What is a game misconduct?
A game misconduct is a penalty in ice hockey that removes a player for the rest of the game. Under NHL Rule 23, the player is suspended for the balance of the game, a substitute is allowed to replace him so the team is not left shorthanded by the call itself, and ten minutes are recorded in the league stats. The Commissioner can then add a fine or further suspension. The term is also this site's name, used deliberately for its double meaning: the on-ice penalty, and the misconduct in and around the game that too often goes unaddressed.
What is this site about?
This site is independent commentary on accountability in hockey: how the sport, its leagues, and its institutions respond when conduct on or off the ice raises serious questions. It covers culture, discipline, and governance. It is opinion and commentary, noncommercial, published by Game Misconducts.
Is Game Misconducts affiliated with the NHL or any team?
No. Game Misconducts is an independent, noncommercial commentary project, not affiliated with, endorsed by, or partnered with the NHL, any team, league, or federation. The name is a deliberate play on hockey's game-misconduct penalty (NHL Rule 23); the project examines how hockey handles violence off the ice, not the on-ice rule.
Is Game Misconducts related to the book Game Misconduct?
No. Game Misconducts is not affiliated with Game Misconduct: Hockey's Toxic Culture and How to Fix It, by Evan F. Moore and Jashvina Shah, published by Triumph Books.
Does the NHL have a domestic violence policy?
The NHL's collective bargaining agreement contains no policy on sexual assault or domestic violence. Where a real rule should be, there is nothing but the commissioner's discretion.
How do the NFL, MLB, and NBA policies compare to the NHL's?
The NFL, MLB and the NBA each have a written domestic-violence and sexual-assault policy. The NHL's collective bargaining agreement contains none. The NHL kept discretion instead.
What is Article 18-A of the NHL CBA?
Article 18-A, the CBA's clause on Commissioner discipline for off-ice conduct, never uses the words "sexual assault" or "domestic violence."1
What is hockey's code of silence?
It is the code that calls honesty the betrayal. A player interviewed for a 2023 study of men's hockey culture, describing dressing-room talk about girls, put it this way: “Well, on good teams it stays in there.”2 The study's authors draw the conclusion: the idea that “‘good teams’ maintain a code of silence demonstrates how recognition is impeded by insularity.”2
Is hockey's abuse problem a few bad apples?
Not one bad apple. The barrel does the spoiling. Decades of work on what researchers call male peer support, including DeKeseredy and Schwartz's Male Peer Support and Violence Against Women, describe the mechanism plainly: when a tight, all-male group holds norms that excuse or encourage the mistreatment of women, and members reinforce those norms for each other, the risk of abuse goes up. The group does not just contain a problem. It manufactures and rewards one, supplying both the attitudes and the social backing that make harm feel normal and consequence feel unlikely. A closed athletic environment is a near-perfect incubator for this: selected young men, intense in-group loyalty, status tied to belonging, and adults whose interests run toward protecting the group's reputation. The point is not that athletes are uniquely bad people. It is that the structure does predictable things to ordinary people.