3 Strangest Team Rules in Pro Sports

We bet you’ve never heard of these weird pro team rules, excerpted from Kathryn and Ross Petras’s The Stupidest Sports Book of All Time. 
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It’s not only official sports rule books that have weird or arcane regulations. So do some teams. Feel a fart coming on? If you’re a Denver Bronco, better hold it in, or pay a fine. Herewith, some of the odder team rules.

No farting during team meetings (Denver Broncos)

According to frequent-farter and Broncos linebacker Von Miller, this is unfair, unnatural, and unhealthy. The Super Bowl 50 MVP contends, “They can’t fine me if I get up and walk away. It’s not healthy. I keep trying to tell them it’s not healthy if I just sit there and hold it in. Nobody in the world does that. I just [fart] more than the average person.”

No walking over team seal (New York Rangers)

This one smacks of the good old days in Mao’s Communist China during the Cultural Revolution, when imprisonment or the death penalty was exacted for the “crime” of stepping on a newspaper with Mao’s picture on it. But under former head coach John Tortorella, heaven forbid his players walk—or even skate—over the team logo during practice. Tortorella explained, “I just don’t think you should do that. I don’t think you walk on a logo anywhere. So, yeah, that’s the way it’s going to be.”

No leaving toilets unflushed—offenders must pay a $500 fine (several NHL hockey teams who won’t divulge their names)

According to an unnamed veteran forward of more than seven hundred games: “If you don’t flush when you’re at the s****er and you leave something in there, that’s a $500 fine. And guys take it seriously. We only have three s****ers at home and on the road, maybe only two in the locker room, so you make sure it’s always nice and clean in there.”

NOTE: The NHL, like other sports leagues, is rife with weird player-made rules designed to take care of pet peeves and other issues that may arise. They even administer “courts” to try violators and collect fines. Some of the rules are reasonable, but there are many others like “no eating apples in hot tubs.” And what about the old Buffalo Sabres’ rule against young rookies using a wheeled suitcase?