10.4's. Rule 10.4 in both books bars the bench trip flatly — "may not go to the Players' bench for a replacement but must receive their stick from a teammate" — and puts "a minor penalty … on the goalkeeper", while 27.6 / 27.5 open a permission route at a stoppage and put a bench minor on your team if you take it without asking. The books do not say how the two fit together at a whistle, and this document does not resolve it either. What follows from that is one instruction rather than a ranking. A broken stick at a whistle is the likeliest moment in a game that you will meet either of them: catch the referee's eye and ask before you move, and if the answer is no, take a teammate's stick on the ice and wait.

A stick loose on your ice, and the goal that goes in off it

Rule: A goal is disallowed if an attacker deliberately propels a lost or broken stick, glove or other object at the puck to direct it into the net — new in the IIHF Situation Handbook 2026/27 at Situation 10.26, with no counterpart in the 2025/26 book Britain plays
Rule: Intent is the key at Situation 10.26: the IIHF Situation Handbook 2026/27 lets a goal stand where a lost or broken stick, glove or object accidentally deflects the puck in, and it ranks itself below the rulebook — ask your referee rather than assume it settles a goal in your league
Key: Play the puck, not the argument — the call is made after the fact, so if you saw a deliberate kick say so while the picture is fresh

There is a published answer to the other half of the broken-stick question — a stick loose on your ice that an opponent kicks at the puck. The IIHF Situation Handbook 2026/27 puts it at Situation 10.26: a Team A goalkeeper or player loses their stick, and a Team B player "kicks the stick at the puck, hitting the puck and causing it to enter the goal." The answer: "If, in the judgement of the Referee, an attacking player propels a lost or broken stick, glove or any other object at the puck, with intent to deliberately direct the puck into the net, the goal shall be disallowed." The note beside it is the operative half — "The key element to this situation is intent. If the lost or broken stick, glove or any other object accidentally contacts the puck knocking it into the net, the goal may be allowed." So it turns on what the referee judges the opponent meant, and it is decided after the fact, not during it. Nothing about the save changes: play the puck, not the argument. What changes is the aftermath — if you saw a deliberate kick, say so while the picture is fresh, and do not assume a puck that went in off a loose stick has necessarily counted. ⚠️ Know what this answer is and what it is not. It is in the 2026/27 Handbook and has no counterpart in the 2025/26 one, so under the older edition there is no published answer to point at. The Handbook ranks itself below the rulebook in terms — its Foreword reads "in case of any contradictions, the valid IIHF Rulebook is always the basis" — and this particular answer cites no rule number, where most of its neighbours do. And it is a later edition than the rulebook the British In-House Rules adopt: the IHUK In-House Rules 2026-27 name the IIHF Rule Book "Version 1.1, published July 2025", which is the 2025/26 book. So read Situation 10.26 as the IIHF's current interpretation, and ask your referee rather than assuming it settles a goal in your league.

The Mental Side

The goal that goes in

Mindset: Every goalie lets in goals and some will be bad — the skill is what you do in the ninety seconds afterwards
Action: Have a reset ritual and perform it identically every time, so it signals that the previous shift is finished
Never: Do the analysis during the game — "what could I have done?" takes attention you need for the next play
Key: Short memory, long memory — forget the goal for the rest of the game, remember the read in the week after
Never: Point at a teammate, with your hands, your body language or a look

Every goalie lets in goals. Some of them will be bad. The puck will go through you, or off your defenceman's shin, or you will be on the wrong post. The building will react and there is nowhere to hide.

The skill is not avoiding this. It is what you do in the ninety seconds afterwards.

Have a reset ritual and use it every time. Skate a small circle. Get a drink. Scrape your crease. Tap both posts. Whatever it is, make it identical every time, so that performing it becomes the signal to your body that the previous shift is finished.
Do the analysis later. During the game, "what could I have done?" is a trap; it takes attention you need for the next play. There is video and there is tomorrow.
Short memory, long memory. Forget the goal for the rest of the game. Remember the read that caused it in the week after.
Never point at a teammate. Not with your hands, not with your body language, not with a look. It is the fastest way to lose a dressing room — and Mitch Korn treats blaming your defence as a symptom of a confidence problem rather than a description of what happened. His full list of those symptoms is under Spotting your own confidence problems, below.

Spotting your own confidence problems

Key: Korn's defence mechanisms are symptoms of your head, not real problems
Read: Blaming your equipment — suddenly nothing is right, the stick, the skates, the arm pads
Read: Blaming your defence — "there was no way to stop that one"
Read: Positioning drift — hiding very deep, or running at shooters and losing the net. Both show up plainly in warm-ups
Read: Mood swings to either extreme — quiet and sorry for yourself, or conspicuously cocky
Read: Guessing and flopping — leaving your feet early and no longer tracking the puck off the stick

Mitch Korn's list of defence mechanisms is uncomfortably accurate. If you catch yourself doing these, treat them as symptoms of your head rather than as real problems:

Blaming your equipment. Suddenly nothing is right — the stick, the skates, the arm pads.
Blaming your defence. "There was no way to stop that one."
Positioning drift. Either hiding very deep in the net, where the posts feel safe, or running at shooters to cut the angle down to nothing and losing the net entirely. Both show up plainly in warm-ups.
Mood swings to either extreme — going quiet and sorry for yourself, or going conspicuously cocky.
Guessing and flopping. Leaving your feet early, no longer tracking the puck off the stick, and ending up swimming on the ice.

The honest version of the mental demand

Mindset: "The most psychologically demanding position in team sport" is widely repeated with no study behind it. Treat it as opinion
Key: The supported version: at the top level the separation is mental — reading, anticipation, tracking, save selection and toughness
Risk: Confidence is startlingly fragile — several strong games, one bad period, and it can be gone for a week
Key: Nobody else on your team plays a position where every mistake is final and public
Mindset: Goalies need to enjoy making saves — if the save is the thing you love, the goals are a price

Goaltending is routinely described as the most psychologically demanding position in team sport. That is a widely repeated claim with no study behind it, so treat it as opinion. The narrower version is well supported by coaches and still substantial: at the top level, where everyone has the physical skills, the separation is made in mental ones — reading, anticipation, tracking, save selection and toughness; confidence is startlingly fragile, and a goalie can play several strong games, have one bad period and lose it for a week; and nobody else on your team plays a position where every mistake is final and public.

The counterweight is the part that actually keeps people in the position: goalies need to enjoy making saves. If the save is the thing you love, the goals are a price. If the goals are the thing you think about, no amount of technique will hold up. Full treatment in Mental Game.

Common Mistakes

Dropping into the butterfly before the shot. You have given away the top of the net and removed your own save selection. Go down when going down is the answer.
Hands at your hips. Get them out in front where pucks can hit them.
Half-seeing a screen from both sides. Around or over is a genuine coaching split — this document's default is around (tall means immobile), and the BVHS manual teaches over to maintain size. Ask your own coach. What nobody defends is splitting the difference: pick a side and find the puck cleanly there.
Being deep and off-angle. Under the mainstream teaching — angle first, then depth — deep and off-angle is a goal. Treat that as a coaching philosophy rather than a law: there is a documented exception when you step off the post to a short-side shot, where depth is what closes the gap you just opened. Ask your coach which they teach.
Charging at shooters. Cutting down the angle is not the same as running out of your net. You lose the net, the pass and your feet at once.
Shuffling too big. Large shuffles open the five-hole mid-step. Smaller is better every time.
Rebounds into the slot. Angle your blocker and pads at the corners. Know where their forwards are before the shot.
Losing sight of the puck at contact. Explosive, flailing saves see nothing and control nothing. Watch it into the equipment.
Being a spectator on a pass. Move when the pass is released, not when it arrives.
Dropping to a post out of habit, with no read. Late on and early off, with post seals kept for pucks genuinely below the goal line, is one school — the conservative North American default this document follows. The Swedish tradition where RVH originated teaches an earlier, more systematic seal with a defined trigger line, and both are defensible. Ask what your trigger is. The actual mistake is going down there because it is what you always do.
Going from the dressing room straight into live shots. The butterfly drops, the slides and the post seals are all force produced at the end of your hip range, and the BVHS goalie manual is blunt about what that costs cold: "Jumping straight into live shots without a sweat drastically increases the risk of pulled groin or hip flexor muscles." ⚠️ That is a coaching manual's judgement rather than a measured rate, and it attaches no figure to it — none is invented here. Get warm and moving through range first; Conditioning and Recovery owns the warm-up, and the evidence it sets out favours moving over holding a stretch. Groin or hip pain that persists or keeps coming back is a physiotherapist's or sports physician's problem, not a document's.
Playing the puck in the corner under NHL or IIHF rules. Two minutes, and it is entirely avoidable.
In England and Wales, hearing "the restricted area isn't enforced here" as "I can do what I like behind the net". England Ice Hockey's Rule 22.3 suspends the Restricted Area and nothing else. IIHF Rule 63.2(I) is a separate minor, untouched by anything British held here, and it still catches a goalkeeper who freezes the puck to cause a stoppage anywhere "outside of their goal crease area" — your crease, not the trapezoid. Playing it out there may be free; sitting on it is not. And do not over-correct: coming out to cut down the angle, making the save and then covering is legal in terms (63.2(VI) Note).
Under USA Hockey, declining a cover you were entitled to make. Rule 614(c) bars the corner, the ice behind your own goal line, and a freeze you had the time and the space to play with your stick — not a smother made under pressure in front of your net, which its Casebook allows whether or not any part of you is touching the crease (Rule 614(c), Situations 8, 10, 11 and 12). A puck left loose in traffic because you thought you could not touch it is a scramble you did not need to have.
Under Hockey Canada, reading clause v on its own and letting go of a puck you had already covered. Interpretation 3 to Rule 10.1(a), clause v, is blunt: leave your crease and freeze the puck and it is a Minor penalty, "No warning will be issued." ⚠️ Clause ii of the same Interpretation expressly permits the opposite — coming out "to cut down the angle and catch the shot or, after stopping the shot, cover the puck" — and Hockey Canada nowhere says which of the two governs a cover made after a save outside the crease, so reading ii as the exception is a reading rather than a Hockey Canada ruling. It is how the other books print the same pair: the Note to NHL Rule 63.2(vi) and IIHF 63.2(VI) say a come-out, cut-the-angle save followed by a cover "shall be legal", and USA Hockey's Casebook answers that case no penalty at Rule 614(c) Situation 8 — with the proviso that a minor is assessed if "the goalkeeper had sufficient time to drop the puck and play it with no attacking players in their immediate vicinity." What clause iv penalises with no warning is a different act: the goaltender who races an attacker to a loose puck and, instead of playing it, "simply jumps on the puck, causing a stoppage of play" — no save involved. Ask your league which way its referees take clause v — but do not open your glove in a net-front scramble on the strength of clause v alone.
Banking snow up in front of your net, or dropping a covered puck onto the netting to buy a whistle. Both are minors written for goalkeepers specifically: the netting act at NHL and IIHF Rule 67.3(iv) and 85.6, USA Hockey Rule 610(f) and Hockey Canada Rule 10.1(vi) — though the pads half is written by the first three books only, Hockey Canada's clause naming the netting alone; the snow at NHL and IIHF Rule 67.3(v) and the same USA Hockey Rule 610(f). ⚠️ Under Hockey Canada the snow is not delay of game at all but Interference (Rule 8.3(a)), and Rule 4.11(a)(iv) turns it into a penalty shot where the pile actually prevents a goal with you legally on the ice. Scrape rather than heap. And a puck that lands on your netting by itself is not the same act — the NHL and the IIHF let you freeze it for a defending-zone faceoff and no penalty (Rule 85.2), but USA Hockey's Casebook gives you a minor for it (Rule 610, Situation 8) and Hockey Canada reaches it through Rule 6.12(b). If it is going to fall off on its own, let it.
Pulling your own mask off to buy a whistle. It is a delay-of-game minor in all four books — NHL and IIHF Rule 9.6, USA Hockey Rule 304(e), Hockey Canada Rule 3.6(d). ⚠️ Do it against a breakaway, a penalty shot or a shootout attempt and the NHL and the IIHF stop pricing it as a penalty and award the goal; USA Hockey Rule 610(e) and Hockey Canada Rule 4.11(a)(iii) award a penalty shot, and both of those add a last-two-minutes-and-overtime limb with no breakaway needed. If the mask genuinely comes off, all four books stop the play for you anyway.
Drifting toward a dumped puck you wanted whistled. Under NHL and IIHF rules, moving in its direction waves off the icing and hands them a live puck in your end. Decide first, then stand still or go.
Stepping over the centre red line to reach a puck still on your own side. A minor under USA Hockey Rule 407(c) and Hockey Canada Rule 4.13(c), which judge it on the position of your skates. ⚠️ Look those two rules up and you will not find the skates test in either of them — USA Hockey's is in the separate Casebook volume at Rule 407(c), Situation 13, and Hockey Canada's is in a different playing rule, Rule 8.3(a)(ii), restated in Interpretation 2 to Rule 4.13(c). And how much North American rec and youth hockey runs on one of those two books is a question about leagues, and this document has no count for it. Under the NHL and the IIHF the same move is legal, because their rules judge it on the position of the puck (NHL Rule 27.7; IIHF Rule 27.6). Keep your skates and the puck both on your own side and you are legal under all four.
Leaving your net when a fight starts. A minor under NHL Rule 27.6 and IIHF Rule 27.5, and under Hockey Canada Rule 7.10(a) unless the referee has given you permission to move. Stay in the crease; if the altercation is in it, wait to be directed out — the NHL and IIHF carve-out is written to the referee, and Hockey Canada Rule 7.10(d) likewise has you stay in your crease "or proceed to a neutral zone designated by the Referee." Going in to help costs you a game misconduct on top: USA Hockey Rule 615(d) ejects "any player or goalkeeper who is the first to intervene", with no crease condition on it, and Hockey Canada Rule 7.10(e)(ii) ejects a player who "joins in a fight or acts as a peacemaker" — and its Glossary makes that "player" you, so going in to break it up is caught as squarely as going in to fight. ⚠️ A fifth book says the same thing in three places, and adult recreational hockey is where you are most likely to meet it: CARHA Rule 37(c) is a minor for leaving your crease during a fight, 37(d) a game misconduct for leaving it "to join in a fight, act as a peacemaker, or take part in another fight", and Note 2 to Rule 59(a) the route out — "The goalkeepers must stay in their goal creases or proceed to a neutral zone designated by the Referee", with a game misconduct for refusing once instructed. CARHA-affiliated adult leagues only — ask whether your league is affiliated rather than assuming the four-book answer is yours.
Taking a loaned or handed-down mask without looking at the sticker. Goalkeeper face protection is required under every book — IIHF Rule 11.8, USA Hockey Rule 304(d) (HECC-certified below Adults) and Hockey Canada Rule 3.6(b) (a CSA helmet with a CSA facial protector attached) — and certification expires: USA Hockey Rule 304(c) says "a helmet that has an expiration date that has expired is no longer considered certified." ⚠️ But the sticker is a certification clock, not a condition report — it carries an expiry date, and tells you nothing about that mask's impact history or the state of its liner, which is what actually protects your head. 🇬🇧 And a British goalie may have no sticker to look at at all, because no British rule names a certification mark — so ask your league what it accepts, and ask the mask's history either way. Club gear is how most new goalies get on the ice at all and borrowing it is right: borrow the pads, the blocker, the trapper and the chest protector, and buy the mask. Equipment owns used and second-hand head protection and sets out why.
🇬🇧 Going without a neck laceration protector because a North American source said adults are exempt. That exemption is USA Hockey's (Rule 304(g)), and Hockey Canada's rule is scoped to minor and female hockey (Rule 3.6(c)). IIHF Rule 9.12 makes one mandatory "For all Players in all categories of IIHF Competition", adults included — and every British level plays the IIHF book, with the In-House Rules deleting the warning and going straight to a 10-minute misconduct. A throat dangler on your mask is an addition, not a substitute, under every book that addresses it.
Playing on after a hard shot off your mask because no whistle came. ⚠️ Under the IIHF book — yours in Britain — that whistle is discretionary, and an immediate scoring chance defeats it. Rule 9.6 says the referee "may stop play for safety reasons if there is no immediate scoring chance for the attacking team." Hockey Canada makes it a shall only at U13 and below (Rule 6.18(a)), and the NHL, CARHA and USA Hockey's stand-up rules write no mask-specific counterpart at all — USA Hockey's only version of it is in its Sled Hockey rules, which do not govern stand-up play. ⚠️ Every book still stops play for an injured goalkeeper — NHL and IIHF Rule 8.1, USA Hockey Rule 206(a), Hockey Canada Rule 2.4(b), CARHA Rule 20(d) — but each of those needs a referee to judge that you are hurt, which is precisely what a cage hides. So the stoppage may never arrive, and the part that is yours is saying something at the next one. ⚠️ A concussion needs no knock-out and no body check to have happened, and judgement is one of the things it impairs — so this is not a call to make on your own read of how you feel. Symptoms and red flags are in Conditioning and Recovery; when you play again is a qualified medical professional's decision.
Walking a net-front opponent across the front of your own net — one of two mistakes in this list that belong to a goalie's teammates rather than to the goalie. ⚠️ Which league you are in decides whether you may move them at all; the direction you move them is not scoped to a league at all, and a legal box-out puts a body on the same path an illegal shove does. That route has a steel goal frame at one edge and your own goaltender at the other, and the player being moved travels it sideways or backwards and can see neither. USA Hockey writes the goal post into the head-first spinal-injury mechanism alongside the boards, and the injury from that head-down, head-first collision is one it says "can occur at walking speed". Toward the corner is coaching caution drawn from that hazard rather than a rule anyone writes — what the rules price is the worst version of it, and never at two minutes: USA Hockey 608(b) a major plus a game misconduct where a check from behind "causes them to go head first into the boards or goal frame", Hockey Canada 7.5(c) a match penalty where the player is "unable to protect or defend themselves", and no minor for checking from behind at all under the NHL's book or the IIHF's (43.2 in both). And their skates stay on the ice while you move them, because a player whose edges are gone cannot brace and cannot choose what meets the post first. If you are the one being moved, in any league: head up, chin off your chest.
Shooting at your goalie in warm-up or in a drill — the other mistake in this list that belongs to a goalie's teammates. Warm-up is inside the rules, not outside them: all four books confine each team to its own half — NHL and IIHF Rule 86.6 ("each team shall confine its activity to its own end of the rink"), USA Hockey Rule 636(c) and Hockey Canada Rule 2.2(i) ("players will be restricted to their own half of the ice") — so a puck sent at the other team's goalie breaks a rule in every book, and USA Hockey and Hockey Canada let officials penalise it there and then (Rule 502(b); Rule 2.2(j), the penalty "served at the start of the game"). 🇬🇧 The NHL and the IIHF report it instead of penalising it, which is not a licence — IIHF Rule 86.6 is the operative one, and "any violation of this rule by the Players shall be reported to the Proper Authorities." (IIHF Rule 5.6's "No penalties are to be assessed" is often quoted here, but that sentence follows three provisions about protective equipment, unlisted players and warming up at a stoppage, and the same book penalises fighting before the drop of the puck at Rule 46.10 — so do not read it as blanket immunity for warm-up conduct.) ⚠️ At your own goalie only two books stop play for the hit itself, which is the point: IIHF Rule 9.6's is a "may" defeated by an immediate scoring chance and Hockey Canada Rule 6.18(a)'s "shall" stops at U13, while the NHL, USA Hockey's stand-up rules and CARHA write no mask-specific stoppage at all. Every book does stop play for an injured goalkeeper (NHL and IIHF 8.1, USA Hockey 206(a), Hockey Canada 2.4(b), CARHA 20(d)) — but each of those waits on a referee judging them hurt, and a goalie in a cage is who that reads worst on. Head-high in warm-up and pucks fired from ten feet in drills are both commoner than they should be. Not shooting there is a coaching caution rather than a rule of hockey — which is exactly why a teammate who does not shoot there is the only protection on offer.
Assuming you may play on with a broken stick. NHL and IIHF Rule 10.4 let you; USA Hockey's stand-up rules write no such allowance — the one place it grants it is its sled hockey rules, which do not govern stand-up play — and Hockey Canada bars it in terms (Rule 3.2(c)). Under either of those books, drop it and call for one from a teammate on the ice — and under Hockey Canada the teammate's own stick is legal in your hands until the next stoppage, because the same Rule 3.2(c) says a player's stick handed to a goaltender "will not be considered illegal equipment".
Lifting a clear over the glass. Under NHL and IIHF Rule 63.2(iii) a puck you shoot or bat directly out of the rink from your defending zone is a minor, and that clause has no deliberateness element, and since almost every puck you play is inside your defending zone when you play it, it is live nearly every time you touch one — though that it reaches you rests on Rule 5.1's definition of "player" as "both skaters and goalkeepers" alone, since only the deliberate limb 63.2(ii) is printed in the two books' goalkeeper tables. A teammate serves it (Rule 27.1). Under USA Hockey Rule 610(c) only the deliberate clear is penalised. Your save is not caught: on a stick save that deflects over the glass the goalkeeper "did not 'shoot' the puck over the glass" — that answer is the IIHF's Situation Handbook, at Situation 63.29, and the NHL's clause carries the same "shoots or bats" wording, though the NHL's own situation handbook has not been read for this document. ⚠️ Do not stretch it into a deliberateness defence: the same answer goes on to reason that "Rule 63.2. talks about deliberate", which cuts against Rule 63.2(iii)'s own words.
Firing the puck out of the rink after the whistle, and pricing it at two minutes. It is two minutes under the NHL and the IIHF, which write no tier above Rule 63.2 for putting the puck out of play — their one other puck clause, 39.4(ii)/(II), is a misconduct for knocking it "out of the reach of an official who is retrieving it", a different offence. Under the other two books it is a ladder. USA Hockey prints the same act at Rule 610(c) as a minor and at Rule 601(c)(10) as a misconduct, without saying which governs — read as two clauses side by side, not as a ruling — and Rule 601(d)(7) makes it a game misconduct "when done in protest of an official's decision", as does 601(d)(9) for a puck sent "in the general direction of an on-ice official, or in the direction of a spectator". Hockey Canada could not put the escalation in its delay-of-game rule — 10.1(d), "No Misconduct penalty may be assessed for Delay of Game" — so it lists "Shooting the puck out of the playing area, after the whistle" under Unsportsmanlike Conduct at Rule 11.1, preamble item (v), a minor at 11.1(a), a Misconduct at 11.1(d)(i) and a Game Misconduct at 11.1(e). ⚠️ It is not a ladder you have to be walked up. 11.1(d)(i) reads "[p]ersists in Unsportsmanlike Conduct, after receiving a Minor penalty under Rule 11.1 (a)", but Note 1 to 11.1(d) and Note 1 to 11.1(e) each remove that gate — a referee "is not required to assess a Minor penalty under this rule before assessing a Misconduct penalty, but may assess either penalty initially", and the same for the Game Misconduct. You do not get one free minor first. ⚠️ And a game misconduct is where you stop being a spectator to your own penalty: USA Hockey 407(a) has a teammate serve your minor or misconduct, but 407(b) replaces you in the net.
Assuming the stick fouls are a skater's problem. Slashing, cross-checking, high-sticking and roughing are all written for "a player", and NHL and IIHF Rule 5.1 make that word include you. A chop at a stick in your crease is two minutes, and a teammate serves it.
Assuming two minutes is the worst that happens to a player who runs you. Under USA Hockey it is not: Rule 607(c) writes no bare minor for body checking or charging a goalkeeper — it is "a minor plus a misconduct or a major plus a game misconduct" — and 607(e) adds that a match penalty "may also be assessed for charging." ⚠️ It covers the privileged area, not just your crease, which 607(d) Note 2 runs from the end-zone faceoff spots back to the end boards. The counterweight travels with it: accidental or unavoidable contact is interference, a 625(a)(8) minor (607(d) Note 1), so describe the act rather than demanding a tier.
Waiting for a whistle in a rebound scramble. Under the NHL and IIHF books there is no whistle coming: Rule 69.7 permits incidental contact where you and an attacker are both going for the same loose puck, inside or outside the crease, and the goal counts. Win the puck. What the same rule does not permit is being driven into your own net — an attacker who pushes you in together with the puck after your stop has the goal disallowed, unless one of your own players fouled them into you.
Handling the puck because you can. Every touch is a chance for a turnover in front of your own empty net.
Silence. You have the best view on the ice. A goalie who doesn't talk is throwing away the most valuable thing they own.
Calling "screen" once and giving up. Say it every time, loudly, until it changes something.
Carrying the last goal into the next shift.

Check yourself

Answer each question before you go on — a real attempt, not a guess. Then go and check, because the checking is the part that does the work. Producing an answer and getting it wrong is worth more than recognising a right one, but only when the right answer follows: the section named with each question, and the Key Takeaways after them, are where you get it. Where the answer lives in another document, that is named too.

One shooter, no pass available, shot from distance. How far out do you go, what are the three things that depth costs you — and if you cannot have all three of out, square and set, which one do you give up? (§Depth is the fundamental decision, and §Playing the angle)
There is a body in front of you and a point shot coming. Two parts of this have no single right answer — name both splits, say what each side is trading against the other, and say what both schools agree you must not do. (§Fighting for a sightline, and §Playing bigger and deeper through traffic)
You go to the post in RVH. Which pad goes where, what is the load-bearing detail most descriptions of it leave out, and what is the one thing about post play that nobody defends? (§Post integration: VH and RVH)
A shot is coming from the top of the circle and your instinct is to drop. Give three concrete reasons that instinct fails, and say which goalies it fails worst for. (§The butterfly is a tool, not a religion)
Their winger dumps the puck in from just inside their own blue line and it is coming round to you. You could drift two strides toward it, you could smother it, or you could stand still. Say what each of those three costs or buys you — and which rule book changes the answer. (§Icing — you are the one who can wave it off, and §Freezing the puck — and the rules that govern it)
That same rim is running round the boards outside the trapezoid and you think about dropping to stop it with your pads. What happens, where on the ice would the identical act have been completely legal, and what should you do instead? (§Stopping pucks for your defence, and §The trapezoid — the rule that defines what you can do)
You shout "shot" at your defenceman. What does that call actually mean, what does it not mean, and what do you do if your team already uses the word the other way round? (§The core calls)
The puck is on your blade behind your own net with a forechecker arriving, and you decide to get rid of it high and hard. Which two delay-of-game clauses are you inside, which of them does not require you to have meant it, and who serves the penalty if you get it wrong? And if the whistle had already gone and you did it in temper, under which two books is two minutes not the whole of the price? (§Putting the puck out of play — the minor that is yours too, and the tier above it after a whistle)
An attacker is standing in your blue paint obstructing your view and the puck goes in. What does the rule say — and what is different about that answer in EIH or SIHA competition, and what does that change about when you say something? (§Goaltender Interference, From Your Side of It)

Key Takeaways

Positioning, not reflexes. Good goaltending looks boring. Be out, be square, be set — Mitch Korn's three steps, in his order. He numbers them but does not rank them, so treating out-and-still-moving as worse than slightly-shallow-and-set is a coaching judgement rather than his — one manual gives up depth only against a back-door or deke threat, so ask your coach. Depth is the fundamental decision, and it always trades the shooter in front against the pass behind: deeper against passes, further out against a lone shooter. Depth against a screen is genuinely disputed between coaching schools — ask yours.
Angle before depth — a coaching philosophy, not a law. Deep and off-angle is a goal; on-angle and slightly deep is a save. One documented school reverses that when you step off the post to a short-side shot. Ask your coach which they teach.
Track the puck all the way into your body. Goalie coaches put almost every soft goal down to losing sight of the puck — an observation, not a count.
The butterfly is a save you select, not an identity, and not a religion. Stay on your feet until going down is the answer. Be wary of the style labels — "profly" and "hybrid" are used inconsistently, and which one dominates is not settled.
Rebound control in priority order: prevent, cover or clear, direct safely, recover. Direct everything to the corners and know where their forwards are before the shot.
Your voice is the most valuable thing you do that is not a save. "Time," "man on," "leave it," "screen," "back door." Early, short, every time.
Under NHL and IIHF rules you may play the puck behind the goal line only inside the trapezoid — the one exception is skate contact with the crease, and under the IIHF you must also have actually played the puck: a puck that comes off the glass and hits you while you retreat is no penalty, and a puck you stop on the goal line is not behind it (Situation Handbook, Situations 27.9 and 27.6, in the same words in the 2025/26 v1.1 and 2026/27 editions). Neither USA Hockey nor Hockey Canada writes a trapezoid at all, and how much rec, beer-league and youth hockey that adds up to is a question about leagues rather than about books, which this document has no count for — but no trapezoid is not no restriction: Hockey Canada's Interpretation 3 to Rule 10.1(a), clause v, gives a minor with "No warning will be issued" to a goaltender who leaves the crease and freezes the puck. ⚠️ Never act on that clause alone: clause ii of the same Interpretation expressly permits the opposite, coming out "to cut down the angle and catch the shot or, after stopping the shot, cover the puck" — and clause iv, in between, penalises racing an attacker to a loose puck and simply jumping on it, with no warning. Hockey Canada nowhere says which of ii and v governs a cover made after a save outside the crease, so treating ii as the exception is a reading and not a ruling — it is how the other three books print the same pair, with the exception written in. Carry both halves or you will drop a puck you had legitimately smothered, in traffic. USA Hockey Rule 614(c) assesses the same two minutes for freezing the puck behind the goal line with your body entirely outside the crease, or anywhere outside the "goalkeeper's privileged" area, which excludes the corners. Inside that area and in front of the goal line you have more latitude than the rule text suggests — its Casebook decides those covers on the "act of playing goal", not on crease contact, and excuses one made prone and fully outside the crease (Rule 614(c), Situations 8 to 12). In England and Wales the status is unsettled: England Ice Hockey's Rules & Regulations 22.3 say the restricted area is "not currently enforced" (the IIHF numbers it Rule 27.7, not the NHL's 27.8). Play it as though it binds. ⚠️ And 22.3 suspends that rule alone. IIHF Rule 63.2(I) still gives you a minor for freezing the puck to cause a stoppage anywhere "outside of their goal crease area" — your crease, not the trapezoid — so a suspension frees where you may play it and never where you may sit on it, while 63.2(VI)'s Note keeps a come-out, save, then cover legal. In front of the goal line no trapezoid reaches you, but the bar on participating in the play past the centre red line does, in all four books — and they measure it opposite ways: NHL 27.7 and IIHF 27.6 judge it on the puck, in the rule itself; the skates test is elsewhere — USA Hockey Casebook 407(c) Situation 13, Hockey Canada Rule 8.3(a)(ii) and Interpretation 2 to 4.13(c) — because Rules 407(c) and 4.13(c) themselves say nothing about skates. Keep skates and puck both on your own side. And wherever you are, keep your clears along the glass rather than over it: under NHL and IIHF Rule 63.2(iii) a puck you shoot or bat directly out of the rink from your own zone is two minutes, and that clause carries no deliberateness element — under USA Hockey Rule 610(c) only the deliberate clear is penalised. Your save is not caught: the IIHF's own Situation Handbook answers that case at Situation 63.29, and the NHL's own situation handbook has not been read for this document. ⚠️ Two minutes is the whole price only under the NHL and the IIHF. For a puck put out after a whistle, USA Hockey also writes Rule 601(c)(10), a misconduct, without saying which of it and 610(c) governs, and 601(d)(7) makes it a game misconduct "when done in protest of an official's decision"; Hockey Canada bars a misconduct for delay of game at 10.1(d) and puts the same act under Unsportsmanlike Conduct at Rule 11.1, preamble item (v), reaching a Game Misconduct at 11.1(e) — which Note 1 to each of 11.1(d) and 11.1(e) lets a referee assess without the rungs below it, so there is no free minor first. A teammate serves your minor, and under USA Hockey 407(a) your misconduct too (Rule 27.1) — but 407(b) takes your place in the net on a game misconduct.
A screen from outside the crease, without contact, is normally legal — both qualifiers belong to the claim. Rule 69.1 helps you only where an attacker's positioning or contact actually stops you moving or defending — and do not count on even that outside the paint, because both books' worked situations answer "Goal is allowed" for an outside-the-crease screen that does impair you (NHL Reference Table 14 and IIHF 2025/26 Appendix IV Table 16, situations 5C and 5E). And in EIH or SIHA competition nobody reviews it, so the referee's live call stands. Nothing in USA Hockey or Hockey Canada reaches a screen set from outside the paint at all — USA Hockey writes no goaltender-vision provision, and Hockey Canada's reaches only a player standing in the crease. Inside it the two part company: USA Hockey 625(b) voids the goal on an attacker's position alone — unless the puck preceded them into the crease, you are out of the crease area, or a defender's interference is what put them there. That second one comes back to you if they blocked your return: its Casebook, Rule 625 Situation 9, disallows the goal and adds an interference minor where you were "attempting to return to the goal crease" and the attacker prevented you from making a play. And the third one — your own defenceman putting them there — answers for that attacker's position only, not for what they then do to you: 617(c)(4) disallows the goal both for an attacker positioned in the crease and for one "interfering with the goalkeeper", with the push-in parenthetical written into the first limb alone, while 625(a)(8) is still a minor for "physical contact, using their stick or body, in a manner that interferes with the movement of the goalkeeper" — so ask for it rather than assuming your own team's foul cost you the call. Meanwhile Hockey Canada 8.5 lets a teammate's goal stand if the player in your crease stays completely passive — the carve-out fails the moment they attempt to play the puck, interfere with the play, or obstruct your view or movements. And under Hockey Canada what happens to the player who runs you is not capped at two minutes: Rule 8.5(b) reaches a major plus game misconduct — an ejection — at the referee's discretion, on the degree of violence of impact, and makes one mandatory for charging the goaltender and mandatory for any interference-with-goaltender foul that injures; 8.5(c) reaches a match penalty.
On a 2-on-1 you want the shot and your defenceman takes the pass — say it out loud, because it is a convention, not a law. You will let in bad goals: use a reset ritual every time, and do the analysis tomorrow.
🇬🇧 Your mask and your neck laceration protector are both mandatory, and the neck one at every age, adults included — a dangler does not replace it. Goalkeeper face protection is required by every book (IIHF Rule 11.8; USA Hockey Rule 304(d); Hockey Canada Rule 3.6(b)), and an expired certification sticker is no certification (USA Hockey Rule 304(c)) — so under USA Hockey and Hockey Canada, look at the sticker on anything you are loaned. ⚠️ An in-date one is not a clearance, though: it is a certification clock, not a condition report, silent on impact history and on the state of the liner — so borrow the pads, the blocker, the trapper and the chest protector, and buy the mask, which is Equipment's reading of the certification rules rather than a sentence any book writes. 🇬🇧 And there may be no sticker for you to look at, which is not a fault in the mask: IIHF Rule 11.8 asks only for a mask "of a design approved by the IIHF" and names no outside certification body, and neither the IHUK In-House Rules nor England Ice Hockey's Rules & Regulations names a mark or a standard number — so ask your league what it accepts before you buy, and judge a loaned mask on its history. The neck is the signature catastrophic injury in the position. IIHF Rule 9.12 requires one "For all Players in all categories of IIHF Competition" and every British level plays that book; across the Home Countries — England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland — and in university hockey, the IHUK In-House Rules delete the warning and assess an immediate 10-minute misconduct, escalating to a game misconduct on a second offence. USA Hockey's adult exemption (Rule 304(g)) and Hockey Canada's minor-and-female scope (Rule 3.6(c)) are not yours. ⚠️ The head half of the same problem has a rule most goalies never hear, and it is weaker than you would expect. A hard shot off your face mask is a stoppage the referee may make under IIHF Rule 9.6 — defeated by an immediate scoring chance — and shall make under Hockey Canada Rule 6.18(a) only at U13 and below; the NHL, CARHA and USA Hockey's stand-up rules write no mask-specific counterpart, USA Hockey's only version sitting in its Sled Hockey rules. Every book does stop play for an injured goalkeeper (NHL and IIHF 8.1, USA Hockey 206(a), Hockey Canada 2.4(b), CARHA 20(d)) — but those wait on a referee judging you hurt, and your face is the one they cannot see. The whistle may not come, so say something. Conditioning and Recovery has the symptoms and the red flags, and returning to play is a medical decision.
Charging you is priced above a bare minor under USA Hockey and Hockey Canada, and not under the NHL or the IIHF — and no one book is simply the strongest. Rule 607(c) writes no bare minor for body checking or charging a goalkeeper — it is "a minor plus a misconduct or a major plus a game misconduct" — 607(e) adds a possible match penalty, and it protects you out to the privileged area, which 607(d) Note 2 runs from the end-zone faceoff spots back to the end boards, so it covers your net front, your goal line and the ice behind your net. Accidental or unavoidable contact is not that rule — 607(d) Note 1 sends it to interference, a 625(a)(8) minor — so describe the act to the referee rather than naming a tier. The NHL and the IIHF do not share a ceiling, so do not read them as one book. NHL 42.2 to 42.4 run minor, major, match at the referee's discretion, with 42.5 adding a game misconduct where a major is imposed for an injury "to the face or head"; the IIHF stops a rung lower — 42.2 to 42.4 run minor, major, and major plus game misconduct, its 42.5 is supplementary discipline rather than an on-ice penalty, and the words "match penalty" appear nowhere in its 2025/26 rulebook. Neither book has a privileged area — so under both a bare minor is available, and NHL 42.1 says so in terms. Hockey Canada writes the highest floor of the four and the only mandatory one: 8.5(b) "A Major penalty and Game Misconduct penalty will be assessed to any player who charges the goaltender", with 8.5(d) removing the misconduct rung and 8.5 protecting you "anywhere on the ice". Find out which book you are under.
The section written for your teammates has two items that are safety rules rather than coaching points: do not shoot at your goalie in warm-up or from ten feet in a drill, and never walk a net-front opponent across the front of your own net. Take the shooting one first. At your own goalie it is a coaching caution rather than a rule; at the other team's it is a rule, because warm-up is inside the rules — all four books confine each team to its own half (NHL and IIHF Rule 86.6, "each team shall confine its activity to its own end of the rink"; USA Hockey Rule 636(c); Hockey Canada Rule 2.2(i)), and what follows splits two-and-two. USA Hockey Rule 502(b) and Hockey Canada Rule 2.2(j) let officials penalise it on the spot. 🇬🇧 The NHL and the IIHF report it instead — under their own Rule 86.6, a violation is "reported to the Proper Authorities" (IIHF) or "to the Commissioner" (NHL). ⚠️ At your own goalie only two books stop play for the hit itself: IIHF Rule 9.6's is a "may" cancelled by an immediate scoring chance and Hockey Canada Rule 6.18(a)'s "shall" reaches only "categories of U13 and below", while the NHL, CARHA and USA Hockey's stand-up rules write no mask-specific stoppage. Every book stops play for an injured goalkeeper (NHL and IIHF 8.1, USA Hockey 206(a), Hockey Canada 2.4(b), CARHA 20(d)) — but each needs a referee to judge them hurt first, which is exactly what a cage hides. ⚠️ The walk-out direction is the second item, and it is about where a body ends up rather than where a puck does — and unlike the walk-out itself it is not scoped to checking leagues. The route across your goalmouth has a steel goal frame at one edge and you at the other. USA Hockey writes the goal post into the head-first spinal-injury mechanism alongside the boards, and the injury from that head-down, head-first collision is one it says "can occur at walking speed". Taking them to the corner instead is coaching caution rather than a rule — what the rules price is the worst version of it, and never at two minutes: USA Hockey 608(b) a major plus a game misconduct where a check from behind "causes them to go head first into the boards or goal frame", Hockey Canada 7.5(c) a match penalty, and no minor for checking from behind at all under the NHL's book or the IIHF's (43.2 in both). And their skates stay on the ice while you move them, because a player whose edges are gone cannot brace and cannot choose what meets the post first. Two of the items in that section are the same shape — do not screen your own goalie, and do not back into the crease when you are shoved.
The physical cost of the position lands on your hips and groin, and the part of it that is yours on game day is simply not arriving cold. A goalie coaching manual puts jumping straight into live shots without a sweat at "drastically increases the risk of pulled groin or hip flexor muscles" — its judgement, not a measured rate, and it attaches no figure to it. What is measured is narrower and lives elsewhere: among NHL goaltenders in a 2025 American Journal of Sports Medicine study, proximal adductor injuries were the largest single injury category and cost more days missed than any other — professionals, on the ice far more than you, and Conditioning and Recovery owns the numbers, the population and the caveats. Warm up by moving rather than by holding stretches. And take groin or hip pain that persists or recurs to a physiotherapist or sports physician rather than to a document — that goes for how to treat it and for when you play again.

Sources — retrieved 27 July 2026; UK and IIHF layer retrieved 29 July 2026

Rules: NHL Official Rules 2025-2026 (PDF) — Rule 5.1 (Eligible Players — "any reference to 'player' shall refer to both skaters and goalkeepers", the definition that puts a goalkeeper inside every bare-"player" infraction), Rule 1.7 (Goal Crease), Rule 1.8 (Goalkeeper's Restricted Area markings), Rule 42 Charging, read 1 September 2026 — 42.1's "A minor, major or a major and a game misconduct shall be imposed on a player who charges a goalkeeper while the goalkeeper is within his goal crease", ⚠️ a longer sentence than the IIHF's at the same number, with 42.2 (minor), 42.3 (major), 42.4 (match) and 42.5 (game misconduct on a major "resulting in an injury to the face or head of an opponent"); the book writes no privileged area, Rule 10.2 (Goalkeeper's Stick), Rule 10.4 (Broken Stick – Goalkeeper: the permission to play on, the hand-to-hand replacement, the bar on going to the bench, and the skater's stick in the meantime), Rule 11 (Goalkeeper's Equipment), Rule 24 (Penalty Shot), Rule 27.1 (Minor Penalty to Goalkeeper — "A goalkeeper shall not be sent to the penalty bench for an offense which incurs a minor penalty", the teammate designated by the coach, and "[a] penalized player may not serve a goalkeeper's penalty"), Rule 27.6 (Leaving Goal Crease — the minor during an altercation, its two express carve-outs, and the separate bar on going to the players' bench during a stoppage "without first obtaining permission to do so from the Referee"), Rule 27.7–27.8 (Goalkeeper's Penalties / Restricted Area — 27.7 on participating in the play beyond the centre red line, whose "position of the puck is the determining factor" sentence is the half USA Hockey and Hockey Canada reverse), Rule 63.2 (Delaying the Game, including 63.2(i) — the freeze outside the crease, which that clause says in terms "applies outside of his goal crease area" — 63.2(vii), the in-crease clause with its "unless he is actually being checked by an opponent", 63.2(ii), the deliberate puck-out-of-play minor "from anywhere on the ice surface", and 63.2(iii), the separate minor for shooting or batting the puck "directly (non-deflected) out of the playing surface from his defending zone" — read for a deliberateness element, of which that clause has none — with its NOTE on the players' bench and the face-off; 63.2(v), "On a player other than the goalkeeper", the express exclusion that shows the book excludes goalkeepers when it means to; and 63.2(viii) with its NOTE, the restricted-area penalty and the sole skate-contact exception), Rule 63.9, the Delaying the Game infractions list — "(i) Deliberately shooting the puck out of play", among acts producing "a penalty (minor, bench minor, penalty shot or awarded goal)", with no misconduct in the list — and Rule 75 Unsportsmanlike Conduct, read in full 1 September 2026 across 75.2, 75.3, 75.4 and 75.5 for a puck-out-of-the-playing-area limb, of which the NHL book has none; Rule 63.8 (freeze after a dump-in from centre), Rule 64.1 (the goalkeeper embellishment clause, in the same words as the IIHF's), Rule 67.3–67.5 (Handling Puck), read in full 1 September 2026 — 67.3(iv), "Drops the puck into his pads or onto the goal net", and 67.3(v), "Deliberately piles up snow or obstacles at or near his net that, in the opinion of the Referee, would tend to prevent the scoring of a goal", both read for an escalation above the minor, of which neither clause carries any; Rule 85.6, the second and separate delay-of-game minor on "a goalkeeper who deliberately drops the puck on the goal netting to cause a stoppage of play", which supplies the deliberateness element 67.3(iv) does not; and Rule 85.2 Puck Unplayable, whose three-second netting stoppage and whose sentence "Should the goalkeeper use his stick or glove to freeze the puck on the back of the net … the face-off shall take place at one of the face-off spots in the defending zone" answer that act with no penalty at all — the sentence straddles a page break in the extraction and was read flattened, Rule 69 (Interference on the Goalkeeper, including 69.2's minor-or-major range and 69.3's minor for refusing to give ground), Reference Table 11 (Summary of Goalkeeper Penalties — its eighth row, "Deliberately shoots or bats puck out of play — Rule 63", and its thirteenth row, "Using blocking glove to punch an opponent in the head or face — Rule 51"), Rule 51.3 (the match penalty for a blocker punch "in an attempt to or to deliberately injure an opponent"), Rule 81.1 (Icing — "Should any player of a team, equal or superior in numerical strength (power-play) to the opposing team, shoot, bat or deflect the puck from his own half of the ice beyond the goal line of the opposing team, play shall be stopped") and Rule 81.5, read in full for a goalkeeper exemption — its three goalkeeper clauses reach the opposing goalkeeper's touch and a goalkeeper dislodging the puck from the back of the net, and none exempts the goalkeeper who shot it, Reference Table 14 (Interference on the Goalkeeper Situations — situations 5C and 5E, the outside-the-crease screen, both answered "Goal is allowed"; and, under its heading 6, Crowding the Goalkeeper, rows 6D and 6F–6H on a goalkeeper who establishes position in the crease — 6D answering that a minor is not assessed, 6G and 6H putting the minor on the goalkeeper, and 6F splitting it, "Coincidental minors (goalkeeper/attacking player)"; with Rule 69.3's own third paragraph, which reaches 6D's facts and mandates the minor the table withholds. ⚠️ Cite the 6: Table 14 has two D rows, 5D being the screening case), Rule 81.3 (icing wave-offs, including the goalkeeper), Rule 84.4 (Shootout), Rule 86.6 Pre-Game Warm-Up, read 2 September 2026 — "During the pre-game warm-up … each team shall confine its activity to its own end of the rink. Refer to Rule 46.9 - Fighting", with "any violation of this rule by the players shall be reported to the Commissioner", which is a report and not a penalty · USA Hockey Playing Rules 2025-29 — Rule 624(b), which does not wave off icing for goalie movement, and Rule 624(b)(1), which limits the shorthanded icing exemption to Youth 15-Only and above, Girls 16U and above, High School and Adult; Rule 407(c), the minor where a goalkeeper "deliberately participates in the play in any manner when they are beyond the center red line"; Rule 615(e), the minor on a player who "fails to move immediately and directly to their players' bench (or goal crease for a goalkeeper) when instructed to do so by the Referee during an altercation" — the book's Summary of Penalties lists it under Goalkeeper Infractions as "Leaving crease area during altercation", though the literal phrase "leaving the crease" appears nowhere in the playing rules; Rule 615(d), the game misconduct on "any player or goalkeeper who is the first to intervene in an altercation then in progress", which names goalkeepers expressly, attaches no crease condition, and is "in addition to any other penalty incurred in the same incident"; and, for goaltender interference, Rule 625(b) (the flat bar on a goal with an attacking player in the crease, its neutral-zone face-off, and the push-in relief), Rule 625(a)(8) (the minor, which requires physical contact) and Rule 617(c)(4) (the two limbs on which a goal is disallowed); Rule 607 Charging, read in full 1 September 2026 — 607(c), "A minor plus a misconduct or a major plus a game misconduct penalty shall be assessed to a player who body checks or charges a goalkeeper while the goalkeeper is within the goal crease or privileged area"; 607(d), "A goalkeeper is NOT 'fair game' because they are outside the privileged area", with its Note 1 routing "any accidental or unavoidable contact" to the Interference rule and "[a]ny deliberate body contact or check" to charging, and its Note 2 defining the privileged area; and 607(e), "A match penalty for reckless endangerment may also be assessed for charging." ⚠️ Read in full for a bare-minor limb, of which Rule 607 has none at any limb — 607(a) prices charging any opponent at "[a] minor plus a misconduct or a major plus a game misconduct penalty" too; Rule 404 Misconduct Penalties, read 1 September 2026 — 404(a)'s removal of a player "for a period of 10 minutes, or the designated misconduct penalty time", and the (Note) immediately above it, "(Except for Adults) Affiliates or governing bodies are authorized to reduce the length of misconduct penalties for games under their jurisdiction according to the following period lengths", at "12 minutes or less – 6:00", "More than 12 but less than 17 minutes – 8:00" and "17-20 minutes – 10:00", with 404(b), "A 'GAME MISCONDUCT' penalty involves the suspension of a player or Team Official for the balance of the game with immediate substitution taking place on ice" and the player "shall also be suspended for the team's next game"; Rule 407(a) and (b) (Goalkeeper Penalties), read 1 September 2026 — 407(a)'s "A goalkeeper shall not be sent to the penalty bench for an offense that incurs a minor or misconduct penalty", and 407(b)'s "Should a goalkeeper incur a game misconduct or a match penalty, their place will be taken by a substitute goalkeeper or a temporary goalkeeper (see Glossary) or an additional skater", with the time still served by a designated teammate; Rule 601 Abuse of Officials and Other Misconduct, read in full 1 September 2026 for a puck put out of the playing area — 601(a)(4), the unsportsmanlike minor for a player who "[s]hoots the puck after the whistle, if in the opinion of the Official such shot was avoidable", with the escalation printed beneath 601(a), "A misconduct penalty shall be assessed to any player who persists in such conduct and any further dispute by the same player shall result in a game misconduct penalty being assessed"; 601(c)(10), the misconduct for a player who "[s]hoots or bats the puck outside of the playing area during a stoppage of play (when not done in protest of an official's decision or in the direction of a spectator)"; 601(d)(7), the game misconduct for the same act "when done in protest of an official's decision"; 601(d)(9), the game misconduct for a puck shot "in the general direction of an on-ice official, or in the direction of a spectator during a stoppage of play"; and the Note to 601(d), "A match penalty shall be assessed to any player who shoots the puck directly at an official or spectator in a manner that recklessly endangers the official or spectator". ⚠️ Rule 601 and Rule 610(c) both reach a puck put out during a stoppage, at different tiers, and the book does not say which governs; Rule 601's opening Note gives only "A minor penalty or misconduct penalty should be assessed for actions that occur on the playing surface or in the penalty bench area", and the Casebook's Rule 601 situations were read in full and none concerns a puck put out of the playing area. and Rule 605 (Broken Stick — 605(a), whose drop-the-stick sentence and whose equipment minor carve out no goalkeeper, and whose only mention of one is the sentence between them, allowing "a player or goalkeeper" alike "reasonable time to be aware that the stick is broken"; and 605(c), which covers only where a goalkeeper's replacement comes from, so the stand-up rules write no equivalent of the NHL's play-on allowance) — with the Sled Hockey section of the same book, which does write one, and reverses 605(c) too: "A goalkeeper is allowed to play with a broken stick until the next stoppage of play or until the goalkeeper has been legally provided with a new stick. The goalkeeper can go to the bench and change their stick when the play is in progress." It governs sled hockey only — as does the only counterpart in that book to IIHF Rule 9.6's mask-hit stoppage, in the same Sled Hockey section under Goalkeeper's Equipment — Helmet: "Should a hard shot hit the goalkeeper's facemask while play is in progress, the play may be stopped at the discretion of the Referee only if no immediate scoring chance is presented to the opposing team." ⚠️ The stand-up playing rules were searched for a counterpart on nine phrasings — dazed, hard shot, struck in the head, hit in the head by the puck, stop play for safety, concussion protocol, in the head, safety reasons and every may/shall stop play occurrence, on punctuation-stripped flattened text — and contain none outside that section; the same searches return the quoted sentences in the IIHF and Hockey Canada books. Also Rule 502(b), "Penalties may also be assessed during the warm-up period", and Rule 636(c), under which each team warms up "on their half of the rink". and, for neck laceration protection, Rule 304(g), which requires a HECC-certified neck laceration protector "that covers as much of the neck area as possible" of all players including goalkeepers "in all age classifications except Adults" (BNQ-certified protectors satisfying it "through the 2026-27 USA Hockey season", and Adults "strongly recommend[ed]" to wear one), with Rule 303(b), the goalkeeper-specific limb — "HECC-certified neck laceration protectors are required in all age classifications except for Adults" — which recommends hanging throat protectors for Adult goaltenders alongside the protector rather than in place of it. Read in full for a screening or goaltender-vision provision: the 2025-29 playing rules contain none · USA Hockey Official Rules and Casebook 2025-29 (PDF) — Rule 610(c), the delay-of-game minor on "any player or goalkeeper who delays the game by deliberately shooting or batting the puck outside the playing area", read in full for a defending-zone limb, of which Rule 610 has none; Casebook Rule 610, Situation 5 (a rebound batted out of the air and out of the rink — no penalty, with the answer's "Had the goalkeeper caught the puck first, thereby gaining control, and then deliberately batted the puck directly out of the playing area"); Rule 610(b) and its Note; Rule 610(f), the goalkeeper-specific delay-of-game minor — "A minor penalty for delay of game shall be assessed to a goalkeeper who drops the puck into their pads or onto the goal net or deliberately piles up snow or obstacles near the goal that, in the opinion of the Referee, could prevent the scoring of a goal" — read for a tier above the minor and for a penalty-shot or awarded-goal limb, of which the clause has neither; Casebook Rule 610, Situation 8, which extends it to a goalkeeper who covers a puck that reached the netting on its own ("Stop play and assess a minor penalty"), where NHL and IIHF Rule 85.2 answer the same facts with a face-off and no penalty; ⚠️ the book's own summary tables and that Situation cite this clause as 610(g), one letter above the printed rule, and the body's lettering is used here; Rule 625(c) (a goalkeeper's stick left in front of the goal — a minor, with a goal awarded if the puck hits it and prevents an obvious and imminent goal "regardless as to whether the goalkeeper is on the ice, in the act of leaving the ice or off the ice", which is not the condition the NHL's and IIHF's Rule 67.5 attaches) with Casebook Rule 625, Situations 14 to 17 — ⚠️ 14 narrows that "regardless" back, ruling that "[f]or a goal to be awarded, the goalkeeper must either be in the act of leaving the ice or actually off the ice", so the live divergence from Rule 67.5 is the goalkeeper who is leaving but not yet replaced; 15 removes the intent requirement the rule text writes — "[i]t makes no difference whether or not the goalkeeper deliberately left their stick in front of the goal"; including 16's "It is the responsibility of the goalkeeper to keep the area near their goal free of any obstacles that may prevent the scoring of a goal"; Rule 614(c) — read in full for its four triggers and read for an exception, of which the rule text has none, together with the Note defining the "goalkeeper's privileged" area — and Casebook Rule 614(c), Situations 5 to 14, read in full — they supply the exceptions the rule text does not, answering it through the glossary's "act of playing goal", and they go both ways: 7, 8, 10 and 13 answer no penalty, 6 and 9 answer penalty, 11 answers both (on whether the goalkeeper is being pressured) and 12 answers both (on whether the puck is inside the privileged area and in front of the goal line, with the minor otherwise "must be assessed"); 5 answers no penalty but on the three-second rule at a delayed penalty — Rule 614(c)(1) with the Note to Rule 409(a) — rather than on the act of playing goal; and 14 answers that the privileged area "extends to the closer end boards". Note what 8, 10 and 12 have in common: none of them requires crease contact — and Casebook Rule 407(c), Situations 12 and 13 — the volume heads the pair under "Rule 407 Goalkeeper Penalties" and prints the sub-clause only in each answer's "Rule Reference 407(c)" line, which is where the (c) used here comes from; 13 answering that a goalkeeper "whose skates are beyond the center red line" may not play a puck still on their own side, because "the determining factor is the position of the goalkeeper's skates and not the puck", and 12 answering no penalty where the puck strikes a goalkeeper accidentally over the line; and Casebook Rule 615, Situations 10, 26 and 27 — 26 answering no penalty for a goalkeeper leaving a crease-side altercation "to remain out of the altercation", with the minor still assessed where the referee gave no permission and the goalkeeper became involved outside the crease; 27 answering "Yes" to going to the bench when the fight is at the crease; and 10 assessing "a minor penalty for leaving the crease, plus a game misconduct for being the first to intervene in an altercation" on "Rule References 615(a, d and e)" — applying 615(d) rather than supplying it; and Casebook Rule 610, Situation 3, on when a goalkeeper may freeze the puck; and Casebook Rule 605, Situation 5, under which a goalkeeper handed a regular skater's stick may legally play with it "[a]s long as the stick does not exceed the maximum measurements set forth for goalkeeper sticks"; and, for goalkeeper contact, Casebook Rule 607, Situations 4 and 6, read 1 September 2026 — Situation 4's three rungs ("no penalty should be assessed"* only "[i]n the case where a defending player has forced the attacking player into their own goalkeeper" and they have "clearly made every attempt to avoid the contact with the goalkeeper"; "a minor plus misconduct penalty is deemed appropriate" on an honest attempt once contact is unavoidable; "the major plus game misconduct, or match penalty option" where the player makes no attempt and accelerates through, extends the arms or drops the shoulder) and Situation 6 ("The goalkeeper's Privileged Area extends to the closer end boards"); and, for the crease, Casebook Rule 625, Situations 7, 9, 10 and 11 — Situation 11 answering "Yes" to whether the official should stop play and face off outside the attacking zone, Situation 10 answering "No" for a stick or skate placed momentarily in the crease "unless they interfere with the goalkeeper in any manner", and Situation 9 supplying the limit on the goalkeeper-out carve-out that the rule text does not print — the goal stands where the goalkeeper is "completely out of their crease", but "if the goalkeeper is attempting to return to the goal crease and there is any interference by the attacking player who prevents the goalkeeper from making a play, then the goal must be disallowed and an interference penalty shall be assessed" — with Appendix II, Summary of Face-Off Locations, which lists "625(b) Goal crease violation" under Neutral Zone Spot. The volume's seventeen Rule 625 situations were read in full for a goaltender-vision provision and contain none · Hockey Canada Playing Rules 2026-2028 (PDF) — Interpretation 3 to Rule 10.1(a), the five-part official interpretation of goaltenders freezing the puck, Rule 10.1(v), the delay-of-game limb written for goaltenders alone — "A goaltender who shoots or bats the puck directly out of the playing surface, with their stick" — with no zone restriction and no "deliberately" of its own, where limbs (i), (ii), (iv) and (vi) each carry the word and Rule 10.1's opening sentence carries it for the rule as a whole; the book does not say which governs; with 10.1(d), "No Misconduct penalty may be assessed for Delay of Game", and 10.1(e), "No Game Misconduct penalty may be assessed for Delay of Game", which is why the after-the-whistle escalation is not in Rule 10.1 at all; Rule 11.1 Unsportsmanlike Conduct, read in full 1 September 2026 — clause (v), "Shooting the puck out of the playing area, after the whistle", and clause (iv), "Shooting the puck at or near the goal after the whistle", among the listed acts, with 11.1(a) a Minor or Bench Minor, 11.1(b) and (c) barring a Major and a Match, 11.1(d)(i) a Misconduct for a player who "[p]ersists in Unsportsmanlike Conduct, after receiving a Minor penalty under Rule 11.1 (a)", and 11.1(e) a Game Misconduct for persisting after either, whose Note 1 adds that "[a] Referee is not required to assess a Minor or Misconduct penalty under this rule before assessing a Game Misconduct penalty, but may assess either penalty initially", read with the parallel Note 1 to 11.1(d), "A Referee is not required to assess a Minor penalty under this rule before assessing a Misconduct penalty, but may assess either penalty initially" — so neither the Misconduct nor the Game Misconduct is gated on the rung beneath it, and 11.1(d)(i)'s "after receiving a Minor penalty" describes the ordinary case rather than a precondition; Rule 10.1(vi), the goaltender's netting limb, restated at Rule 6.12(d), with 6.12(b) (deliberately making the puck "unplayable in order to gain a stoppage of play") and 6.12(c) (play continues where it "comes off without any delay"); Rule 8.3(a) – Interference, whose second paragraph assesses a minor to "any player that deliberately piles snow inside their goal crease or is observed by the Referee to have deliberately placed an object in their defending zone at or near the goal" and whose third escalates to a penalty shot, or to an awarded goal once the goaltender has been legally substituted, where the object "actually prevents a goal", with Interpretation 1 to Rule 8.3(a), "It is the responsibility of the goaltender to keep the area near their net free of any obstacles that may prevent a goal from being scored", and Rule 4.11(a)(iv), which lists that penalty shot for a goaltender who "deliberately piles snow or other obstacles at or near their net"; Rule 8.3(a)'s two Roman-numbered goaltender clauses, read 3 September 2026 — "A Minor penalty will be assessed to any goaltender who: i. except in the course of playing their position, initiates deliberate physical contact with an opposing player. ii. plays the puck with their skates over the centre red line." — the second of which is the skates test, in operative rule text rather than in an interpretation. The book pinpoints that pair with parentheses in its own pages — its Interpretation glossing the first clause is headed "Interpretation 2 Rule 8.3 (a)(i)" — which is what settles that the sub-clause citation form used here is Hockey Canada's and not this document's, and it is the same both-ways habit already recorded above for Rule 10.1; Rule 4.12 Awarded Goals, with Interpretation 4 to Rule 4.12(a) and 4.12(b) — which puts the stick left across the crease by a goaltender on the way to the bench and answers it in two parts, a penalty shot "while the goaltender is still in the act of leaving the ice" and an awarded goal once off — and 4.12(b), which deems the goaltender "substituted" once a legal change has occurred "despite the fact that the goaltender may still be physically on the ice". ⚠️ Hockey Canada is the only one of the four books that does not price piled snow as delay of game, and the only one that reaches a penalty shot for it. ⚠️ Hockey Canada cites that Roman-numeral list both ways in its own pages — "Rule 10.1 (a)(vii)" in one cross-reference and "Rule 10.1 (iv)" in another — so the short form used here is one of the book's own two rather than a shortening invented for this document; the list itself is printed above clause (a), under Rule 10.1's opening paragraph, while the Interpretations that gloss it are all headed "Rule 10.1 (a)", Rule 4.13(c), which reaches a goaltender who "intentionally participates in the play in any manner when they are beyond the centre red line" and carries no penalty of its own, sending the offence to Rule 8.3(a) – Interference, with its Interpretation 2: "The determining factor is the position of the goaltender's skates and not the position of the puck. Assess the goaltender a Minor penalty for Rule 8.3 (a) – Interference."; Rule 8.5(b), "A Major penalty and Game Misconduct penalty will be assessed to any player who charges the goaltender", read 1 September 2026 with 8.5(d), "No Misconduct penalty may be assessed for interference with the goaltender", Rule 7.10(a), whose second limb assesses "A Minor penalty … to a goaltender who leaves their crease during a fight", with Interpretation 1, under which the goaltender may proceed to the bench "[w]ith the permission of the Referee" and takes the minor if they go "on their own accord" (and 7.10(d), requiring goaltenders to "stay in their goal creases or proceed to a neutral zone designated by the Referee", which is Hockey Canada's counterpart of the NHL's and the IIHF's neutral-location carve-out), Rule 7.10(e)(ii), the game misconduct on a player who "joins in a fight or acts as a peacemaker", read with the Glossary definition that settles that it reaches a goaltender — "The goaltender is considered a player, except where explicitly stated because special rules or privileges apply to them" — Rule 3.2 (Lost or Broken Sticks) — 3.2(c), which bars a goaltender from playing on with a broken stick of any kind and allows a handed player's stick until the next stoppage, 3.2(d) routing the penalty to Rule 10.6(a), and Interpretation 1 to 3.2(c) on carrying rather than sliding the replacement, and Rule 8.5 Interference with the Goaltender (in Section 8, Restraining Fouls) with its Interpretations 1, 2 and 3 — the crease bar and the carve-out that follows it, under which a goal scored by a teammate outside the crease "WILL BE ALLOWED" if the player in the crease stays passive; Interpretation 3's test of a crease player who attempts "to play the puck, interfere with the play, or impede the goaltender's vision or movements"; the "onus is always on the attacking player" sentence; the definition of the foul as impeding the goaltender "by actual physical contact"; the narrow push-in exception; and the mandatory penalty on an attacker who is fouled into the goaltender and makes no effort to avoid them. Also 8.5(a)–(e), the penalty tiers: the minor at (a); at (b) a major and game misconduct at the referee's discretion "based on the degree of violence of impact" and mandatorily — "will be assessed" — for a player who "charges the goaltender" (Note 1 referring the definition to Rule 7.4(b) Interpretation 2) and for one who "injures an opponent by an Interference with the Goaltender infraction that would otherwise call for a Minor penalty"; at (c) a match penalty for attempting to injure or deliberately injuring a goaltender by interference; at (d) the bar on any misconduct; at (e) the automatic game misconduct on any 8.5(b) major. Rule 2.2(i), "When both teams are on the ice during the pre-game warm-up, players will be restricted to their own half of the ice", and Rule 2.2(j), "The Referee will penalize any player who commits a violation of the rules during the pre-game warm-up. The penalty will be served at the start of the game"; Rule 6.18 Goaltender Safety, read 2 September 2026 — 6.18(a)'s "In categories of U13 and below should a Goaltender be struck in the head by the puck the Referee shall stop play as soon as it is safe to do so" and its instruction that officials "should always allow team staff to evaluate the goaltender during a stoppage under this rule … to allow for concussion protocols be applied", with Interpretation 2, under which "the goaltender's head refers to the protective mask / helmet and does NOT include any throat protectors that may be affixed to or hanging from the mask or helmet"; and Rule 3.6(c), which requires a BNQ-certified throat protector "for players registered in minor and female hockey" and states the dangler point outright: "Goaltenders who wear an attachment to the mask or helmet designed to protect the throat, must still wear a BNQ-certified throat protector." Read in full for a goaltender-vision provision: the only two in the book reach a player in the crease · Rule 27 Puts Goaltenders in Their Place — Scouting The Refs · IIHF Official Rule Book 2025/26 (PDF) — Rule 10.4 (Broken Stick / Abandoned Stick – Goalkeeper), Rule 75 Unsportsmanlike Conduct in the 2026/27 edition, read in full 1 September 2026 across 75.2 to 75.5 for a puck-out-of-the-playing-area limb, of which the IIHF book has none — its 75.4(II) misconduct reaches "any equipment", not the puck — and Rule 69.1, whose crease-stoppage sentence — the referee's "possibility to stop the game" where an attacking Player "is in the goal crease and does not leave immediately" — has no counterpart anywhere in NHL Rules 69.1 to 69.8, and reads word for word the same in the IIHF's 2026/27 edition · IIHF – New Rule Book for global game — the IIHF's own announcement, 5 June 2021, that it would "introduce a new Rule Book for the 2021/22 season", listing among the rules to be integrated "A restricted area for goalkeepers behind the net to create more offensive play (i.e. trapezoid familiar to NHL and KHL)". It is the source for the IIHF's 2021-22 adoption date, and the only support held here for the KHL — a governing body's aside rather than a KHL rule, and no KHL rulebook was available to check against. Nothing held here dates the NHL's own adoption; the NHL book gives no date in Rules 1.8, 27.8 or 63.2(viii).*

UK rule set — the base book for every level of British hockey: IIHF Official Rule Book 2025/26 — Rule 5.1 ("any reference to 'Player' shall refer to both skaters and goalkeepers"), Rule 27.1 (Minor Penalty to Goalkeeper, the NHL's 27.1 with "penalty box" for "penalty bench"), Rule 1.7 (Goal Crease), Rule 1.8 and Rule 27.7 (Goalkeeper's Restricted Area — the trapezoid, and note the number), Rule 42 Charging, read 1 September 2026 in the 2026/27 book — 42.1's "A penalty shall be imposed on a Player who charges a goalkeeper while the goalkeeper is within their goal crease" with 42.2 (minor), 42.3 (major) and 42.4 (major plus game misconduct for reckless endangerment); the word "privileged" appears nowhere in the book, Rule 9.12 (Neck Laceration Protector — mandatory "For all Players in all categories of IIHF Competition", with a minor penalty "after warning by the Referee", and the separate permission that "A goalkeeper may attach a throat protector to the chin of their facemask", which sits alongside the mandate rather than satisfying it), Rule 10.2 (Goalkeeper's Stick, 71 cm paddle), Rule 11.1–11.2 (Goalkeeper's Equipment), Rule 24 (Penalty Shot, including 24.4's awarded goal on a third violation), Rule 27.5 (Leaving Goal Crease — the altercation minor, both carve-outs, and the bench-permission limb, all in the NHL's words at its 27.6), Rule 27.6 (Participating in the Play Over the Center Red Line, with the same "position of the puck" determining factor as the NHL's 27.7), Rule 27.8 (Infractions – Unique to Goalkeepers, a pointer to Table 13 and nothing more — the pointer reads Table 11 in the IIHF's 2026/27 edition, whose rows and rule references are identical), Rule 63.2 (Delaying the Game, including 63.2(II) and 63.2(III), the counterparts of the NHL's (ii) and (iii) — not verbatim the NHL's: (III) writes "protective glass" where the NHL writes "glass", and "surrounding the Players' bench" where the NHL writes "'behind' the players' bench", both quoted and compared in the body — and 63.2(VIII)), Rule 63.2(I), (VI) and (VII), read 1 September 2026 and identical in the 2025/26 v1.0, v1.1 and 2026/27 books — 63.2(I)'s "On any Player, including the goalkeeper, who holds, 'freezes' or plays the puck… Regarding to a goalkeeper, this rule applies outside of their goal crease area", 63.2(VI)'s Note and 63.2(VII)'s "unless they are actually being checked by an opponent" — read with Appendix IV Table 13, which prints "Playing puck outside restricted area" (1, 27.7, 63.2 (VIII)) and "Deliberately 'freezes' the puck inside or outside the goal crease" (63.2 (I), (VI) & (VII), 67.3 (I) & (II)) as two separate rows, which is what settles that England Ice Hockey's Rule 22.3 suspension of the restricted area does not reach the freezing rules; ⚠️ the Rules & Regulations and both editions of the In-House Rules were searched for any provision touching Rule 63 or the freezing of the puck, and none contains one, Rule 51.3 (a blocker punch — "a major penalty and an automatic game misconduct penalty … and the action is likely to result in injury to the opponent", where the NHL writes a match penalty for an attempt to injure), Appendix IV Table 13 (Summary of Goalkeeper Penalties — "Deliberately shoots or bats puck out of play" against 63.2 (II), and the blocker punch against 51.3; Table 11 in the 2026/27 edition, same rows), Rule 63.8 (No Line Change), Rule 64.1 (the goalkeeper embellishment clause, in the same words as the NHL's), Rule 67.3–67.5 (Handling Puck, including 67.3(IV) and 67.3(V) — the pads-and-net and the snow-and-obstacles minors, the NHL's sentences with "their" for "his"), Rule 85.6, the separate delay-of-game minor on a goalkeeper who "deliberately" drops the puck on the goal netting, and Rule 85.2 Puck Unplayable, whose three-second netting stoppage and whose "Should the goalkeeper use their stick or glove to 'freeze' the puck on the back of the net…" face-off sentence carry no penalty, Rule 69 (Interference on the Goalkeeper, including 69.2's minor-or-major range and 69.3's "appropriate penalty" for refusing to give ground, where the NHL's 69.3 writes a minor), Appendix IV Table 16 (Interference on the Goalkeeper situations — 5C and 5E, both answered "Goal is allowed"; and 6B, 6D and 6F–6H on a goalkeeper who establishes position in the crease; the same table is Table 14 in the IIHF's 2026/27 edition, where those rows were read in full and carry identical wording and identical answers), Rule 81.1 and Rule 81.3–81.6 (Icing — 81.1's "any Player", and 81.5 read in full for a goalkeeper exemption that is not there), Rule 84.4 (Shootout Procedure), Rule 86.6 Pre-Game Warm-Up, read 2 September 2026 — "each team shall confine its activity to its own end of the rink", cross-referencing "Rule 46.10 – Fighting Prior the Drop of the Puck", with violations "reported to the Proper Authorities"; and Rule 5.6 Pre-Game Warm-Up on the Ice, "No penalties are to be assessed but a report of the incident must be submitted to the Proper Authorities" — word for word in the 2025/26 v1.1 and 2026/27 editions · IIHF Official Rule Book 2026/27 (Version 1.0, June 2026) — the current edition, read here for three things only: Rule 27.8, whose pointer now reads Table 11; Appendix IV Tables 11 and 14, the renumbered goalkeeper's-penalties and goalkeeper-interference tables, whose rows were read in full against the 2025/26 book's Tables 13 and 16 and carry identical wording, identical rule references and identical answers; and Rule 69.1, whose crease-stoppage sentence is word for word the 2025/26 book's. Nothing else in it has been read for this document, so the rest of the IIHF layer here is the 2025/26 book's · IIHF Situation Handbook 2025/26 (Version 1.1, August 2025) (PDF) — Situations 27.5, 27.6, 27.7, 27.9, 27.10 and 27.11 (restricted area and the centre red line), 63.29 (a stick save deflected over the glass — "No. The goalkeeper was simply making a save and did not 'shoot' the puck over the glass", identical in the 2026/27 edition), 63.33 (freeze after a dump-in), 69.1, 69.2, 69.3 and 69.5 (crease screens, giving ground, the glove in the face, and the penalty that falls on the goalkeeper), 67.5 (a goalkeeper who leaves the stick in front of the net and is still on the way off — "Since the goalkeeper is still on the ice you cannot award a goal only a minor penalty", identical in the 2026/27 edition), 81.5 (what waves off an icing) · IIHF Situation Handbook 2026/27 (Version 1.0, June 2026) (PDF) — Situation 10.26 (a lost or broken stick propelled at the puck, and the goal disallowed only on intent) and the Foreword's "in case of any contradictions, the valid IIHF Rulebook is always the basis." Situation 10.26 has no counterpart in the 2025/26 Handbook, whose Rule 10 situations end at 10.25; of the other Situations cited in this document, only 27.5, 27.6, 27.7, 27.9, 27.10, 27.11 and 67.5 have been re-checked against the 2026/27 edition — all seven are unchanged there, and still answer with "Rule 27.8" against the Rule Book's 27.7; the remainder have not been re-checked, and the rest of the IIHF layer here is 2025/26 · IHUK In-House Rules 2026-27, Revision 1 (published 25/07/26) — the current British document: its Introduction, which adopts the IIHF Rule Book "Version 1.1, published July 2025" (the 2025/26 book), applies it "in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland (the Home Countries)" alongside the BUIHA, calls the In-House Rules "the overriding interpretation of how the IIHF Rule Book is to be applied domestically", and names no Situation Handbook; Rule 9.12 (neck laceration protectors and their enforcement, "mandatory for all players in all IIHF categories and IHUK/EIH/SIH competitions"); Rule 37 and Rule 38 (no video review, no coach's challenge); the Rule 69.1 amendment; Rule 84 (overtime is not universal); and the section of rules applying specifically to BUIHA games · IHUK In-House Rules 2025-26, Revision 1 — superseded, and read alongside the current edition only to establish what changed. Full amendment list and the rest of the British layer: UK and England Rules ⚠️ The Handbook is linked above as the versioned PDF because the IIHF's officiating hub page (iihf.com/en/statichub/officiating), where it used to be reached, no longer resolves — it answers HTTP 200 with the IIHF's own error page (re-checked 29 August 2026). The Handbook itself is unaffected.

Technique and terminology: USA Hockey Goaltending – Goalie Terms That Really Count (Mitch Korn) — source for challenging, square, front/back door, telescope, T-push, shuffle, half butterfly, paddle down, cushioning, five- and six-hole, Y-theory, flow, and cutting down the angle — "The three steps are (1) being out … (2) being square … (3) being set (stationary if possible)" (note: Korn numbers those steps but does not rank them, and his shuffle definition specifies no skate edge) · BVHS Goalie Coaches Tactics and Skill Development Resource Guide, updated May 2026 (PDF) — quoted verbatim for the shuffle on flats, the RVH off-post anchor at 45 degrees, the "close gap" school on screens, the breakaway checklist ("chest and hips, not their stick or eyes"), the refusal to sort goalies by style ("not to create identical goalies or force athletes into one specific style"), sacrificing depth only against a back-door or breakaway-deke threat, and — in its How to Warm-up chapter, read 2 September 2026 — the warm-up claim quoted in The load goaltending puts on your hips ("The intense butterfly drops and side-to-side pushes require loose muscles. Jumping straight into live shots without a sweat drastically increases the risk of pulled groin or hip flexor muscles") together with the eight items of its Goalie Pre-Practice Checklist. ⚠️ That warm-up claim is a coaching manual's, not a study's, and the manual attaches no figure to it — searched in the full text, it contains no injury rate, no incidence figure and no reference to the adductors, and none has been supplied here. The measured finding it is set beside — proximal adductor injuries as the largest injury category and the largest source of days missed among NHL goaltenders (Keshen and colleagues, 2025, American Journal of Sports Medicine) — is Conditioning and Recovery's, and its numbers, its population and its caveats stay there · USA Hockey Goaltending – In the Crease: Controlling Rebounds (Joe Bertagna) — source for the rebound priority order and the soft stick · USA Hockey – Five Tips for Adult League Goalies — hands out front, playing within the crease, the shuffle, the "cone of shame" · IIHF Coaching – Butterfly Slide · Butterfly style — Wikipedia — VH definition, butterfly recovery, and how the terms profly, hybrid and stand-up are used. ⚠️ Used for terminology only. Its sentence calling the profly "the style most commonly used and taught" cites a 2004 NHL.com coaching Q&A that does not contain the claim or the word "profly", so no statement about which style dominates rests on it here · Goaltender — Wikipedia

Post play and modern practice: InGoal Magazine – How Sweden Invented the RVH — Linda Blomquist and Daniel Henriksson, Luleå, 2010, and the three problems with VH · InGoal Magazine – Why Tuukka Rask Uses Shin on Post for Reverse VH — Bob Essensa on seal points and getting stuck · InGoal Magazine – Brady Robinson: When to Prioritize Depth on Short-Side Shots · InGoal Magazine – The Modern Science of Goalie Tracking and Object Interception — tracking as object interception, smooth pursuits and saccades

Coaching and the mental side: USA Hockey Goaltending – In the Crease: Spotting Confidence Problems (Mitch Korn) · USA Hockey – Coaching the Crease (Kevin Reiter, Jeff Blashill) — "set, then shoot", and goaltending as much a mental position as a technical one · USA Hockey – Tips on Coaching Goalies (Corey Schwab, Kevin Reiter) — why dropping automatically fails for smaller goalies, and Schwab on wanting young goalies "to learn how to react and not just drop and hope they stop the puck"

Communication: On-Ice Communication and its sources, including The Coaches Site – Goalie Breakout Calls (Kelvin Cech)

Helmets and face masks — the four books read in the primary text on 1 September 2026: NHL Official Rules 2025-2026 (PDF) Rule 9.6 — the lost-mask stoppage and its possession condition, the minor for removing the mask "in order to secure a stoppage of play", and the awarded goal where it is done "when the opposing team is on a breakaway, during the course of a penalty shot or shootout attempt" — read with Rule 25.4, which lists the awarded-goal infractions during a penalty shot and does not repeat the mask clause, and Rule 22.1 (a misconduct is ten minutes) · IIHF Official Rule Book 2025/26 (PDF) Rule 9.6, the same two limbs with the breakaway qualified as one meeting the penalty-shot criteria "except for a foul from behind", identical in the 2026/27 edition, and Rule 25.4, which does carry the clause — "or removes their face mask to force an interruption" · USA Hockey Official Playing Rules 2025-29 (PDF) Rule 304(e) (the immediate stoppage in all classifications, the goalkeeper not ruled off before the face-off, and the delay-of-game minor reaching "a goalkeeper or skater"), Rule 610(e), and Rule 404(a) for the length of a misconduct, plus the sled-hockey goalkeeper equipment note in the Disabled Hockey section · Hockey Canada Playing Rules 2026-2028 (PDF) Rule 3.6(d) — the goaltender stoppage, its imminent-scoring-chance exception, its equipment list reaching the blocker, trapper and skate blade, and the delay-of-game routing for deliberate removal — with Rule 4.11(a)(iii) and Interpretation 11 to Rules 10.6(a) and 3.6. ⚠️ Two negative statements in that passage were established by search, not assumed. That neither the NHL nor the IIHF writes a last-two-minutes or overtime limb rests on reading every occurrence of "helmet", "face mask" and "facemask" in both books: in the NHL book the goalkeeper provision is Rule 9.6 alone, the rest being Rule 46.6 (helmets before a fight), Rule 51 (roughing, for removing an opponent's helmet) and the reference tables; in the IIHF book, Rules 9.6, 24.5, 25.4, 42, 46.12 and 51. That USA Hockey publishes no interpretation of 610(e) rests on reading all eleven Casebook Situations printed under Rule 610, none of which mentions a helmet or a facemask. The lettering used for 610(e) is the printed body's, per the convention flagged earlier in this document; the Casebook prints the same clause under the same letter. ⚠️ A fifth book was searched for the same stoppage and writes none: CARHA Hockey Official Rule Book, printed 2020 (PDF), read 2 September 2026 — its Rule 24(f) stops play "[w]hen a goalkeeper loses their helmet", its Rule 24(d) requires that "[g]oalkeepers must still wear a full face mask" — the single occurrence of the word mask in the book — and its remaining face-protection clauses (23(d), removal for identification; 24(d)'s Notes, on CSA certification and insurance) are about what is worn, not about what a shot does to it. The phrases "hard shot", "dazed", "struck in the head", "head by the puck" and "hit on the face" return nothing from it, and it has no disabled-hockey section for a clause to sit in, as USA Hockey's does. ⚠️ What every one of the five books does have is a general injured-player stoppage that reaches a goalkeeper, and the text above now says so. CARHA Rule 20(d) — "When a player is injured so that they cannot continue play or go to their bench, the play shall be stopped immediately" — with Note 1 adding the widest discretion of the five, "Where there is suspicion that a player has sustained an injury, the Referee may stop the play immediately" (no serious, no obvious); it reaches a goalkeeper on the book's own definition of Players — "Except where special rules apply, the goalkeeper is to be considered as one of the players" — corroborated by Rule 20(a)'s "a player, other than a goalkeeper" and Note 2's "excluding the goalkeeper", both carve-outs that only make sense if the word otherwise includes one. NHL Rule 8.1 stops play for a player "injured so that he cannot continue play or go to his bench"; IIHF Rule 8.1 is that rule in the IIHF's own words, "injured so that they cannot continue play or go to their Players' bench" — the noun differs as well as the pronoun. Both allow an immediate stoppage where "it is obvious that a player has sustained a serious injury", and each book's Rule 8.2 presupposes the result in a sentence the two do write alike — "When play has been stopped by the Referee or Linesperson due to an injured goalkeeper". USA Hockey Rule 206(a) is the same, its "A player other than a goalkeeper, whose injury appears serious enough to warrant the stoppage of play" being a carve-out from a consequence rather than from the stoppage. Hockey Canada Rule 2.4(b) likewise, with Note 1 at "suspicion that a player has sustained serious injury" and Note 2 excluding the goaltender only from leaving the ice. ⚠️ None of these is written about a mask, and that is the whole point: each asks an official to judge that a player is hurt, which is what a goalkeeper behind a cage supplies least evidence for — so the distinction that matters is the trigger, not whether a stoppage exists. An earlier reading of this passage recorded only the two Notes, called them discretionary and concluded that the books wrote no stoppage; that was too narrow on both counts, because the operative clauses of 8.1, 206(a), 2.4(b) and 20(d) are mandatory once their threshold is met. CARHA governs CARHA-affiliated adult leagues only.

The goaltender in an altercation, fifth book — CARHA Hockey Official Rule Book, printed 2020 (PDF), read 7 September 2026: Rule 37 (Goalkeeper Penalties) — 37(c), the minor for leaving the goal crease during a fight, and 37(d), the game misconduct for leaving it to join in, act as a peacemaker or take part in another fight during the same stoppage, read as a window because a page banner splits 37(d) between its first line and the rest; Rule 59 (Fighting and Roughing) — 59(a)'s match penalty for the instigator or aggressor, its Note 2, which supplies the neutral-location route and reads "The goalkeepers must stay in their goal creases or proceed to a neutral zone designated by the Referee" with a game misconduct for "refusing to do so after being instructed by the Referee", 59(b)'s game misconduct for any player who joins in or acts as a peacemaker, and 59(d)'s automatic suspension "until dealt with by the Chairman", which is written to players "assessed fighting penalties" and which this document therefore does not apply to a peacemaker's game misconduct; and Rule 32 — 32(b), what a game misconduct costs (dressing room plus a report to the Chairman), 32(c), which exempts Rule 46 game misconducts from automatic suspension, and 32(d), whose automatic one-game suspension attaches to a game misconduct earned by way of a major. ⚠️ The book governs CARHA-affiliated leagues and is not a rec-hockey standard; how much adult recreational hockey runs on it is a question about leagues rather than about books, and this document has no count for it.

Verification notes

Caveats and known gaps: (1) The trapezoid's width at the goal line is given differently in NHL Rule 27.8 (six feet from each post, stale pre-2014 wording) and NHL Rule 1.8 (eight feet from each post, the markings actually painted). The dimensions used here follow Rule 1.8. The IIHF book has no equivalent defect — its Rules 1.8 and 27.7 both give 6.80 m / 8.60 m. A separate numbering trap replaces it for UK readers, and it is flagged in the text: the IIHF numbers the restricted area 27.7 and the centre-red-line rule 27.6, one below the NHL's 27.8 and 27.7, while IIHF 27.8 is merely a pointer to Table 13. The IIHF's own two publications disagree, in the 2025/26 and 2026/27 editions alike: the Rule Book and its goalkeeper-penalties table use 27.7, and the Situation Handbook still answers with 27.8 — at Situations 27.6, 27.7, 27.9, 27.10 and 27.11, which are the five that concern the restricted area, Situation 27.8 being about something else entirely. The Handbook carries the same shift down onto the centre-red-line rule, answering Situation 27.5 with Rule 27.7 where the Rule Book numbers that rule 27.6. The Rule Book's numbering is used here. A second, purely clerical trap sits on top of it. The IIHF renumbered its Appendix IV tables for 2026/27, merging three of them, so the goalkeeper-penalties table is Table 13 in the 2025/26 book and Table 11 in the 2026/27 one, and the goaltender-interference situations table is Table 16 and Table 14 respectively. The rows quoted in this document were read in both editions and are identical; the numbering used here is the 2025/26 book's, which is the edition the rest of this document's IIHF layer follows. (2) The interaction between Rule 63.2(vii) and Rule 67.3(ii) on freezing the puck inside the crease is my reading; the NHL publishes no interpretation of it. The IIHF narrows the gap in the rule text itself — its 67.3(I) reads "checked / pressured" where the NHL's reads only "checked" — though it does not repeat the word in 63.2(VII), so the tension is reduced rather than removed. Hockey Canada (Interpretation 3 to Rule 10.1(a)) and USA Hockey (Rule 610(b) with its Note, and Casebook Rule 610, Situation 3) both publish official interpretations of the same question under their own rulebooks, and both adopt the "under pressure" / "act of playing goal" test the text describes; those are quoted where the point is made. (3) The goalie's "shot" call is documented in a published coaching source — Sportmentary's goalie communication guide, quoted in full where the call appears above and already cited in On-Ice Communication. The sourced meaning is "I have the shooter", not a warning that a shot is coming. (4) The claim that goaltending is the most psychologically demanding position in team sport is widely repeated, with no study behind it, and it is flagged as opinion in the text. (5) Whether deliberately blocking a rimmed puck with your body counts as "playing the puck" is still my reading under the NHL book, which does not define the term and publishes no interpretation. It is no longer an open question under the IIHF book, which is the one that governs British play: IIHF Situation Handbook Situation 27.7 puts the case of a goalkeeper who "drops down on the knees and blocks the pass using the leg pads" outside the designated area and answers that the goalkeeper "plays" the puck and takes the minor. The conservative reading in the text is therefore the published answer under IIHF rules and an inference under NHL rules, and it is labelled that way where it appears. (6) Rule 10.2 sets the maximum paddle length for a goalkeeper granted a height exemption at the same 26 inches as the ordinary limit, which makes the exemption inoperative as written; this appears to be stale wording and is flagged where it appears. (7) The characterisation of RVH as near-universal at professional level comes from goaltending-coaching sources, not from a survey. (8) No time limit on a penalty shot or a shootout attempt exists in NHL Rule 24 or Rule 84.4, nor in IIHF Rule 24, whose only timing provision (24.7) excludes the shot from playing time rather than capping it — ignore the "twenty seconds" figure that is commonly quoted, which appears in none of them. (9) The EIHL Casebook has not been read, so nothing here describes Elite League interpretation. The IHUK In-House Rules make no goalkeeper-specific amendment to the playing rules beyond the neck-protector enforcement and the removal of video review and coach's challenges — verified by reading the 2026-27 In-House Rules document in full, as the superseded 2025-26 edition had been. The one other goalkeeper-specific line in the book is administrative and sits in Appendix 1's overtime procedures, where "Goalkeepers may go to their bench during the rest period; penalised players must remain in the penalty box." The one provision worth naming as not an exception is In-House Rule 10.3, new for 2026-27, which bars skating with a broken stick and requires a player to drop it immediately: it is headed "Broken Stick: Player" and the goalkeeper's broken-stick rule is IIHF 10.4, which the In-House Rules leave alone — so on the wording the goalkeeper's play-on permission survives, and if your league reads it otherwise, ask before you rely on it. So every other IIHF rule quoted here applies unamended in EIH and SIHA competition so far as the In-House Rules go — which is not the whole British picture. England Ice Hockey's Rules & Regulations is a second document, and its Rule 22.3 suspends the Goalkeepers' Restricted Area, so silence in the In-House Rules is not by itself evidence that a rule is unamended in Britain. The Rules & Regulations have been read for the trapezoid and the neck protector, not end to end. Revisions and Rule Bulletins are issued in-season; check for a later one before relying on a detail. (10) Nothing in the sources listed above counts goals by cause, ranks goaltending errors by frequency, or measures how often a call gets answered. Where this document says a mistake is common — the reflex butterfly, screening your own goalie, an unanswered 'screen' call — that is coaching observation, and it is labelled as such where it appears. Note the limit on that statement: none of the goaltending sources above is held as searchable text, so it could not be re-checked by search in either direction. The counts of goals by cause this document can point to are not in goaltending sources at all: Game Management counts the tip, deflection and rebound share of goals scored with an extra attacker on the ice, and Offensive Zone Play counts the share of all goals arriving within three seconds of a preceding shot, which is a proxy for the rebound. Both read the NHL play-by-play feed, and that feed carries no marker for a screen — so the net-front cause this document leans on hardest is precisely the one that cannot be counted from it. (11) That NHL and IIHF Rule 63.2(iii) reaches a goalkeeper is an inference from Rule 5.1's definition of "player", not a statement either book makes about goalkeepers. Its sibling limb 63.2(ii) is stated of goalkeepers outright, in both books' goalkeeper tables (NHL Reference Table 11, eighth row; IIHF Table 13, naming Rule 63.2(II)); no table and no situation held here does the same for (iii). The inference is the one the books' own drafting invites — Rule 63.2(i) names goalkeepers in, Rule 63.2(v) names them out, and Rule 63.2(iii) does neither — but it is an inference, and it is labelled as one where it appears. Hockey Canada Rule 10.1(v), which is written for goaltenders in terms, carries an ambiguity of its own that no source on disk resolves: the limb has no "deliberately" where four of its siblings do, while Rule 10.1's opening sentence supplies the word for the rule as a whole.

Goaltender

Overview

How This Document Maps onto the Other Position Documents

A Note on Language

Stance and Depth

The ready stance

Depth is the fundamental decision

Angles and Positioning — The Core of the Position

Playing the angle

Squaring up

The post-to-post arc

Knowing where you are without looking

Angle first, or depth first?

Movement

On your feet

On your knees

Post integration: VH and RVH

The load goaltending puts on your hips, and warming up for it

Save Selection

The butterfly is a tool, not a religion

Rebound Control

Preventing the rebound — absorbing

Directing the rebound

Freezing the puck — and the rules that govern it

Tracking the Puck

Screens, Tips and Traffic

Fighting for a sightline

Playing bigger and deeper through traffic

Reading a tip

Playing the Puck

The trapezoid — the rule that defines what you can do

Stopping pucks for your defence

The safe outlets

Putting the puck out of play — the minor that is yours too, and the tier above it after a whistle

The discipline of not playing it

Icing — you are the one who can wave it off

Communicating with Your Defence

The core calls

How to call well

Situational Goaltending

Breakaways

Penalty shots

2-on-1s — and what you want from your defenceman

3-on-2s

Shootouts

Power play (your team is up a man)

Penalty kill (your team is down a man)

6-on-5 with your net empty

When a fight or a scrum breaks out

Goaltender Interference, From Your Side of It

The protection you have — and how it differs by book

The tier for running you — and which of the four books prices it highest

What it changes about what you do

What a Goalie Needs From Their Skaters

In front of your own net

The puck, the calls and their stick

Equipment Notes

Protection, and the neck laceration protector

If you take one off the mask

Your stick — paddle length

If your stick breaks

A stick loose on your ice, and the goal that goes in off it

The Mental Side

The goal that goes in

Spotting your own confidence problems

The honest version of the mental demand

Common Mistakes

Check yourself

Key Takeaways

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