Fight

[ronny mulkey]

End of first half. 65 feet shot, horn, whistle on the clear miss and the shooter takes 3 walking steps and bumps into a defender looking back at the shot. Incidental contact is similar to bumping into someone around the water cooler at work. Instead of excuse me, both end up swinging. Chaos, but no one else fought. All 3 officials notice that BOTH benches are empty? Both coaches insist that their benches were empty because they were headed to locker room.

What do you guys have?

[Adam]

Unless I see different, I'm going to assume the coaches were telling the truth. Players are usually up and moving quickly at the horn.

Toss A1 and B1 and move on. Just hope the tape doesn't show the coaches were lying.

[ronny mulkey]

Originally Posted by Adam

Unless I see different, I'm going to assume the coaches were telling the truth. Players are usually up and moving quickly at the horn.

Toss A1 and B1 and move on. Just hope the tape doesn't show the coaches were lying.

People rushed to the fight within 2 seconds of the horn. Some had game jerseys on and some had warmups on. Either way, we had empty benches.
As soon as the horn sounds and the play is dead, is EVERYBODY considered bench personnel? The 8 "players" on the floor not fighting?

[Adam]

Originally Posted by ronny mulkey

People rushed to the fight within 2 seconds of the horn. Some had game jerseys on and some had warmups on. Either way, we had empty benches.
As soon as the horn sounds and the play is dead, is EVERYBODY considered bench personnel? The 8 "players" on the floor not fighting?

Ouch, rushing to the fight changes things. Did the fight start after the horn? If so, then it's intermission time and everyone is bench personnel. The players on the bench would have been fine heading to the locker room, but rushing to the fight changes that.

Honestly, I'm going to need to be convinced why they shouldn't all be tossed in that case.

Also, even if you don't, each coach gets in indirect T and the accompanying seatbelt.

[johnny d]

Toss the two players involved in the fight. Then toss everybody from both teams that wasn't in the game to finish the half. Play 4 on 4 to start the second half.

[UNIgiantslayers]

Agreed with Adam. Fight happens during intermission, during which time players are allowed to leave bench (to go to locker room). Without definitive knowledge of any of those players taking part in the shenanigans, I can't come up with a rule reference to support implementing any other punitive measures.

[ronny mulkey]

Originally Posted by UNIgiantslayers

Agreed with Adam. Fight happens during intermission, during which time players are allowed to leave bench (to go to locker room). Without definitive knowledge of any of those players taking part in the shenanigans, I can't come up with a rule reference to support implementing any other punitive measures.

Uni,

So, as soon as horn goes off and the play is dead, everybody is a team member/bench personnel???

[BigCat]

Originally Posted by ronny mulkey

Uni,

So, as soon as horn goes off and the play is dead, everybody is a team member/bench personnel???

Here you had a try in flight, horn and then clearly missed try making ball dead and ending quarter. Everybody is now bench personnel. All 10 who were in game and of course, all others. During intermission everybody is bench personnel.

[Camron Rust]

Originally Posted by BigCat

Here you had a try in flight, horn and then clearly missed try making ball dead and ending quarter. Everybody is now bench personnel. All 10 who were in game and of course, all others. During intermission everybody is bench personnel.

Yet the rules regarding fighting and the behavior of bench personnel are written in the context of it not being an intermission. I don't think you'd treat the 5 people who were the players as if they came off the bench when a fight occurred. They were legally on the floor having been players. You might treat them as bench personnel so far as indirect T's go, however, but not for the purposes of disqualification if they do not participate.

Also, if the true bench personnel were heading towards their locker room, they'd be authorized to do that too. So, I would have no problem not treating them as leaving the bench for a fight unless they showed some sort of aggressive action related to the fight.

[BlueDevilRef]

I guess I'm missing something.....where were other players? In the locker room? No worries then. If they were on the floor near the fight, make your best judgement. Shouldn't be hard to find players, just look to see where they were.

[ronny mulkey]

Originally Posted by BlueDevilRef

I guess I'm missing something.....where were other players? In the locker room? No worries then. If they were on the floor near the fight, make your best judgement. Shouldn't be hard to find players, just look to see where they were.

Devil,

Nobody was in the locker room. Fracas occurred within 2 seconds of horn going off. Players and team members rushed to the fight. We had a lot of people on the floor AND empty benches.

[VaTerp]

Originally Posted by ronny mulkey

Devil,

Nobody was in the locker room. Fracas occurred within 2 seconds of horn going off. Players and team members rushed to the fight. We had a lot of people on the floor AND empty benches.

What did they do as they were rushing and once they got to the fight?

[UNIgiantslayers]

Man this one is hairy. It would be really tough without a monitor. Would you do anything different in hindsight?

[ronny mulkey]

Originally Posted by UNIgiantslayers

Man this one is hairy. It would be really tough without a monitor. Would you do anything different in hindsight?

Yes. We would not have worried about the benches if we had realized that it was halftime and that all we hold sacred is no longer valid i.e. empty benches don't really mean a lot. Just focus on the fight and try to identify other fighters which we were able to do from our vantage points. But, we really didn't try to separate the chargers from the curious bystanders??? We didn't think it mattered.

[BryanV21]

If they "rushed to the fight" then perhaps we have more technicals/ejections to hand out. HTBT moment I guess.

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