Paul Stewart: Critiquing Officials: Four Keys for Hockey Coaches

A different sport, but a beauty yesterday during the 1st quarter of the Super Bowl. Review of a catch/no catch on Carolina, ruled no catch on the field.

Every angle on TV shows the ball never touched the turf, under control at the end, should be good catch. Ex-NFL official on CBS comes on the air and states call should be over turned. Talking heads in the booth agree. Yet the official on the field supports the original call, despite the overwhelming evidence.

Well done!

Paul - agree with the 12 hour rule. I know I have been guilty here reading something and immediately respond out of emotion. Given time thinking about it, realizing I flew off the handle and should have responded differently.

what are your thoughts on that Sabres/Bruins game and the penalty shot awarded in OT?

Was it even a penalty, let alone worthy of a penalty shot which would dictate the outcome of the game?

No one expects fans to have insight into what makes for a good or bad official

This is a bit, well ... paternalistic, no?

"This is a bit, well ... paternalistic, no?"

not sure why quoting sometimes works here and sometimes doesn't…


….but, have to agree. Is it too much to ask for consistency and fairness?
and once upon a time, Hockey was a sport working class people attended. When working class people see someone doing their job poorly, they expect that person to be reprimanded, get less hours, disciplined, something.
it would be great to see instant video reviews by another set of officials in the press box, allowing penalties to be overturned. But unfortunately, the NHL would rather be embarassed by bad calls than to see their refs be told that they were wrong evaluating a play in real time.
And to be clear, I'm not advocating getting in refs faces and berating them, I'm just advocating that the NHL actually start getting more calls right.

Paul, what is you thought on this: after you have time to cool down and control your emotions, you still know that the refs make too many mistakes. How does the league allow this? Serious question.

Thank you Paul for the great post, every rookie official should be taught this. This is my first year with USA Hockey, I love learning stuff from veteran officials, they have so much knowledge and many of your articles have great info to help young guns like myself. Keep them coming and thank you for what you do for the NHL & AHL.

Riley

AS an official in 2 sports, I completely agree with the entire blog! You catch more flies with honey right? Dealing with evaluators and observers is part of the job, but I can tell you I get much more out of the evaluators who talk to me in a calm manner and ask me what I saw on the play and then offer suggestions and criticisms as opposed to those who come through the door screaming and yelling at our crew. Thanks!