Six O One - Abuse of Officials

To my non-existent readers...

2007-11-26T22:07:00.000-07:00

I've had a rough fall with real life work and not that many games between the lines, but thats not an excuse, just a gripe. More soon about this year's lessons learned and hopefully applied to next year's games.

Advice to the goalies

2007-05-06T14:38:00.001-06:00

Some games are losers during the warmup, after a decade whistling kids and adults I can usually tell from the warmup who is going to win. Other games are toss-ups, two good teams prepared to duke it out. Usually not.

You can tell mostly from the effort level of the players during the warmup - do they slack off or do they charge hard. Slackers, even tremendously skilled slackers, rarely win against an opponent who is prepared to skate their ba**s off (um, is there a gender neutral equivalent?). And it usually also shows up on the score sheet in the form of penalties, slackers get more box time because instead of working hard they hook, hold and interfere to make up for the lack of hustle.

So why is this relevant? Because I find myself usually whispering to a goalie 'way to stay in the game' after a particularly bad 2-on-1 or breakaway induced goal - so long as the goaltender doesnt quit (ie: lay down on the ice and pout) the game may not turn into a sh*t fest. When the goalie quits I know I'm going to be doing a lot of talking to the scorekeeper.

Its like magic, a bunch of dimwits that stood around all period barely breathing hard and letting the netminder get peppered like a steak, suddenly discover they can use those jointed appendages below the waist to motivate them across the ice, and into the face of the stupidest opponent in order to cause an altercation. Where all that energy was being stored during the first two periods I'll never know.

So from this ref to you - 'way to stay in the game' - one save can make a 180 degree difference in a game.

New Skates

2007-04-05T23:49:00.000-06:00

I'm breaking in new skates, or more correctly the new skates are breaking me in - more specifically my toes.

I have a strange foot, I have a nearly opposable big toe, and widely splayed toes - monkey like actually - a flattened arch and a somewhat narrower than would be expected ankle bone. The resulting triangular shape (as opposed to the normal rectangle) means I have a nearly impossible time finding a pair of blades that fit comfortable and provide real performance.

So I opted to have a pair custom ordered, since CCM no longer makes the 1152 Tacks (my favorite) I ended up with the RBK 9k - a glisteneing nearly all black unit with an annoyingly florescent pump - yes a pump ala air Jordans - the pump was quickly covered with a few strokes of a black sharpie to make them look less childish.

So after nearly 3 months waiting my new torture^H^H^H^H^H^H skates arrived and after a short bake in the fitting oven (a throughly bogus invention as far as I can tell) I started trying to 'break' them in. This is the process by which a skate is supposed to assume the shape of your foot - or in this case, your foot assume the shape of the skate. Also the skate becomes less stiff and begins to flex in a way specific to your skating motion.

Now a little digression - a hockey skate is made from a solid footbed (which anchors the blade and carrier), a protective plastic shell over the toe (toe cap), a high stiff back (tendon guard) and finally a boot which contains the previous two items plus the eyelets and toung which allow one to be laced into the skate. In the good old days before modern composite materials the boot was leather - when you got a new skate you had to break in the leather so that it would flex with your foot (the same process that a cowboy boot goes through) and folks would soak the skate in water and then walk around the house in them, or soak them in rubbing alcohol to avoid water stains.

The downside of leather - and this is a biggie - is that it tends to stretch and become lose strength over time if overused, and if it sits exposed without being treated (oiled) it becomes hard and brittle. To solve this issue skate manufacturers have changed from leather, and part-leather skates to all polymer and composite materials. In days past the material of choice was kevlar - a fine choice if you need bullet protection but a poor choice for skate logenvity. When kevlar is stressed it performs one of two ways - either it breaks or it doesnt - it barely stretches, which is why it is used in bullet proof vests. This is what happened to my old CCM 1152s, after 6 years nearly every fiber in the boot had broken somewhere reducing the integrity of the boot and thereby eliminating any skate provided performance.

The new models use different materials, a polycarbonate inner plastic shell covering most of the foot, and a carbon fiber (graphite) woven layer around the shell to make a traditional boot with eyelets and a toung. The result is a skate that becomes nearly a seamless structure - a huge improvement over my 1152s because there is no gap between the plastic toe cap and the rest of the boot - and hence no rough edges inside the boot to rip up my tender foot flesh. The downside is that this nearly flawless single structure is much - much - stiffer than even the 1152s were when first removed from the box.

Now the manufacturers like to say that the glues used in the boot are somewhat maleable - if you heat the skate just right these glues become loose and a warmed skate will then 'form' to the owner's foot. The problem is that your foot is made of somewhat compressible material! When the skate is warm and placed on the foot you must tighly lace the boot to force it to mold to your features. However your features also warp under the tightened laces.... Dohhhhhh...

Result - I'm laying in bed with an icepack on my big toes and giant caluses forming... ahhh for the love of the game.

Teachin' the new Emphasis

2006-08-29T22:45:00.000-06:00

So I spent a whole day, 6am to 4pm, over at the Air Force Academy working the local referee seminar to qualify the Level 1s, 2s, and 3s. A glutton for punishment I'm doing the Level 4 day in October so I didnt get my crest on Sunday.

Its a good deal, and we got Leafers to come and talk about the new rule emphasis in place for 2006-2007. Red showed up, thank-you sir, and we had the usual crowd of guys on the NCAA and IOC call list as instructors.

I dont have many comments about the new rules, other than to say its about time... 11 pages of trash dissapeared from the Advanced Officiating manual, pages on pages of meandering and less than helpful junk about 'judgement' which inevitably end up making no-one's decisions terribly well respected. A few times my supervisor told me "dont be a black-and-white referee", meaning I needed to be more flexible and allow the game to go its own way, usually down the gutter and into the sewer...

What got me was two items. The Level 3 on-ice time was meant to provide some skating and positioning help, it ended up being a nut-busting skate session because of two things:

1) during the SILENT warmup there was quite a lot of talking and not very much warming up

2) during the drills a few of the less mature teens decided this was a phone-it-in event.

Dont get me wrong, the seminar can be boring and tedious, but the on-ice time is a very special event, once a year only, and the only actual time officials get to practice. To make matters worse the two instructors for the on-ice time are nearly the most experienced guys in the state, both have worked international events, both have 20+ years instructing and still can outskate, out-hustle, out-think and generally handle any sh*t fest like the pros they are. Here they are on a Sunday, not getting paid, not with their families (and both have road jobs), and some punk ass kids blow off the time.

Ladders. Yep. Thats what the ice time ended up being. We were prepared to do full on teaching of power skating, and drills like the "full-package", goal line movement, etc. Those things that turn promising officials into candidates for development camps. Instead we worked them, hard. In the end all of the instructors agreed that they earned it.

Sigh.... perhaps next year some of them will even remember....

Slow summers = bad choices

2006-08-01T12:32:00.000-06:00

I made a bad choice recently, a really bad choice, I attempted to play in a league again... oh why do I do this stupidity... Now I blame me, entirely, so dont read this post and think I'm an ego maniac - thats only on alternate Sundays - and anything bad said here should reflect more on me than the related parties.

The facts: at 5'10" and 170lbs I hardly qualify as petite, but I'm also not muscled (or fatted as the case may be) like many on the ice, as an official my life depends on speed, and reaction times, but definitely not on my ability to move the puck around, so my stick handling leaves a bit to be desired. I dont wear shoulder pads (too heavy for my slight frame), I have cut down on the gear to a minimum other than a cage helmet (several years ago 12 stitches taught me a lesson about facial protection) and my stick is the lightest one I can stand to afford.

Combined these facts are a problem. A big problem. Most players in the adult rec. Leagues dont know the difference between a speedy player and a good player. I am the former but not the latter. I am a role player, I can pass, see the ice, defend the net and make nuisance of myself, I do not generally score goals or carry a team. Actually looking at the last decade of play I have about a -20 average, 6-10 goals, somewhere between 30 and 40 assists and about 400 pims. Those stats are for the guy that gets dropped in the pre-season, actually that kind of player gets dropped during the red-shirt walk-on tryouts...

Anyway I apparently have some kind of masochistic streak because I get bored and think "self, lets try to play, lets have fun" and my self-correcting pre-frontal cortex (the area of the brain that is supposed to make sensible decisions) takes a vacation and I plunk down some cash to strap on the player's gear.

It lasted all of 5 weeks.

I joined a league that has novice and intermediate, I have a strong connection to the Novice league through my family and volunteering at the rink. There is no advanced division. Mistake number one, dont poop where you make your relaxation time.

I cant seem to control my instincts to coach, arrrggghhh! I can see clearly where some help would improve things, and instead of worrying about myself I try to give that help when it seems I wont be making people mad. Second mistake, dont mistake voluntarism for a need to have something done, when people are ready and need something badly enough they will ask (usually).

I know too much about the game - nearly every match I have ever played since getting my stripes I have felt a need to analyze the officials performance - usually I hold myself to muttered comments under the breath - but when the whistles working my game are personally know, and they boo-boo big enough, I have to try to point things out. Mistake number three, never mix business with pleasure.

Finally, I know too much about the game, in the sense that I know how to get even when I'm pissed off at an opponent, I know the angles, the cheap tricks, the subtle aggravations that get someone to stop playing the game and start playing you. I have to, you cannot function as an official without learning these things. And as a small guy on the ice, sometimes its the only weapon I have to get through the shift where a 250lbs jerk is putting novice level hits on you and the guys working the game cant tell the difference between someone who fails to turn and ends up hitting you, and someone who lines up and rams you. Mistake number four, dont get mad, dont get even, play three periods and put your skates away...

So once again I learned something about myself - I suck... as a player... and I cant manage to turn off my referee instincts...

I'm not catholic but I do need to confess:

The last game (possibly my last ever competition as a player):
Period 1, first shift on the ice, I'm carrying the puck up ice on the left wing, I get hooked, no big deal, I shrug it off and continue, but this slows me enough that a big fat slob (who apparently used to not be a slob and played USAH Jr.s) can get his hands on me and do the rub-a-dub with my body against the glass. As usual I keep going until the puck gets stripped by his handiwork and then.... I get pissed. I turn around and try to hook the sh*t that stole the puck... dumb idea, I get 2, the first hook guy gets 2 and everyone in the rink things I'm a hot-head. Of course no-one notices the large and growing welt on my forearm from the rub-a-dub... but then most folks in this rink that night couldn't tell the difference between a hip-check and a cashiers check.

Period 2, lots of grabbing of my sweater, but I drink from the calm pool and try not to react, much.

Period 3, I grab a loose puck, head up ice and while fumbling (I said I cant handle the puck well) an opponent who is staring at the puck (and only the puck) drives right into my body - I try to side-step him but end up making it look worse and the more Jr. of the officials decides I put a knee-hit on the idiot who nearly knocks the wind out of me. 2 minutes in the box for me. [By the way, can anyone tell me what the correct call is for a hit with the 'Knee'? Anyone... Anyone... yes thats right Virginia, a "Kneeing" is always a 5 minute major, and a game misconduct].

Period 3, one minute to go, tied up. Puck loose on the left boards inside my blue-line, I head for the puck to wrap around my goal, as soon as I get a handle on the puck, Mr. Slob drives me shoulder first into the glass... OUCH!!... I see him coming, I know its going to hurt, but I do my job, take the hit and poke the puck along the boards, in the mean time Mr Slob falls over on his stomach and then proceeds to kick at my legs. Now I dont know if he meant to get me, but I do know that I dont ever allow myself to get swept to the ice, so I jump, and being pissed about the board hit I land on him. Dumb. I get clear and skate away, back to Mr. Slob, who then proceeds to swing his stick at me, hitting the bruise from the first period, and then cross checks me into the glass. I fight back not at all. I'm done. My brain is already planning the exit from the building and the league. No need to create a police blotter item. Mr. Slob apparently isnt done and wants more. He fails utterly to get satisfaction. (alarm bells should be ringing now...) I allow myself to be ejected from the game with little argument.

Locker room, bag open, gear coming off slowly and painfully, dimly aware of a figure rushing through the door, its Mr. Slob, determined to take up where the on-ice action left-off. Moron. Proof of this fact comes quickly as he attempts to reach for me, I put a foot on his abdomen. Instead of grabbing the foot he attempts to swing a punch. At this point I'm deciding how badly he should be injured before I allow him to quit, but cooler heads dressing the the next game manage to remove him from danger. My foot is hovering over his crotch just as they pull him away, maximum damage intended. I'm probably lucky they intervened, the courts and the police dont generally handle assault without maximum damage to all involved, and he would surely have a good reason to claim harm if it had continued.

Sigh... so ends my life as a hockey goon.

Tripple your payroll - and pain

2006-06-03T01:05:00.000-06:00

I've been out of practice for a while apparently - back when I worked adult leagues I would take a triple any night of the week - this is a real feat for an official, and a real pain in the feet for me.

I have wide feet, that is to say, paddles, while most hockey skate manufacturers seem to think that skates need only come in one size - 'standard'. The result is that my feet hurt after an hour in the boot, and positively scream 'genocide' after 4. To add injury to insult - I have a nagging groin pull that is making my strides look like a Don Knotts impersonation.

But... I still finished the games, only got chewed out once for being lazy during the third game (whadday doin stripes, that was way offsides) and broke a good sweat. i think next time I'll be telling the scheduler to pound sand if he asks me to work a triple shift again...

Friends - with sticks

2006-04-21T20:50:00.000-06:00

Believe it or not, us officials can and do have friends that dont carry a whistle, and a good friend of mine is just now learning to play ice hockey, read about her experience here.

Faceoffs

2006-03-21T21:57:00.000-07:00

Even in a perfect game with no penalties the officials will be seen holding the puck about once a minute. This is usually because the players are lazy (ok, maby not, just sloppy?) and so the frozen puck under the goalie, or the poorly executed pass on the blue line causes an offsides, or the puck gets 'iced' for a whistle.

*huff* *puff* go the players as they swing in over the boards to the nice little benches and sit down, drink some water and b*tch about the poor job those refs are doing. What am I doing? Skating my n*ts off retrieving the puck for my partner, or hustling to get in position between the benches, or more rarely getting to go stand on a faceoff dot and prepare for mayhem.

What most players dont understand is this - I'm not trying to make your life hard... really! I'd love to drop a sweet puck, flat and clean right in the center of the dot, no bounce, and if left unimpeded it would simply rest there motionless. It happens, but never in your game dummy - why - because your swinging that piece of lumber AT ME!

If youve never had the pleasure of risking your hands to the average hockey player here's the situation. When the centers face each other they are required to have their stick in contact with the ice, have their feet square to the circle and be suitably far away from the center of the faceoff dot. What actually happens is these turkeys try anything, and I mean anything, to get an advantage. Most coaches really fail to teach the simple art of faceoffs, so the players hear all sorts of strange rumors and try them. Thats not really a problem in itself but most players NEVER UNDERSTAND WHAT WORKS AND WHAT DOESNT!

So they try the same stuff, every stoppage. Again, not a problem in itself - I could care less if you lose every faceoff, I'm still going to have to skate the game - but those wacky faceoff theories all seem to involve someone telling newly minted centers "pssst - you - you'll surely win the puck if you swing your stick at the ref! no one will think of that, and he'll get out of the way for you... your special".

Reality check here fellas (and ladies), I will NOT get our of your way to make your faceoff more successful. I usually try to high-tail it out of the vicnity of the drop for self-preservation. You are not special. If you swing your stick in my direction I'm unlikely to allow you to sweep my feet in order to win the puck. If you raise your stick in the air... well, the puck is usually on the ice... huh... go figure... and if you hit me, dont expect to win a faceoff all night.

See that circle is awfully large, I am legally empowered to place that puck anywhere within the bounds of the circle, and I can. its a fine art, I'm a lousy shot with a basketball (BRICK) but I can hit any spot on a red faceoff circle I want without even looking. As often as not, if you hit my with your blade on the last drop, the puck is going to go either right between your feet, or elsewhere away from you, and most importantly, away from me!!!

Next week's lesson, how scorekeepers can break a good game and make the entire rink groan.

It's dead Jim...

2006-03-21T21:55:00.000-07:00

The youth hockey season that is, at least for me. Now I must be crazy because I'm considering taking up roller hockey. Apparently its big down south where theres not much winter (not the frozen kind at least).

Give blood - referee hockey

2006-03-03T22:42:00.000-07:00

You know those shirts - lots of hockey goofs wear them - pithy sayings meant to evoke Red Cross blood drives - "Give Blood - Play Hockey" - very macho. Players dont get bloody much anymore - USAH frowns upon that - as do the parents - and with adult league everyone (I hope) figures there are too many chances for Officer Johnson to come handcuff your ass to actually do the fist-fight thing. On the other side of the whistle we officials get it, sometimes in the teeth, usually in the hands and legs.

Earlier this season (I've been saving this post for a while) I had the honor of working a Midget AAA major game at a skating rink located in a shopping center - the "Brawl at the Mall" as we call it down here. Not only is the ice smaller than normal, the kids egos are super-sized, and the zebras are just "in the way" to these Jr. Claude Lemiuxs...

So here I am calling the lines - carefully attending to the 'dont watch the puck hit you in the face' rule when play rushes up the boards on my side of the ice when its my blue-line, partner nowhere in sight so I hold out a little while (.000001 seconds to be exact) and still the paired off players are charging right at my soft little unprotected body - so now I look over the shoulder at the neutral zone - and to my suprise theres a white jersey charging my way looking for a puck.

Where can I go? No-mans land might be tempting if I didnt know that its a sure way to get really - really - seriously - E.R. time hurt. Flat-backing it might take the edge off the impending doom, so I get small... and I bend one knee hoping to hold out well enough from the impact to stay upright.

Guess what happened? I managed to stay upright (hey boss, no beer for you this time) but to my suprise a sudden feeling of pain comes from the leg I left straight in contact with the ice - whats wrong with this picture - I have pads on (kneecap to ankle length balistic plastic)...!??!

Turns out my lightweight referees pads which work really well to cusion the blow from face-off stick whacks (a story for another day) will slide around the leg if given the right impact from the side - when I chose to get flat against the boards my straight leg (holding my weight) became exposed - and the player pair with the puck went down before coming my way - an errant player's skate came up and hit my leg, followed almost immediately by the weight of the teammate charing my way from the other side of my body.

After all that I got back to the locker room between 2nd and 3rd to find out my leg was bleeding... OOOWWW. But then I do feel some pride in that I finished the period (with plenty of face-offs risking further assult to my leg) and then the game - of course my partners let me have it for being a dumbass in the first place...

Why have I been MIA?

2006-03-03T22:41:00.000-07:00

Long story short - buy a new house - get your wife pregnant - start a new job - these things take like all of your time to deal with... argh.

Back in my day... (aka what referee certification means)

2005-10-04T12:22:00.000-06:00

I'm a regular reader of HockeyRefs.COM - and particularly the forums where we officials carp and prod eachother over the little things. In one topic I asked about who was reaching their Level 4 and why they might not want to. One fellow from the north-east had a very vitrolic comment about his experience getting the Level 4 certification and then not getting called to do state championship games. I have a few thoughts (you doubted?)

For my readers (all 2 of you) USAH has 4 levels of certification, Level I requires attendance at a seminar and passing an open-book 50 question test, Level II and III have a closed book test administered at the seminar, and Level 4 requires a tougher closed-book test and an on-ice skating ability test. Neither is a joke, the written test asks questions like: "Given the following situation, choose which penalty options are allowed" with a list including essentially every penalty option in the book - there are 6 chapters and more than 30 individual playing rules points in the "Play of the game" section with 200+ pages of material (not including positioning, rule interpretations, and presentation guidance material in 4 additional 50+ page manuals).

For the on-ice portion you must receive a score of 27 out of 30 points covering speed (3 points), balance, form, control, ability to skate with your head and eyes on the playing area (not looking at your feet) and so on - graded by local evaluators who dont mince words about the official's individual failings.

Further, according to the district rep at the seminar, approximately %40 of all officials that attempted Level 4 registration last year (04-05) actually qualified.

Now given all of that information you might wonder, isnt an official that has passed these hurdles qualified to work an NCAA game? No - NCAA and all of the professional leauges certify their officials separately, with even more difficult on-ice testing including the infamous 3 minute drill (skate from one end zone faceoff dot to the far end dot and back for 3 minutes, you must be able to do at least 12 laps to be considered mediocre). Ok, so what about JRs, national exhibitions etc.? No again, USAH has a special selection process for the top tier games, officials are selected to work these events based on exposure, expected future progress, experience and lastly certification. Sometimes they make exceptions for certification to allow exceptional young officials to work these high level events, but they never, ever, assign officials to work these events because the person holds a Level 4 card.

Ouch! Now here is a fellow that worked hard, passed a difficult test, took time to attend a seminar that probably wasnt in his hometown, and paid a few more bucks for the priviledge to have very senior folks, some of them pro officials, dress him down for an hour on the ice. Shouldnt he feel dissapointed that no development camp games came his way?

NO. Period.

Just for argument's sake say there are 40,000 registered officials in North America (USA and Canada) - whats the percentage that gets to work Tier I Junor exhibition games? Perhaps 100 total (as referees, we'll skip linesmen for the moment). Most of them want to work the NHL, or at least think that would be a great thing, so with all of those hungry peers competing for a miniscule number of slots where does the Level 4 certification put you?

Nowhere, essentially. If there are about 2000 some Level 4 certified officials in the US (and a larger number of Level 4,5,6 officials in Canada [they have a finer gradiation of high level officials]) you still have to be in the 98% percentile of just those Level 4s to make it to the high level games, and 5 or six nines out to make the NHL. Shoot, I should be done now, I passed the test, I did all the hard work, right?

On the other hand as an older official the Level 4 has a strong value to me, not for reaching the National JR's exhibition in Lake Placid (though I wouldnt turn it down) but because it proves to me, and my peers that I care, and it keeps my skills sharper than sitting on my tail watching the over-blown NHL pros squander the fans ticket money.

Finally my advice to those who think Level 4 isnt worth it 'cause they wont get the call to work Lake Placid:

I know plenty of older officials that get the call, including a 48 year old who was in my seminar on Sunday (and passed his Level 4 for the first time ever after 20 years of working games) who is getting the chance to attend the CHL camp. He'll never work NHL, but then 40,000 officials registered in North America will never get to work the NHL - get over it - he did - and his continued hard work earned the respect of every official in that room, including the RIC for the district.

That being said, its hard not to be a little bit green over the youngsters that make it on the fast-track. Once I learned to be a coach and mentor to them its been a lot easier taking my handful of AAA games a year for what they are worth. On the other end of the spectrum on Sunday were a 16 year old that I've been mentoring for 4 years, and a 17 year old I've evaluated - both passed their tests and will most likely pass me by on the way to districts, nationals and potential Pro careers. C'est La Vie.

How many experience points do you need...

2005-10-02T12:22:00.000-06:00

Remember when you were a kid and you played D&D (ok remember when I was a kid, when you were a kid you beat up the kids that played D&D) - your player character had to earn experience points to gain a level, and the table of points required to get new spells and skills seemed impossibly huge.

This weekend marked the 3rd year I have attended a Level 4 USAH referee seminar, last years seemed impossibly hard, like the higher levels for the D&D characters - but then last year I didnt study, woke up late, drove like a maniac in a car that was falling apart (the good car had a flat!) and then I was given the wrong number for the on-ice grading (officials get a number that tells them what order to do the drills in, the graders only know what number you are by the order they see you in) and nearly managed to fail the skating test.

Well, I seem to have gained enough experience points in the last year to make it comfortably into the Level 4 bracket - the on-ice portion was not difficult, at least it didnt feel all that hard compared to years past, and the written was a breeze, what a difference those flash-cards made.

Ultimately the best part as a trained seminar instructor was being a student with some of the best instructors our state has to offer - and seeing that they fumble a bit too. Last year's seminar that I instructed in resulted in a harsh dressing down by the co-ordinator, wonder if Shooky would have gotten reamed [side note, Shooky was my instructor at the Instructor's Camp, "do as I say" is not just a joke]. However given their background these guys still managed to make a day of classroom time useful and appreciated.

400 feet of boards and..

2005-09-11T23:13:00.000-06:00

So players usually want to complain anytime the puck hits an official and doesn't go out, in, or to the intended destination. Usually the words are something like "get outa my way ref!" and sometimes more colorful than that when the complainant thinks he'll win points by swearing. Here's a little hint - yelling at me is pointless - not because of the rules (when in doubt say 601a).

I'll point this out for any readers who might be players - you have 185 ft of length (times 2) and 90ft or more of width, to round off that makes it about 360ft of boards if the rink was square, more in an Olympic size sheet. That's simple math, and while I may have gained some weight this summer I'm still only about 28" across, elbow to elbow. That means at any given time its approximately a 2 in 400 chance of hitting me with the puck given any random vector.

So lets ask the dumb question - how in the *&$@!* does that jerk of a ref manage to get in the way, I mean the nerve of that guy...

Here's the answer skippy - cause I have to be near the play, the blue line, the red line or simply having just dropped the puck in a faceoff - and just in case you are wondering, I try to avoid moving all that much when I can avoid it so that players can (notice I say CAN here) take a look and shoot around me.

So today I had the joy (really I was happy on my way TO the rink) of working lines for a AAA game, a center who knows his hockey and a linesman partner who has the experience to work a good crew for a tough game. The scheduler warned me in advance, this game was a AAA major regular season match - on an ice sheet that is undersized. We expected clutching, grabbing and lots of hits, we failed apparently to reminded the players that no bonuses are earned by tagging the men in stripes with the puck, mistake number 1.

So now I'm sore, a puck right in the back above the left kidney, followed about 3 minutes later with another on the right, apparently my new nickname is 'target'.

It had to happen though, the first one was a vision problem, my center official was in my line of sight at the time, until he stepped out the way ("better you than me" he said in the locker room, wow, thanks for that little gift) but it was caused by slow feet, his for being ahead of the play, and mine for staying too close to the blue line (it wasn't even my blue line at that moment - duhhh), The other one was a crazy bounce from the dividers between the glass, just as painful but less wounding to the pride.

All in all however it was a great match to watch (at least from 3 feet away on the ice) and I do like my new partners - though I got a lot of grief in the locker room - what penalty do you issue when your fellow official says (in jest) "get outa the way ref!"??

Back in Black (and White)

2005-09-11T10:58:00.000-06:00

In the last few weeks I've restarted the hockey season, and I feel rusty, like a skate that got put in the bag after a long hard game and forgotten for a summer. The rest of my life was in chaos as I moved across the state, started a new day-job and generally spent way too much time and money on life and too little time on a bike or in the gym.

The first thing was to help teach at the local USAH seminar, and meet my new scheduler. As a group the local officials are quite a bunch, the usual old-timers and a smattering of fresh faces (that's me apparently which is amazing as I'm over 30) and a horde of youngsters we hope to hang on to and mold into high quality stripers. One thing I can say for sure, the local association is not friends with USAH HQ - despite proximity - so I have to earn my keep, past ratings and work for other associations are considered suspect.

The second was a lot more fun and rewarding in a different way - working the local post-pro adult league. This is a program run by an older gent who has been around for longer than most goal nets, and its open to Division I college players. Luckily at the bottom end there are just the usual guys that played college club and Midget AAA, the Jr. players are one rung up. I have to say its a ball working games for adults that 'know' hockey - especially when you have a good partner. In this case for my first game with this league I got to work with someone nearly my age who is recovering from his time as a minor-pro and Jr. program fast-track star. Unfortunately for him the body didn't think it so hot, so he's down to working a couple of games a week and letting the body heal.

Finally today I got a 'real' USAH assignment to work. More later after the game.

Why so quiet?

2005-04-25T21:43:00.000-06:00

The hockey season is almost over, at least for youth hockey, and I'm planning to spend the summer training on a bike, the other choice is to work adult leauge - ummm - not exactly the way to stay sharp. Posts will be sparse until youth play starts in September.

Canceled games

2005-04-25T21:32:00.000-06:00

ARRRRGGGHHH!%$^%#$^%%#^#%^^&**&(_@#$%*

So I tell my wife I have a game, skip playing some lunchtime drop-in and lock-off a bunch of time to drive to the rink and wast a half-hour sitting in the locker room waiting for the game to start, only there's no game because there's NO TEAMS!

The rink had a power-outage so there would not have been a game anyway but somehow the teams found out and skipped the drive. Call the referee, nope - why bother. So I dont get paid (because the rink is closed and the game postponed) but I'm the only one who has to waste a whole night prepping, driving and waiting.

Cross-training

2005-04-09T23:41:00.000-06:00

A common problem is players using their hands and arms as an extension of their body during a check - usually this is seen with the player bringing the hands together and impacting the chest of his target, and very often the hands will then travel up the chest and end up hitting the chin or facemask. While not intentional the result is a "Head Contact" penalty since it is "reckless contact with the head of an opponent".

I ran into an interesting thing tonight - a player who was pushing the line on illegal body checking, and after the game I spoke with the coach who pointed out that the player also was a football linebacker which influences how he hits. He is used to grabbing his opponent at the shoulders and pushing during a tackle at the line of scrimmage.

I'm wondering how much else is creeping into the sport?

Pioneers repeat

2005-04-08T20:14:00.000-06:00

I was on the ice working during the NCAA Final but the DU Pioneers have now duplicated last year's trumph. I ended up working because a few spoiled souls wanted to watch the game - and it turned out quite fine for me.

2005-04-08T12:58:00.000-06:00

I started this thread over at hockeyrefs.com opining about the effect of the "grand pronouncement". For some reason leauges have a knee-jerk reaction to playoffs, issuing fatwas about this rule or that rule.

Even worse, in the case of the NCAA an 'open letter' was sent at the beginning of the season about enforcing obstruction penalties, but I saw more than one WCHA game that utterly failed to implement this edict. Just before the Frozen Four the NCAA reiterated the command and said "The rules are the rules and we don’t change rules once we get to the post-season".

<BIG-FOAM-CLUEBAT>Here's a hint for you leauge organizers, if you find yourself defending your rules and telling everyone they've been enforced, you are delusional.</BIG-FOAM-CLUEBAT>

The temptation to issue rules 'emphasis' and other flourishes can and will backfire when your officials are set to the task of actually handling three periods. Some will listen attentively and implement your desires, most will add it to the 100-200 pages of rules they already have and continue to perform as they always have. Players will be bitten, coaches will be struggling to keep up, and spectators utterly bewildered, if not enraged - and all of that fury will land on the officials because they are the ones who seem to have made a change of character.

Engage us, find out what we think is plausible BEFORE commanding sweeping changes on a 1 page memo hung on the inside of the dressing room. Now the NCAA did try, they told everyone, loudly what they wanted the officials to do - and yet humans being fallible, it didnt really get displayed until the national championships... as a fan I'm upset about the number of marginal calls in today's game, as an official I get why it happened, the officials did as told, and from my vantage point turned a sporting event into a legal travesty - we'll never know which team had the better athletes because the rules overshadowed the play.

Go.... Tigers

2005-04-06T21:58:00.000-06:00

NCAA Men's Ice Hockey has the culminating event starting tomorrow with the CC Tigers vs. DU Pioneers at noon Mountain time. As a Colorado resident I have been lucky to see a few Stanley cups, and of course last year's Final Four champions - in both cases Denver managed to be an underdog against bigger markets. This year however I'm hoping for a win by a real underdog team, the CC Tigers. These students attend a small school (so small the other Division I teams tried to have them excluded) in a small town, and yet they play big hockey.

<soapbox> Not to get off on a rant (hattip Dennis Miller) here but I see lots of players at all ages and skill levels use brute force as a crutch when their skill is lacking - not as a tool to supplement the game. Nothing is worse than watching a game devolve into a demonstration of the physics of inelastic colisions. The bigger body mass usually wins merely by hammering the smaller body. In rare cases I see small teams out hustle, out skate, and out score an opponent with grit. The CC Tigers are such a team, they can hit but when their game is flowing its part of the play instead of a demonstration of hammers and anvils.</soapbox>

I am always impressed with coaches, especially when their team is losing, who coach the skill game and push their players to hit only when necessary - and I'm always a bit resentful of coaches who yell out "play the body" - "hit him" - "finish your checks" - because I can predict about 75% of the time I'll hear that same coach complain when I issue a boarding, cross-checking or check from behind to the player that listened to the advice and forgot to play the puck.

Here's hoping this weekend's Frozen Four is an example of skilled athletes competing at the highest level with the spirit of sport in their blood, not their blood on the ice. And whoever wins - keep your sticks on the ice eh!

T...I...G...E...R...S Tiger Tigers Tigers

An injured player - and nobody's at fault?

2005-04-04T23:21:00.000-06:00

It happens sometimes when a player gets injured through no fault of any opponent - its always a sickening feeling when I blow the whistle and someone stays down on the ice for an extended period.

Whats shocking to me is that its nearly automatic that when a player is ejected for causing an injury (USA Hockey mandates an major penalty and game misconduct for an injury caused by an illegal check) the coach somehow manages to ignore the pain and suffering of the injured player to begin arguing some mythical "right" on the part of his players to play "tough" and "agressive" hockey.

Heres a news flash for all you coaches - there is no such right! Infact on page 'xix' of the official rules there is a 'Point of Emphasis' on "Fair Play and Respect" - its hard to imagine that attempting to argue out of a penalty is respecful, especially while the injured player is still lying on the ice with paramedics attempting to provide medical care.

I have to be circumspect about when and where it happened but a recent incident of the above mentioned "no fault" argument shook me. Seeing a profoundly injured player lay on the ice, clearly in great pain but bearing it with grit and amazingly quiet calm, and then being verbaly acosted by a coach claiming innocence on the part of the inflicting player, saddend me.

Shouldnt our coaches be teaching responsibility? Is a one game suspension for breaking the bones of an opponent really a grevious insult?

How funny can it get?

2005-04-04T22:39:00.000-06:00

I hear two things from players and coaches that make me laugh (although I try to not laugh in their face).

The first is "You hate us" - here's the funny part - I dont even know who you are! I cant count the number of times a player or coach has greeted me by name - my last name is on the back of my sweater, and I often will greet the coaches before a game with my first name to break the ice. But if I work 5 games in a 3 day weekend span I dont have room to remember all the faces and names of the coaches. Once even I saw a coach twice in the same weekend at a tournament, and I didnt remember him until he said "I hope your in a better mood" - duhh, if he hadnt said anything I would have smiled and skated on. As it was I ended up pausing for a moment and trying to find a diplomatic way of saying "get over it".

The second funny thing people say to me is "call it both ways" - usually when they are behind in the score - this one I can understand - I ocassionaly make the mistake of trying to play - and its a sign of fustration when you feel that the game is tilted against you. The problem is that officials rarely intentionally tilt a game in any direction, but they do have a standard you might not understand. The simple fact is that the best officials are so good because they know precicely what that standard is, and the "bad" officials dont. Telling an official to "call it both ways" never works because he is already doing that.

My advice - consider the official's goals, a USA Hockey official's "prime directive" is to enforce the rules, not to make you happy. One of the best ways to win friends is to approach the official with respect - "Sir" and "Please" are more effective than a finger pointed at the chest or a "you have to call that because I think its a penalty".

The most effective coach I can recall is a quiet fellow who asked me "What can I tell my players to do to stay inside the lines" - and then he made a point to remind his players at each opportunity "keep those hands down boys" - when he next asked for a consultation I gave him the time as a reciprocal courtesy.

Welcome

2005-04-04T22:19:00.000-06:00

About me:

I am a USA Hockey Level 4 referee in the Denver area. I have been working games for close to a decade at the youth and adult levels up to college club. I am also a seminar instructor and a mentor.