penalty box

A rugby union player being sent to the "sin bin"

The penalty box (sometimes called the sin bin,^[1] bad box,^[2] or simply bin) is the area in ice hockey, rugby league, rugby union and some other sports where a player sits to serve the time of a given penalty, for an offense not severe enough to merit outright expulsion from the contest. Teams are generally not allowed to replace players who have been sent to the penalty box.^[3]

Hockey

The penalty boxes in this ice hockey arena are between the center red line and one of the blue lines. In the photo, only the left-hand box is occupied.

Ice hockey has popularized the term "penalty box", and in most cases it is just that—a small isolated bench surrounded by walls on all four sides, with the side facing the ice having the access door. There are typically two penalty boxes: one for each team. In ice hockey a period in the box occurs for all penalties unless circumstances call for an ejection or a penalty shot. If three or more players are serving penalties at once, the team will continue playing with three on the ice but will not be allowed to use the players in the box until their penalties expire.

Most leagues specify that a team cannot replace on the ice a member serving a minor (2-minute) penalty. This results in situations such as the power play, in which the opposing team outnumbers the penalized (shorthanded) team, and (in the event of coincidental minor penalties) situations in which both teams must skate with only five players (including the goaltender) on the ice.

If a team scores a goal while one or more of the opposing team is serving a non-coincidental minor penalty, the penalty with the least time remaining is canceled, and the player serving that penalty may return to the ice. In the case of a double-minor (4-minute) penalty, the penalty is treated as two consecutive 2-minute penalties. If the opposing team scores, only the penalty currently being served is canceled; if more than two minutes remain, the penalty clock is reset to two minutes and the player must remain in the box; if less than two minutes remain, the entire penalty is canceled and the player is released. A major (5-minute) or misconduct (10-minute) penalty must be served in full, regardless of the number of goals scored by the opposition. To keep play fair, coincidental minor penalties ("matching minor" penalties assessed to both teams simultaneously) are also served in full regardless of scoring. Goaltenders never go to the penalty box, even though they are assessed penalty minutes. Any penalties enforced against goaltenders or the bench are served by a teammate, with many leagues requiring that teammate to have been on the ice when the penalty was taken.

Rugby football

A rugby league version of the "sin bin" signal.

In both codes of rugby (rugby league and rugby union), only penalties involving violent play, dangerous play, professional fouls or repetitive commission of a specific offence result in a sin binning, where the offending player must spend 10 minutes off the field. In rugby union, the referee usually signals such infringements by displaying a yellow card. In Australian rugby league, the referee will raise both hands and spread his digits to indicate "10 minutes"; elsewhere, the yellow card is used.

Often, if a team is committing one offence repeatedly, the referee will warn the captain that the next time they commit that offence, the player responsible will be sent to the bin. For the most serious offences and/or repeated misconduct, the referee may send off players, who take no further part in the game and leave their team a player short. Referees also have the power to send team officials to the stands.

In the National Rugby League, there is no physical sin bin. Players must serve their punishment in the dressing room; remaining on the sideline or in the stands is not permitted.

Rugby Sevens

In rugby union sevens, the sending-off period is 2 minutes, which as a percentage of match time is actually a more severe penalty, as a normal sevens match lasts only 14 minutes instead of the 80 used in 15-man union or 13-man league. During this time, the offender's team must play with one fewer player.

Use and proposed use in other sports

Yellow cards used in association football for a caution are replaced in small sided football by a blue card, indicating a "timed suspension"

The following sports use penalty boxes (by that or another name) in some form:

• Bandy
• Field hockey
• Handball
• International Rules football
• Lacrosse
• Ringette
• Water polo
• Roller Derby

The hybrid sport of International Rules football presents a slight anomaly since penalty boxes are native to neither of the sports from which International Rules was conceived, namely Gaelic football and Australian rules football (although the Gaelic Athletic Association did experiment with the idea, before moving on to another experimental format, which requires a player given a yellow card to be substituted).^[4]

Proposals to introduce penalty boxes in association football (soccer) have been discussed by the International Football Association Board [1], but a proposal by the Irish Football Association to trial the idea was rejected in 2009.^[5] Some Indoor soccer leagues and competitions already utilise them. In small sided football (i.e., 5-, 6- and 7-a-side), "timed suspensions" are used, and indicated by a blue card, instead of the traditional yellow for a caution. Periods of suspensions vary depending on the match length (e.g., a 25-minute-half match has a suspension of 5 minutes) and are defined in the competition's rules.^[6]

In professional wrestling the promotion Total Non-Stop Action Wrestling has used a penalty box in the King of the Mountain match, where instead of retrieving an object hanging above the ring, the winner is the first person to use a ladder to hang a championship belt above the ring — after having scored a pinfall or submission (pinfalls count anywhere) to earn the right to try. A wrestler who has been pinned or forced to submit must spend two minutes in a penalty box.^[7]

See also

• Penalty (rugby)
• Professional foul

References

Look up penalty box or sin bin in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.