David writes:
>This weekend, I was listening to the Wisconsin-Denver games on the
>radio (why didn't *we* get it on TV?) ...
 
I'm not sure, it was on here in New England!
 
>For everyone who had a chance to see inter-league play (tournaments or
>just non-conference games) did the officiating by refs from another
>league seem very different to you?
 
The only live games I've seen with non-HE officials were at Union and Army,
and I can't say I noticed any difference from HE.  I can't adequately comment
on Western games I've seen on tv since you don't get to see the whole ice
surface.
 
As for HE officiating, it has changed slightly in that they seem to be letting
a little more go now than at the start of the year; however this is no
surprise.  At the start of the season, we did not see a large number of
penalties called anyway, but I thought that was due to the fact that the
players seemed to have gotten the message about what they weren't going to be
able to get away with.  Most of the HE games I've seen this year have been
pretty cleanly-played games.  The games from the West that I've seen on tv
seem to be much more physical, thus I can understand the higher number of
calls.
 
Probably the competition for that lowest penalty-minute banner in HE has a
lot to do with the situation, too. :-)
 
 
- mike