Minor League Hockey Player Penalized Over Strange Chicken Nugget Incident

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There are plenty of ways to end up in the penalty box over the course of a hockey game, but one player in the ECHL may be the first person in the history of the sport to get hit with an infraction thanks to an incident involving a chicken nugget.

On Wednesday afternoon, the Toledo Walleye and the Kalamazoo Wings faced off in a minor league hockey showdown where the crowd was largely comprised of the elementary, middle, and high school students who were lucky enough to get out of class to attend “School Education Day” in Toledo.

While there may have been some chaperones on hand to oversee those field trips, there was only so much they could do to keep the kids in attendance on their best behavior, as a faceoff in the second period was interrupted when what appeared to be a chicken nugget was tossed over the glass and landed on the ice.

Walleye forward Kirill Tyutyayev decided to take matters into his own hands by skating up to the offending object and using his stick to flick it over the glass. However, he managed to earn a 10-minute misconduct in the process.

While it may seem like an inordinate reaction to what seemed to be a pretty harmless move,  according to Scouting the Refs, Tyutyayev apparently drew the officials’ ire for violating Rule 39.4, which reads:

A misconduct penalty (or game misconduct penalty at the discretion of the Referee) shall be imposed on any player who deliberately throws any equipment out of the playing area.

That does seem to be a fairly liberal interpretation of the rulebook when you consider it would be a stretch to describe a chicken nugget as “equipment,” but it’s safe to assume the refs were erring on the side of caution to enforce what boils down to a crowd safety issue.

The Wings weren’t granted a man advantage as a result, but they did score three times while Tyutyayev was off of the ice en route to a 6-2 victory on the road.