Advantage/Disadvantage

[Jurassic Referee]

Originally Posted by mbyron

To my mind, this statement is not saying that hand checks are in some sense "automatic" independent of whether they create an illegal advantage.

Rather, it gives examples of how hand checking creates an illegal advantage and thus why hand checks need to be called more.

Helping officials recognize advantage/disadvantage is different from announcing "automatic" fouls, IMO. Officials and coaches should not interpret this kind of statement as endorsing an "automatic" foul independent of advantage/disadvantage.

Disagree completely.

The FED is telling us through that POE that those examples are no-brainers. There's no judgment required at all and they ARE automatic foul calls. They emphasized that by issuing the statement that "hand-checking is NOT incidental contact." By stating that, they took the guesswork right out of the call.

You can either follow the FED's direction or decide not to. My recommendation is to check locally and then follow their direction.