a. A minor or major penalty, at the discretion of the Referee, based upon the degree of violence of the impact with the boards, shall be imposed on any player who checks an opponent in such a manner that causes the opponent to be thrown violently in the boards.
(NOTE) Any unnecessary contact with a player playing the puck on an obvious “icing” or “off-side” play which results in that player being knocked into the boards is “boarding” and must be penalized as such. In other instances where there is no contact with the boards, it should be treated as “charging”.
b. When a major penalty is imposed under this Rule for a foul resulting in an injury to the face or head of an opponent, a game misconduct shall be imposed.
c. Any player who incurs a total of two (2) game misconducts for Boarding under Rule 44 (b), in either Regular Season or Playoffs, shall be suspended automatically for the next game of his Team. For each subsequent game misconduct penalty the automatic suspension shall be increased by one game.
d. When a major penalty is imposed under this Rule, an automatic fine of one hundred dollars ($100) shall be imposed.
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Went to the Sabres/Mighty Ducks game this past Thursday night. It was disappointing to see a rather sparse crowd (around 12,000) in light of the team being one of the best in the league. No matter, as Jones and I had a good time seeing the Sabres win in overtime. We’re now 10-1-1 in “our” last 12 games. Booyah! I highly recommend the beef on weck in the Harbour Club restaurant, with a smattering of horseradish (be careful, though, I think I blew out my sinuses, if that’s possible). After the game, we stood behind the cameras and watched a bit of the postgame show being filmed live, with Kevin Sylvester, Rob Ray and Mike Robitaille. I think Rob Ray kept staring me down when he saw the blue-and-gold Lafontaine jersey I was wearing. I nearly yelled out “let’s drop the gloves!” but thought better of it. Our last brush with celebrity occurred on the way into the parking garage, as we ran into Sabres’ great Danny Gare. Good capper to the night.