clarification of substitution rule

[Jurassic Referee]

Originally posted by bebanovich
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OK. Your second sentence is clear to me and, ultimately, I will have to live with this as the answer. However, I don't understand how it would not be a violation of the spirit of the rule if a team is asking for a defensive match-up when they are not matching up defensively. Is the spirit of the rule not to guard against match-up confusion? If not, what is it?

I am really not trying to be confrontational but I'm hoping to be convinced intellectually so I can sleep in peace. Maybe the answer is that the spirit of the rule is immaterial in this case but I can't yet except that this example is actually within the spirit of the rule. What am I missing? [/B][/QUOTE]You're not missing anything. The answer is that the spirit of the rule is ultimately immaterial in this case. It's a procedural type rule that has got nothing to do with advantage/disadvantage or anything like that. It's the same type of rule as , say, substitution- it simply tells you how and when. We don't get to pick out the rules that we like or dislike; we just call the ones that we have to call- like this one. If we did get to pick-and choose, I doubt that the rule allowing coaches to call time-outs would be around very long, for one example.