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The Stew: Potted Plants and Telescopes |
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Potted Plants and Telescopes
Regular readers -- and even casual readers -- of my blog have seen me write this scores of times over the years. It's the same thing that I remind the officials with whom I've worked as a trainer, officiating director and assignor over the years:
"The money is at the net, so get to the net."
"Skate where you need to skate to see what you need to see."
"Positioning sells calls."
"Telescope, banana, accordion."
The first three statements are mantras for giving yourself the maximum chance to make the right call -- and defend it if its questioned -- on the most crucial rulings during any given game. The last is my descriptive terminology to visualize the skating techniques involved.
Unfortunately, when it comes to plays at the net, the NHL seems over the last 20 years to actively provide poor coaching to its officials by having them station themselves in the corner in the attack zone. The result inevitably is that goal/ no goal rulings are missed due to losing sight of the puck and too-hasty decisions to blow the whistle. There are more replay delays than need to happen. Even worse, the fix-it-in-replay mentality is far from failsafe.
We just saw it a few days ago in the first Islanders-Rangers game where a perfectly good and legal goal was not allowed because a referee was off in the corner and made a too-hasty decision to blow the whistle because he couldn't see a loose puck. Even though the goal was scored a fraction of a second before the whistle sounded, the on-ice decision had already been made to blow play dead because sight of the puck had been lost.
This is preventable, but it happens way too often each season. It's backward logic: Replay does not replace getting the call right in the first place, and giving yourself the best chance to see the puck is not subordinate to making sure you don't get caught up in the play. We ought to want our officials to be in optimal position at all times. We shouldn't want them to be potted plants in the corner of the room (or, rink, as the case may be).
On plays around the net, there are three useful techniques for a referee to get in the optimal position. They all involve skating rather then being stationary.
I call the first technique the Accordion move. Picture the bellows of an accordion and the way it expands outwardly before retracting. From the back boards to the area around the net, the official can move in a similar fashion.
The second technique is the Telescope move. A telescope zooms in and zooms out. This can be done in a straight line that runs closely parallel to or along the goal line from the side.
What about if the referee is one side of the net and the play needs to be better seen from a vantage point on the third side> That's where the third technique, the Banana Move comes in. As the name implies, the technique involves making a curve-around toward the other side.
In all cases, a referee should not make the call from a stationary position in the corner. That is poor coaching and poor officiating, in my estimation. The NHL clearly disagrees, because the problem lingers from season to season, and there seems to be zero inclination to fix it.
Staying Put
Apart from the officials who retired at the end of last season, the NHL has not made any replacements on the officiating staff. Everything is stagnant, due to the pandemic.
Likewise, with all of these back-to-back games between teams staying put in the same city in order to reduce travel (both from a Covid-risk minimization standpoint but also from a cost-reduction perspective), the same sets of referees and linesemen are working both games in most cases.
The stagnation is a necessity, but it also causes a backlogging. Apart from officials, I also feel badly for the players, both outgoing and incoming, in the collegiate and junior hockey ranks who aren't having much of a 2020-21 season to speak of, if they're having one at all. The belated starts or cancelations are having an effect on recruitment, scouting, and transfers.
Snapshot in time
This picture was taken in December of 1975: my first week as a Pro player after heading from the University of Pennsylvania on Dec. 13 to go play for the NAHL's Broome County Dusters. This was the start of a long journey and a life where I found happiness while I was in my skates. If you love what you are doing, you never work a day in your life.
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A 2018 inductee into the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame, 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.
Visit Paul's official websites, YaWannaGo.com and Officiating by Stewart.
Blogger •Former NHL Referee • 
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