A bit of a mess at an Indiana HS game

[JRutledge]

Originally Posted by AremRed

By that logic you could consider an seemingly innocuous action to be "instigation" if a player reacts to it and punches someone.

According to the dictionary, instigation means "to cause to come about". Did the action by W43 "cause to come about" the punch by G2? Yes.

However, 4-18-2 specifies "An attempt to instigate a fight". Was the action by W43 "an attempt to instigate a fight"? No.

First of all we are not dealing with the dictionary. The rulebook only talks about instigation and gives examples like trash talking that leads to a player being punched. It does not say in the rulebook or casebook that certain words are intentional instigation and others are unintentional. Since the first action clearly lead to a reaction to the green player that threw a punch, I am not going to split hairs on who did what first. It is on tape and the actions was unnecessary IMO. You may not agree, but I am ejecting the white player too. The rule does not say only a punch is fighting.

Peace