As always, with each new NHL game comes the risk that EA may inadvertently introduce a bugged mechanic that players can abuse to gain a distinct advantage. Whilst ‘R1 blocking’ another player has been in the game for a couple years now, we feel that it has gotten to the stage where a post is required to get everyone up to speed on what is, and what is not, allowed regarding it.
What is allowed:
- Trying to reach the puck with your stick extended towards the puck
- Staying in front of your opponent while skating towards a loose puck
- Blocking a passing lane
- Preserving previously gained body position by standing in your opponent’s way and having them skate around you
What is not allowed:
- Purposefully and actively blocking your opponent’s skating lane
- Blatantly blocking the opposing player by putting your stick / arm in front of them without trying to reach for the puck
- Negating your opponent’s body position advantage by wrapping your stick / arm around them from behind.
Then is some overlap in what is allowed and what is not as ultimately some level of blocking naturally occurs over the course of a game. However, the intention of this is to eliminate people exploiting the fact that the game does not recognise interference unless you hit an opponent who does not have the puck – i.e., do not do something that would be classed as interference in real life.
In the event of cases where a player toes the line between what is allowed and what is not, some level of leniency will be applied. Do not take this as an invitation to routinely test how far LA will bend on the matter however, as whilst the benefit of the doubt will be applied in one-off cases, we will still nevertheless punish those that we feel are making it a habit of pushing the boundary between legal and illegal. Naturally, this benefit of the doubt will not be applied if we also deem the blocking to be blatant.
It should also be mentioned that cases involving blocking allegations need to be reported immediately, not days after the fact, and be paired with good quality video material. Cases that have not been reported via the support tool will NOT be investigated by LA.
To further illustrate the line between legal and illegal, we have attached four videos:
In this, between 26:32 – 26:37, the LW (green icon) for the team in white was interfered with. This is due to the defender on the other team purposefully and actively blocking their skating lane, moving in front to block the LWs path whenever he attempted to skate around him.
The defending player for the team in white was initially blocking a passing lane with his stick, and therefore was abiding by the rules. However, towards the end of the play they turned into the attacking player and blocked them by putting their stick / arm in front of them without trying to reach for the puck. This turn was highly questionable and whilst on its own it did not elicit punishment, any further reoccurring incidents like this from the defending player could bring about punishment.
It should be noted that the quality of this clip is not up to the quality we expect to be provided and handheld recording should be avoided.
The defender for the team in orange interfered with the forward from the team in white by blatantly blocking the opposing player by putting their stick / arm in front of them without trying to reach for the puck. By extending their stick / arm across the body of the attacking player, the defender slowed down the opposing player, reducing the danger of the potential breakaway.
The defender for the team in green interfered with the RW (blue icon) on the opposing team by purposefully and actively blocking their opponent’s skating lane.
We have received some questions regarding why we haven't suspended people for the so-called "R1-block". There are a few things that contribute to this.
- The original rule was written for blatant cases like clip 4 (which was not a League Administrative case and settled between the two teams). The rulebook now links to this thread to give the reader concrete examples of what we hope explain clear and unclear cases.
- We have received quite a lot of "R1" footage where we could not without a shadow of doubt say that the intention was interference rather than blocking the passing lane.
- The "R1 block" in clip 3 is probably the most blatant use we have seen and while we contemplated a suspension of two games for the player in question, we recognized that we have not successfully drawn the line before in cases like this and the player in question's team has previously been told - about what we see as unclear cases of R1 blocking -that there was no interference. As such, we are now slightly tuning the rule to make it more clear and sharing how this rule will be interpreted
We hope that this has cleared up some questions regarding rule 9.2.4 as well given everyone an insight into what we (LA) deem to be legal vs. illegal. If you have any further questions that you would like to be answered regarding this, please do not hesitate to let us know down below and we will do our best to try to answer them – after all, given that this issue is fundamentally a judgement call, we all need to be on the same page and understand what is allowed and what is not. As a general thought though, with reference to rule 9.1, if you are ever unsure about whether an event in game should be allowed (does not have to be exclusive to legal vs. illegal interference with a player), ask yourself whether you would be happy being on the receiving end of what you are doing – if not, do not do it.
Again, as this is possibly the most subjective rule in the rulebook, we ask that we are able to have an open and non-judgemental discussion to find a community consensus on what you see as interference and what not. Please share your thoughts in the comments section, as we are willing to adjust the rule ahead of ECL '22: Spring based on community feedback.
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