On January 19, 2024 the AHL Player Safety committee announced forward Justin Sourdif of the Charlotte Checkers had been suspended for two games. This suspension came after he was assessed a “Checking to the Head” penalty in the second period of Charlotte’s January 17 game against the San Jose Barracuda.
During the final five minutes of the second period, the Checkers drew up play after play in an attempt to give themselves more breathing room. The Barracuda were there every step of the way preventing plays from ending in the back of the net. At one point, San Jose’s Tanner Kaspick dumped Sourdif on the ground to take him out of the play for a moment. Over 10 seconds later, Sourdif knocked Brandon Coe off the puck with a high hit.
The refs called the hit a penalty and a few days later the AHL announced Sourdif’s suspension.
He missed Charlotte’s games on Saturday, January 20 and Sunday Jan 21 vs Toronto.
The rulebook explanation of the penalty is below.
Checking to the Head (Rule 48.2)
Justin Sourdif; 2 minutes
48.1 – Illegal Check to the Head – A hit resulting in contact with an opponent’s head where the head was the main point of contact and such contact to the head was avoidable is not permitted.
In determining whether contact with an opponent’s head was avoidable, the circumstances of the hit including the following, shall be considered.
(i) Whether the player attempted to hit squarely through the opponent’s body and the head was not “picked” as a result of poor timing, poor angle of approach, or unnecessary extension of the body upward or outward.
(ii) Whether the opponent put himself in a vulnerable position by assuming a posture that made head contact on an otherwise full body check unavoidable.
(iii) Whether the opponent materially changed the position of his body or head immediately prior to or simultaneously with the hit in a way that significantly contributed to head contact.
48.2 – Minor Penalty – For violation of this rule a minor penalty shall be assessed.
It is important to note that the rulebook does not have a provision for a major penalty or game misconduct penalty for “Checking to the Head.” Nor does it say when a check to the head would constitute a suspension.
To expand upon what the rulebook says, Rule 28 explains that the President may investigate a play regardless of if a penalty was called. From there, the President can issue supplementary discipline. An investigation is likely what happened in this scenario.
Around The AHL