High-Sticking in Hockey: The Penalty and the Puck Rule

A defenseman lifts an opponent's stick in a puck battle behind the net. His own blade keeps rising, catches the forward under the visor, and he goes down holding his face. When he takes his glove away there is blood on it. The referee signals with stacked fists, and the defenseman will sit for four minutes rather than two. He did not mean it. Under the NHL rulebook that does not matter at all.

That is the first meaning of high-sticking in hockey: a penalty for a stick that strikes an opponent above the shoulders, which is a two-minute minor for contact, a four-minute double minor if it causes an injury, and a match penalty if the referee decides it was deliberate. The second meaning has nothing to do with contact. It is the rule against batting the puck with a stick raised above shoulder height, which stops play if the offending team is next to gain possession, and which disallows any goal deflected in off a stick above the four-foot crossbar.

Two rules under one name. They share a word and a stick, and they are enforced in completely different ways.

Two rules under one name, and why fans confuse them

The NHL rulebook keeps the two in separate rules. High-sticking as a penalty sits among the stick fouls, next to slashing, spearing and cross-checking. High-sticking the puck sits among the game-flow rules, next to the hand pass and offside. One sends a player to the box. The other produces a faceoff.

The trouble is the shared phrase. An announcer saying "that's a high stick" might mean a forward's blade has just cut an opponent's lip, or that a defenseman has knocked a puck out of the air at eye level and play has stopped. The crowd reaction is often the same, and the referee may not explain which until after the whistle.

The penalty

The penalty depends on contact with an opponent. Rule 60.1 defines a high stick as one that contacts an opponent above the shoulders, provided the opponent's shoulders are at waist level or higher. The height that matters is the opponent's shoulders, not the stick carrier's.

The puck rule

The puck rule depends on contact with the puck. A player who bats the puck with his stick above the normal height of the shoulders has committed a violation, but no penalty follows. Play stops only if his own team gains possession of the puck next. If an opponent gets it, the violation is forgotten.

The goal rule

The third piece is related but separate again. A goal is disallowed if an attacking player's stick met the puck above the crossbar, which is four feet off the ice. Not the shoulders. A player can legally bat the puck at chest height in open play and still have a goal taken away if the same deflection sends it in from above the crossbar.

• 2Minor for contact, minutes
• 4Double minor for injury, minutes
• 5Match penalty, minutes shorthanded
• 4Crossbar height for goals, feet

Penalty times are minutes on the clock under the NHL rulebook; the crossbar height is in feet. A match penalty also ejects the offender.

Keeping the three straight is most of what a viewer needs. The rest of this page takes them one at a time.

The high-sticking penalty scale: minor, double minor, match

Contact with a high stick is a minor penalty under the NHL's high-sticking rule. That is the baseline, and it applies to any stick contact above an opponent's shoulders that is not covered by an exception. Two minutes, the team plays shorthanded, and a power-play goal ends the penalty early.

The scale steps up with consequences, not with intent. When a high stick to the neck, face or head causes an injury, "in the manner of drawing blood or otherwise," Rule 60.3 tells the referee to assess a double minor. Nothing in that rule asks whether the contact was meant. A player who catches an opponent's cheek with a stick blade during a perfectly innocent puck battle and draws blood sits for four minutes.

How a double minor is served

A double minor is two minors served back to back. If the power-play team scores during the first two minutes, that first minor ends and the second one starts with a fresh two minutes. If it scores again, the penalty is over. That structure is what makes a four-minute high-sticking call more dangerous than it looks: the power play can score once and still have two full minutes left.

The match penalty

At the top of the scale is the match penalty. The NHL rulebook imposes one when, in the referee's judgment, a player deliberately injures or attempts to injure an opponent with a high stick. The offender is ejected, a substitute serves the penalty so his team plays five minutes shorthanded, and the player is automatically suspended until the Commissioner has ruled on the case. The referee must report every match penalty to the Commissioner after the game, and supplementary discipline can follow. A referee who sees a stick swung at a head with force but judges it reckless rather than deliberate can also reach for the major penalties available under the other stick-foul rules, and the line between those outcomes is a call the referee makes on what he saw.

Outcome on the ice	NHL penalty	Time on the clock	Ends early on a power-play goal?
Stick contacts opponent above the shoulders	Minor	2 minutes	Yes
Contact causes an injury	Double minor	4 minutes, as two minors	The first minor ends; the second still runs
Deliberate attempt to injure or deliberate injury	Match penalty	5 minutes, player ejected	No
Contact on a shooting windup or follow-through	None	None	Not applicable
Contact on an opposing center bent over at a faceoff	None, if accidental	None	Not applicable

Why four minutes changes a game

Four minutes is long enough for a power play to change personnel completely. The first unit goes out for most of the first two minutes, the second unit finishes it, and if either scores the clock resets for a fresh minor. A coach facing a double minor late in a close playoff game knows the opponent effectively has two separate power plays in a row with no faceoff in between to slow it down. The penalty killers who started the kill are rarely the ones who finish it. That is why benches react so sharply to a double-minor call that looks accidental, and why the referee's view of the injury matters more than almost any other minor-penalty decision he makes.

Blood as the test

The NHL rulebook says injury "in the manner of drawing blood or otherwise," so blood is one sign of injury rather than the test itself. In practice, visible blood is what referees use to decide a double minor because it is the one thing they can see from across the ice. A player who takes a stick to the face, goes down and comes up bleeding will almost always produce four minutes. A player who takes the same stick and comes up unmarked usually produces two, even if the blow was harder. That is the rule's least satisfying feature. The video review added in 2019 does not fix it, because it checks whose stick caused the injury, not how hard the blow was.

A player is responsible for his stick: the follow-through exception

The NHL rule puts the responsibility squarely on the stick carrier. Players must be in control of their sticks and are responsible for them. There is no defense of accident outside the two exceptions the rule names. A player whose stick rises in a scramble and catches an opponent's chin is penalized whether or not he saw the opponent. The minor in Rule 60.2 covers "any contact" above the shoulders, and the double minor in Rule 60.3 turns on the injury, not on what the player meant.

That principle is older than the modern rulebook and it is the only workable one. A referee cannot read intent in a scramble at the net. He can see whose stick hit whose face. Making the carrier responsible turns a judgment about motive into a judgment about fact.

The exceptions are narrow

The rule allows accidental contact above the shoulders in two situations only.

The first is the normal windup or follow-through of a shooting motion. A forward who winds up for a slap shot and catches a defender on the backswing, or who follows through after a wrist shot and clips the shot-blocker sliding in front of him, is not penalized. The rule protects the act of shooting because shooting requires the stick to rise.

The second is accidental contact on an opposing center who is bent over during a faceoff. Centers lean low over the dot and a stick that rises when the puck is won can catch the other center's face. The rule treats that as part of the faceoff.

What the exception does not cover

A wild swing at a bouncing puck is not a normal windup or follow-through. The rulebook says so directly. A player who slaps at a puck in the air and catches an opponent has not taken a shot in the sense the exception means, and the penalty applies.

The rule's wording speaks of a shooting motion. A pass is not named, and officials have more room to call a high stick on the follow-through of a hard pass than on a shot. That is a judgment area rather than a settled point, and the honest description is that referees treat a pass as less protected than a shot.

Height of the opponent, not the carrier

Because the rule measures height against the opponent's shoulders, an opponent who crouches still carries the protection with him. A defenseman who bends to battle for a puck and takes a stick in the face from a forward skating past can have been high-sticked even though the stick was at the forward's waist. The definition carries a proviso, though: Rule 60.1 applies provided the opponent's shoulders are at waist level or higher, so a player who has dropped far enough is no longer covered by it, and where that point falls is the officials' judgment. The faceoff exception covers the other bent-over case the game produces every few seconds.

Sticks that do not count: teammates, your own stick and a lifted blade

A high-sticking penalty needs an opponent's stick to make contact. That sounds obvious until a player goes down bleeding and the referee has to work out whose stick it was.

Several sticks do not count. A player cut by a teammate's stick, often in a crowd in front of the net, has not been fouled by anyone on the other team. A player cut by his own stick, which happens when a stick rides up a defender's body in a tie-up or rebounds off the glass, has not been fouled either. A player struck in the face by the puck has not been high-sticked at all, however much blood follows.

The lifted stick

A harder case comes when one player lifts an opponent's stick and the blade rides up into someone's face. If a defenseman lifts a forward's stick and the forward's blade catches the defenseman or a teammate in the face, officials often decline to penalize the forward, because the stick was raised by the defenseman's action, not the forward's. Rule 60.1 contains no such exception, so it is a judgment call rather than a fixed rule, and it is called both ways. The responsibility principle says the carrier answers for his stick; the officials' instinct says a stick knocked into a face by someone else is not the carrier's foul.

The referee's angle

Part of the difficulty is position. The referee closest to the play is often behind it, watching a cluster of bodies, and the stick that rose is hidden by a shoulder or a helmet. He sees a player go down, sees his hand go to his face, and sees which sticks were nearby. Rule 32.4 requires a linesman to stop play and report to the referees when an injury from a high stick has gone undetected and calls for a double minor, which helps, but the call is still being made on a partial view in a fraction of a second.

Why it matters

These cases are why video review now exists for the double minor. Before 2019, a referee who saw a player go down bleeding next to an opponent's stick had little choice but to call four minutes. Replays then showed, more than once, that the cut came from a teammate's stick or the player's own. The penalty was already being served.

Source of the stick	Penalty to the opponent?	Note
Opponent's stick, carried high	Yes	Minor, or double minor for injury
Opponent's stick on a shooting follow-through	No	Covered by the shooting exception
Teammate's stick	No	No foul by the other team
The injured player's own stick	No	No foul by the other team
Puck to the face	No	Not a stick foul at all

How officials review a high-sticking double minor on video

Before the 2019-20 season, the NHL gave referees the power to review a double minor for high-sticking on video. The purpose is narrow. The review answers one question: did the penalized player's stick cause the injury?

Under Rule 60.3 the review is optional for the referee, and it is conducted by the referees on the ice in consultation with the other on-ice officials. The Situation Room's role is limited to supplying the replay angles they ask for; there is no other consultation. If the video shows that the injury came from the penalized player's stick, the double minor stands. If it shows that the injury came from something else, a teammate's stick, the injured player's own stick, the puck, the penalty is rescinded. The review is about cause, not about how badly the player was hurt, and it is not a second look at whether a minor should still apply.

1. 1The callThe referee signals a high-sticking double minor after a player is injured.
2. 2The stoppagePlay is already stopped and the referee goes to the review monitor.
3. 3The questionDid the penalized player's stick cause the injury?
4. 4ConfirmedIf the video shows his stick did it, the double minor stands.
5. 5RescindedIf the injury came from a teammate's stick, the player's own stick or the puck, the penalty is taken back.

The NHL procedure introduced for the 2019-20 season. The review confirms or rescinds the call based on whose stick caused the injury; it does not reassess the severity of the injury.

Why it was added

The double-minor review came as part of a broader package of 2019 changes. That offseason the NHL also expanded the coach's challenge to cover missed stoppages in the offensive zone, including high-sticked pucks, after a missed hand pass decided a playoff overtime game. Our page on the hand pass in hockey tells that story. The general logic was the same: the league wanted video to catch obvious errors where the consequence was large and the evidence clear.

What it does not do

The double-minor review is a referee's review, not a coach's challenge. Coaches cannot ask for it, and a review that confirms the call costs nobody anything. Nor can video turn a minor into a double minor or upgrade a minor to a match penalty. It works in one direction. The broader structure of NHL replay, including the challenges coaches can make and what a failed one costs, is in our guide to how the NHL coach's challenge works.

High-sticking the puck in open play: who touches it next

The puck version is a game-flow rule, and it works on a simple principle. A player who bats the puck with his stick above the normal height of his shoulders has played it illegally. If his own team gains possession of the puck next, play stops. If the other team gets it, play continues.

That includes the player himself. A forward who knocks a puck out of the air at head height and then collects it has given his team possession; the whistle blows. A defenseman who bats a high clearance down to a teammate has done the same.

When an opponent gets there first

If the high-sticked puck goes to an opponent, play continues. The violation has not helped the team that committed it. The opponent has the puck and can do what he likes with it. A linesman watching the play holds his whistle until he knows who ends up with the puck, which is why the stoppage sometimes seems to come a moment late.

Whose shoulders

The puck rule refers to "the normal height of the shoulders" without saying whose. Officials judge it against the player who played the puck in a normal stance, so a player who leaps does not raise the limit by jumping. A tall player and a short player who bat the same puck at the same height off the ice may get different calls, because the short player's shoulders are lower.

Where the faceoff goes

After a high-sticked-puck stoppage, Rule 80.2 puts the faceoff at the spot that gives the offending team the least territorial advantage: either where the puck was contacted illegally or where it was last played by the offending team. If the attacking team is at fault and play is stopped with the puck in the attacking zone, the draw moves out to the nearest spot in the neutral zone. The full placement rules are on our faceoff rules page.

1. 1ContactA player bats the puck with his stick above the normal height of his shoulders.
2. 2HoldThe officials wait to see which team gains possession next.
3. 3OpponentIf an opponent gets the puck, play continues and the violation is erased.
4. 4Own teamIf the player or a teammate gains possession, the whistle blows.
5. 5FaceoffThe draw goes to the spot that gives the offending team no territorial gain.

NHL handling of a puck batted above shoulder height in open play. A high-sticked puck that enters the opponent's net is covered by the goal rule, which uses the four-foot crossbar rather than the shoulders.

High-stick goals and the four-foot crossbar

The rule for goals uses a different height. A goal is disallowed if an attacking player deflected or batted the puck into the net with a stick above the height of the crossbar. The crossbar is four feet off the ice. The shoulders do not matter.

The rulebook states clearly that the deciding factor is where the puck makes contact with the stick. A stick can be raised high, with the shaft well above the crossbar, and still produce a good goal if the blade meets the puck below four feet. A stick can be at chest height with the blade turned up and produce a disallowed goal if the puck strikes the shaft above the crossbar.

Judging the height on video

Few decisions in hockey are more dependent on camera angles. The puck is small, it travels fast, and a deflection may last a fraction of a second. The NHL Situation Room in Toronto reviews high-stick goals on its own initiative, so a coach's challenge is not needed. Reviewers line up the puck's height at the point of contact with the crossbar using views from several angles. Where no angle shows the contact clearly, the call on the ice stands.

Why four feet rather than the shoulders

The shoulder rule is about safety: sticks swung near faces. The crossbar rule is about scoring: a puck batted into the net from above the goal is, in effect, a baseball swing rather than a hockey shot. Using the crossbar gives the officials a fixed reference that does not change with the height of the player. A tall player and a short player who deflect the same shot at the same height get the same answer.

The tip from the top of the crease

The play the rule is most often applied to is a deflection from the edge of the crease. A point shot rises past a forward screening the goalie, he reaches up to tip it, and the puck changes direction into the net. If his blade met it at four feet or below, the goal stands. Above, it does not.

A high-sticked puck into your own net, and the goal the other team then scores

The goal rule only bites on attacking players. A defending player who knocks the puck into his own net with a high stick has conceded a goal. The NHL rulebook allows it. A defenseman who swats at a puck in the air at head height in front of his own goalie and redirects it past him has scored for the other team.

The logic is consistent with the rest of the rulebook: violations do not protect the team that commits them. A defending player's high stick is a violation that would stop play only if his own team gained possession next; since the puck went into his own net instead, the goal counts. The credit goes to the attacking player who last touched the puck.

When the other team scores after the high stick

Suppose an attacker high-sticks a puck in the defensive team's zone, the defending team picks it up, and the defending team then scores at the other end. Nothing is wrong with that goal. Once the opponent gained possession of the puck, the high-stick violation was erased, and every play afterward is ordinary hockey.

The reverse case is the one coaches challenge. An attacker high-sticks the puck in the offensive zone, a teammate collects it, and the attacking team scores before the officials have blown the whistle because no one saw the high stick. The play should have been stopped when the teammate gained possession. Since 2019-20, a coach can challenge that goal on the ground that a missed stoppage preceded it in the offensive zone, and if the video shows the high stick clearly, the goal comes off.

Scenario	Result in the NHL
Attacker deflects the puck in with his stick above the crossbar	No goal
Attacker deflects the puck in with his stick at or below the crossbar	Goal
Defender high-sticks the puck into his own net	Goal for the attacking team
Attacker high-sticks the puck, opponent gains possession, opponent later scores	Goal
Attacker high-sticks the puck, teammate collects it, attacking team scores before the whistle	Goal can be challenged as a missed stoppage

The referee's signals and the delayed whistle on a high-sticked puck

The penalty signal is the one fans recognize. The referee holds both fists clenched, one slightly above the other as if holding a stick, at the height of his forehead. It is used for the minor and the double minor alike, and the referee then reports to the penalty timekeeper which of the two he has called.

The delayed call

High-sticking penalties are often delayed calls. A stick catches a player in the face while the other team has the puck, so the referee raises his arm and lets play continue until the offending team gains control. Only then does the whistle blow. If the team that was fouled scores during the delay, a minor is cancelled and one half of a double minor is washed out, leaving two minutes to serve, because that is the part of the penalty a power-play goal would have ended. Our page on the delayed penalty in hockey explains how that works and why the fouled team's goalie sprints to the bench.

The puck violation

The puck version is a different kind of delay. There is no penalty to hold back. What the officials are waiting for is the next possession, and the decision depends entirely on which team gets the puck. Nothing is decided until a player gains possession. If the puck is batted to an opponent, Rule 80.1 tells the referee to give the washout signal immediately and play continues. If the offending team gets it, the whistle blows.

When a goal is waved off

If a high-stick goal is disallowed, the referee uses the washout signal: a sweeping sideways motion of both arms across the front of the body at shoulder level, palms down. Linesmen use the same motion to signal no icing or no offside. After a video review, the referee announces the decision and the reason over the arena microphone.

How high-sticking sits beside slashing and cross-checking

High-sticking is defined by height. The other stick fouls are defined by the action. That means one stick motion can fit more than one rule, and a referee chooses the one that best describes what he saw.

Slashing is swinging the stick at an opponent, whether it hits his body, his hands or his stick, with force. It is a minor in the ordinary case, with a major or a match penalty available for injury or intent. A slash to the hands is the most common form and it is a slash at any height.

Cross-checking is using the shaft of the stick between the two hands to forcefully check an opponent. It is a minor in the ordinary case and can be a major or a match penalty when it injures or is deliberate. A cross-check to the face is cross-checking and can be high-sticking at the same time; referees usually choose the one that describes the main action.

Hooking, holding the stick, spearing and butt-ending fill out the list. Spearing and butt-ending, which use the blade tip and the butt end like a dagger, are treated more severely than the others, and the NHL book penalizes even an attempt.

Stick foul	What the stick does	Ordinary penalty
High-sticking	Contacts an opponent above the shoulders	Minor, double minor for injury
Slashing	Swung at an opponent with force	Minor
Cross-checking	Shaft held in both hands, driven into an opponent	Minor
Hooking	Blade used to impede an opponent	Minor
Spearing	Blade tip jabbed at an opponent	Double minor for an attempt, major for contact

A referee who sees a slash to the face can call slashing or high-sticking. The practical difference is the injury escalation: a high stick that draws blood becomes four minutes automatically, while Rule 61.3 says a slash that injures must be a major, which also carries a game misconduct. The rest of the penalty structure, including how coincidental minors and misconducts work, is in our explainer on NHL penalties from a minor to a match penalty. The fighting rules, which sit apart from the stick fouls, are on our NHL fighting rules page.

Why high sticks happen

Most high sticks are not swings. They come out of three situations that repeat in every game: the stick lift, the puck battle along the wall and the height difference between two players.

The stick lift

Lifting an opponent's stick is a basic defensive play. A defender slips his blade under the attacker's and lifts it to take away the puck. Done well, the attacker's stick rises a few inches and the puck is stolen. Done badly, the attacker's stick rises too far and catches someone in the face. That someone is often the defender himself. Since the defender was hit by an opponent's stick lifted by his own action, officials often call nothing, though the rulebook itself names no exception for it; that is one of the judgment calls described above.

Battles along the wall

Two players fighting for the puck along the boards have their sticks in a small space, often with their bodies tied up and sticks pressed together. A stick that slides up the boards or rides up the glass can come off at any angle. Most high sticks in that situation are accidents, and the rule penalizes them anyway.

Height differences

Because the rule measures height against the opponent's shoulders, the same stick position is legal against one player and illegal against another. A tall defenseman whose stick is at his own chest is carrying it at the face height of a forward several inches shorter. Players are coached to keep their sticks low regardless of the opponent, and taller players learn early that their normal stick position is a hazard to shorter opponents.

The visor

Beginning with the 2013-14 season, the NHL required every player with fewer than 25 games of NHL experience to wear a visor, so veterans already in the league kept the choice. The rule was about eye injuries from pucks and sticks, and it has changed the shape of high-stick injuries: a blade that would once have caught an eye now catches the visor or the cheek below it. It has not changed the rule. A high stick is penalized whether or not the visor took the impact.

The high stick will never disappear from hockey. Sticks rise when players shoot, battle and reach, and the rulebook's response is to make the player answer for where his stick goes. For how a team then defends the four minutes that a careless stick can cost, our guide to the penalty kill in hockey goes through the formations, and the ice hockey section has the broader map.