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Re-Thinking How Calls Are Made |
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Follow Paul on Twitter: @paulstewart22
In this upcoming season across the NCAA, including here in the ECAC, we are going to be implementing some new standards for how games are officiated. I will explain the practical workings shortly but, first, here's a little story.
A lot of people say, "If that was a penalty in the first period, why isn't that a penalty in the third period?"
Harry Sinden expressed the converse of that thought: "If that doesn't warrant a penalty in the third period, why should it warrant a penalty in the first?"
There is, of course, a distinction between the two that has to be made. Either which way, though, it is a challenge to strive for greater consistency and sound judgment. What we need to establish in all levels of hockey is for officials to have a strong feel for the game. There are two damaging mentalities that we need to break away from:
1) Refereeing by result. Interference is interference, even if the result is innocuous. Boarding is boarding, even if the player who gets hit is unhurt. So and so forth. What we need to work through is the mentality that somehow the same act is more or less penalty-worthy based primarily upon the result. As we adapt to this, there will no doubt be griping about "ticky-tack" calls when there's a seemingly harmless result. It's going to take education and persistence to get people to re-train the way they've come to instinctively think.
2) Overreliance on replay. The replay age has directly contributed to a decline in attention to detail on proper positioning and principle of skating where one needs to skate to see what one needs to see. We want and need officials to work as if there's no replay to back them up and the "just make a call and we'll fix it upon reply" mentality. Strong positioning, skating ability, and physical conditioning (more on that next blog) are not optional.
These important changes will not come about without some adjustment period. As I said,we will need officials to be able to feel the game -- in other words, demonstrate hockey sense -- as situations arise and for everyone on all sides of the game (including coaches and players) to retrain themselves out of habits that have set in.
Fans are trained, in fact often hard-wired, to see games as home vs. road (good guys vs. bad guys) and heavily on the cause-and-effect side of things. That may never change but the game itself will benefit by these changes.
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Paul Stewart holds the distinction of being the first U.S.-born citizen to make it to the NHL as both a player and referee. On March 15, 2003, he became the first American-born referee to officiate in 1,000 NHL games.
Today, he is the director of officiating for the ECAC.
Blogger •Former NHL Referee • 
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