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This study examined the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on men's ice hockey in Kanagawa prefecture. We investigated the number and type of penalties and injuries that occurred in men's ice hockey league games in Kanagawa between September 2018 and March 2023. In total, data from 734 games were analyzed, and data were compared between seasons. The average number of penalties per game was 5.93 in the 2018-2019 season, 5.66 in the 2019-2020 season, 4.96 in 2020-2021, and 4.40 in 2021-2022, 4.64 in the 2022-2023 season, indicating that the number of penalties decreased during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the number of penalties involving the stick increased. Injuries during games also increased during the COVID-19 pandemic, from 0 in the 20182019 (175 games) and 2019-2020 (191 games) seasons to 1 case in the 2020-2021 (73 games) season, 6 cases in the 2021-2022 (119 games) season and 2 cases in the 2022-2023 (176 games) season. The increased number of injuries observed may have been due to the closure of ice rinks by the state of emergency, which restricted on-ice training. As players avoided contact to prevent the spread of COVID-19, penalties caused by contact play decreased, whereas those involving sticks increased. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]