Ice Skating Changes Rules to Allow Tackling

The Professional Ice Skaters Society (PISS) has amended the rules of the sport to allow tackling in an effort to attract more supporters. Ice skating, which has suffered declining TV-ratings and lower attendances in recent years, has lost out to snowboarding, bobsledding, curling and ice boules in terms of popularity, especially in the crucial 11-14-year-old-teenage-girls bracket.

The new rules will allow each opponent one chance to tackle a competitor during his or her routine. The tackle is judged successful if the skater’s knees, shoulders, head or teeth make contact with the ice, and one point is deducted from their score.

The doubles will tackle in pairs with the men encouraged to tackle the much smaller women in order to create a better spectacle for the audience. The competitor or couple will be disqualified if unable to carry on after any given tackle, but time-out will be allowed for blood injuries.

A PISS spokesman said: “People have come to associate the ice with violence through all the fist-fights and mini-riots in ice hockey games that leave broken teeth and pools of blood all over the rink, so we are hoping to tap into that trend and exploit it for all it’s worth.”