Fight Instigator

An instigator is a player who by his actions or demeanor demonstrates any/some of the following criteria: distance traveled; gloves off first; first punch thrown; menacing attitude or posture; verbal instigation or threats; conduct in retaliation to a prior game (or season) incident; obvious retribution for a previous incident in the game or season.

A player gives himself away if he starts charging at someone and immediately starts throwing punches. Sometimes this is more obvious because the officials discussed with the players before the game if there were any incidents that signaled the potential for retaliation. The instigator is generally not assessed unless it’s really obvious a player “instigated” a fight.

If a player is assessed an instigator penalty, he racks up 17 minutes in penalties: the two-minute minor plus 10-minute misconduct for the instigator on top of the five minutes for fighting. It is also possible for players to rack up another game misconduct for being the Aggressor in a fight, covered in the last rulebook post on fighting.

The 17 minutes in penalties are certainly a lot of game time, but they don’t automatically throw a player out of the game. If, upon his return to the game, the same player incurs a second fight instigator penalty in the same game, he’ll still get two, five, and 10, except this time the 10-minute penalty is a game misconduct. I honestly don’t know if anyone’s ever been assessed two instigators in the same game.

Regardless of whether it’s a player’s first or second instigator in the game, if it’s his third instigator of the season, then he’ll automatically be assessed a game misconduct.

If a player’s team thinks an instigator penalty wasn’t warranted, they can request to have the incident reviewed by the League. It follows the same procedure for a game misconduct review outlined in Rule 23.2: file the request in writing to the League’s Hockey Operations department within 48 hours from the conclusion of the game.