Stick 'em or not?

[Smitty]

Originally Posted by Scrapper1

Preventive officiating is when you prevent a player from breaking the rules.

"Clear the lane!"
"Hands off!"
"Straight up, guys!"

There are penalties that you can enforce, if a player handchecks or dislodges a player in the low post or stays in the lane for 3 seconds. But with 2 or 3 words, the player doesn't actually commit the infraction. That's preventive. You've actually prevented the infraction. Hence the name "preventive officiating". See the connection now?

But your argument makes no sense. You cannot truly prevent a player from committing any infraction. How is telling someone "Hands off!" preventing the player from doing anything? If he continues to displace the opposing player, you haven't prevented anything, have you?

You can only try to help prevent players from committing infractions - you cannot prevent them from doing anything. Otherwise there would be no infractions. Your argument holds no water - it's no different than saying the penalty is preventative. You're essentially agreeing with JR here.