Legitimacy at Full Strength: Restructuring the National Hockey League’s Supplementary Discipline Process

Abstract

The National Hockey League’s on-ice commissioner discipline system (also referred to as supplementary discipline), its process for levying fines and suspensions for on-ice conduct, has recently come under fire for perceived inequities in the manner in which it has been administered over the 2010-11 and 2011-12 seasons. Although hopes were high for improvement at the start of the 2011-12 season, criticism of NHL suspensions has never been more fervent. Now that the NHL has no collective bargaining agreement in place, supplementary discipline has never been riper for reform. This article identifies six components of the NHL’s on-ice commissioner discipline system: identity of decisionmaker, procedure, due process, the use of precedent, the factors involved, and salary forfeiture, and makes specific recommendations based on the goals of adjudicatory systems.

Keywords: NHL, hockey, National Hockey League, sports, NBA, NFL, MLB