Hand Pass

Hand Pass means using the hand to direct the puck towards a teammate, as if making a pass. The hand can be used legally to bat down the puck when it is in the air or to clear the puck, but if the puck ends up going to a teammate of the player who used his hand to play the puck, then it will be considered a hand pass and play will be stopped.

A player may close his hand on the puck, but he must immediately place it on the ice in front of him and he must not throw it. Failure to do this properly will result in a two-minute minor penalty. When a referee determines that a hand pass was executed, he will whistle to stop play and a face-off will be taken in the zone where the puck was passed with the hand. The only time when a hand pass will not result in the play being stopped by the referee is if the hand pass occurs in the defensive zone and both the passer and the recipient of the hand pass are also in the defensive zone.