From: phaedrus@halcyon.com (Mark Phaedrus)
Subject: Re: Does NHLPA93 follow rules?
Organization: The 23:00 News and Mail Service
Date: Sat, 19 Dec 1992 03:55:09 GMT

In article <1992Dec17.204227.11058@pslu1.psl.wisc.edu> buxton@whitewater.chem.wisc.edu (buxton) writes:
>I was wondering if NHLPA93 (or EA Hockey, for that matter) has a very  
>accurate interpretation of the rules.  My main question deals with the  
>calling of penalties when the team with the puck is not the guilty party.   
>The rules dictate that if the team in control of the puck didn't make the  
>penalty, then they should be allowed to continue to play and possibly  
>score until the other team touches the puck.  I have been really irritated  
>by the number of times on my LYNX Hockey that I had a breakaway towards  
>the goal only to have play stopped by some lame call of cross checking or  
>tripping (computer team) on a part of the screen that I can't even see.   
>Does this happen in other games, too, or have they taken this into  
>account?

     The original NHL Hockey gets this right, so I would assume that NHLPA
does too.  When the other team commits a penalty while you have the puck, a
little picture of a referee with a raised arm pops up in the corner of the
screen, signalling a delayed penalty.  As soon as the other team gets
possession of the puck or the play is blown dead for some other reason, the
penalty is called.  (The game also correctly ignores the penalty if you
score a goal on the play... the only thing missing is that your goalie isn't
smart enough to head for the bench and get an extra skater in, and I understand
NHLPA has that feature.)
     Now, can someone tells me if they've fixed a couple of pet-peeve NHL
Hockey bugs in NHLPA?
     1.  If Players A and B on your team are in the box for penalties, and
Player C then gets called for a penalty as well, Player C gets sent to the
box and the penalty goes up on the board, but you're still only two men short
on the ice, and Players A and B are allowed to return to the ice as soon as
their penalties expire, leaving you at full strength on the ice even though
Player C is still in the box.  Effectively, this makes Player C's penalty
absolutely meaningless; so if you're already two men short, you may as well
knock down everyone in sight.  As I understand the rules of hockey, when 
Player C is called for the third penalty, you are indeed still supposed to
be only two men short on the box, but the clock on Player C's penalty is
not supposed to start running until (say) Player A's penalty expires or is
wiped out by a goal, and that even then you're supposed to still be two men
short on the ice (Player A is not allowed to immediately return to play).
Is this correct, and how does NHLPA handle this triple-penalty situation?
     2.  If the puck got stuck on the back of the net, NHL Hockey was not
smart enough to blow the play dead and call a face-off.  This meant that the
only way to get the puck back into play was to deliberately knock the net
off its moorings, deliberately get penalized, or let the period expire.  (A
local software store found about this bug the hard way, when they set up the
game to play a 20-minute-period demo match; the puck got stuck on the net
with about 18 minutes to play in the first period, and the computer players
just bumped up against the net ineffectually as the whole 18 minutes ran out.
Didn't exactly make people leap to buy the game...)
-- 
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