No mouthguard and goal

[LaxRef]

During play, you notice what appears to be a mouthguard sticking out of A1's helmet, but you can't see his mouth to see if there is a mouthguard in the helmet. A1 drives to the goal, shoots, and scores, and you determine immediately that he did not have a mouthguard in his mouth.

Give rulings for NCAA and NFHS, being sure to state whether the goal is good.

[JohnB-6]

For NFHS, goal stands and he gets 1 minute NR penalty. The only time you can take away a goal is if he has an illegal stick OR if you request to check his stick and he pulls the strings, pushes the head, etc. I guess this would be a dead ball foul, so there wouldnt be a face off either.

For NCAA, I guess it would be a dead ball technical foul, so there would be no face off, award possession to the other team. And goal stands.

uhhh, right?

[Woodenstick]

For NFHS, goal stands and he gets 1 minute NR penalty. The only time you can take away a goal is if he has an illegal stick OR if you request to check his stick and he pulls the strings, pushes the head, etc. I guess this would be a dead ball foul, so there wouldnt be a face off either.

For NCAA, I guess it would be a dead ball technical foul, so there would be no face off, award possession to the other team. And goal stands.

uhhh, right?

I think you are right for NFHS, but an argument could be made that this is a live ball foul, you saw the mouthguard out during play but you just did not call it until after the goal was scored. Therefore, the penalty occurred before the goal was scored and the goal comes down. Same result as if the shooter committed a ward or other foul and then shot before the whistle was blown. So the question is when does an equipment foul occur? I would say when the referee decides it is a foul, and here that decision was made AFTER the goal when the ref looked in the player's mouth.

[LaxRef]

I think you are right for NFHS, but an argument could be made that this is a live ball foul, you saw the mouthguard out during play but you just did not call it until after the goal was scored. Therefore, the penalty occurred before the goal was scored and the goal comes down. Same result as if the shooter committed a ward or other foul and then shot before the whistle was blown. So the question is when does an equipment foul occur? I would say when the referee decides it is a foul, and here that decision was made AFTER the goal when the ref looked in the player's mouth.

There's this rule under "Goal not counted" in the NFHS rulebook:

m. If an official recognizes a request for a timeout from the team in possession or a foul by that team before the ball breaks the plane of the goal, regardless of whether the official has had time to blow the whistle.

However, I agree with you that in this case you did not determine that the foul had occurred until you saw that he did not have the mouthpiece in his mouth after the goal, so the goal stands. Under NFHS rules, he sits for 1:00 NR and there's no faceoff.

(There's another thing to consider here, and it's a fine line: the foul actually occurs during a live ball, but it isn't determined that it occurred during the live ball until the ball is dead. And it isn't actually a foul to not be wearing a mouthguard during a dead ball! Still, at this point we're 100% sure the foul did occur during a live ball, so we call the foul and—in my opinion—we enforce it as a dead ball foul. If we enforce it as a live-ball foul, the goal would have to be waved off. Thus, I'd award the ball to the other team and have no faceoff.)