Notes - Armor Requirements

Body, Shoulder, and Groin Armor

Changes to groin protection - October 2023: Added clarification wording “Testicles must be protected to a standard equivalent to that provided by an athletic cup…”. Removed requirement for rigid groin protection for women. Research by medical personnel has not found data to support the need for rigid groin protection for women, even for high contact sports or similar activities. Wording reflects input from the DEIA community to accommodate variations.
Removal of separate breast cups rule - October 2023: Not needed for safety issues. Originally intended to dissuade "fantasy" armor styles. Removes ambiguity raised for other acceptable armor styles such as lamellar, scale, small plate armor.
Changes to kidney protection - June 2022: More coverage is stongly suggested than the minimum.; Clarifiction that Non Newtonian padding such as Zoombang will be considered only as padding for meeting armor requirements
Changes to groin protection - October 2018: The rules were updated to make things more inclusive for trans and non-binary participants.; The prohibition on wearing groin protection designed for the opposite sex has been removed. It had been previously included due to marshals of the past requiring women to wear a male athletic cup, and has nothing to do with issues of physiology.

Side-strapped shields - October 2023: Clarified hand protection requirement with a shield. A side-strapped shield with a shield basket is hand protection. This change was made to remove ambiguity around center-grip shields.
Street hockey and similarly padded gloves - June 2022: Street hockey gloves and similarly padded gloves will be treated only as padding.
Gloves not required - October 2018: Previous rules indicated that a glove was required on the shield hand, though it was not required on the weapon hand. This has been corrected so that gloves are not required.