# Tagging up: where the in-air rule stops applying

The exception inside the exception. To clear a delayed offside the skate must contact the blue line — being above the plane is not enough.

**Offside** — Not tagged up: the delayed offside stands.

Decided under NHL Rule 83 — Off-side.

> Not an official ruling. This works through a published decision procedure from the inputs you supplied; it cannot see the play. In a real call the hard part is almost always judging the inputs — where a foot was at the exact frame, whether a touch was deliberate — rather than applying the rule. Match officials decide, and competition-specific variations and video review protocols are outside what this models.

## How it got there

| # | Step | Finding | Decisive |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | What decides it | Skates, and only skates. The stick does not matter, and neither does the body — a player leaning over the line with the puck on their stick is onside if their skates are back. | no |
| 2 | Tagging up on a delayed offside | The 2021 allowance for a skate in the air does NOT apply here. To negate a delayed offside the skate must contact the blue line — being above the plane is not enough. This exception is the single most commonly missed part of the rule. | no |
| 3 | Where the trailing skate is | In the air at -4.0cm. Airborne does not count for tagging up, however far back the skate is over the line. | yes |

## Read before relaying this

### Skates decide it, not the stick and not the body (caution)

A player can reach across the line with their stick, lean over it, or carry the puck ahead of themselves, and remain onside so long as their skates have not preceded the puck. This is the opposite of soccer, where the foremost scoring part of the body is exactly what is measured.

### Since 2021 a skate in the air can still be onside (caution)

The blue line is treated as a plane extending upward from its leading edge. If the skate has not broken that plane when the puck crosses, the player is onside — whether or not the blade is touching the ice. The change was made to stop offside reviews turning on pixel-level judgements about ice contact.

### The picture freezes when the puck crosses, not when the player does (info)

Positions are judged at the moment the puck crosses the leading edge of the blue line. A player already deep in the zone is not offside if the puck got there first.

### Applying the rule is the easy half (caution)

This computed a verdict from a skate position you supplied. In a real review the argument is entirely about that position in the frame the puck crossed — which is why the rule was changed to remove one of the two things that had to be judged.

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Canonical URL: https://sports-rules.gumballtools.com/offside/tagging-up-on-a-delayed-offside
JSON API: `GET https://sports-rules.gumballtools.com/api/v1/offside?sport=soccer&attacker=40&ball=30&secondLastDefender=35`
MCP endpoint: `https://sports-rules.gumballtools.com/api/mcp`