I may be confusing college vs NHL ruling, but since you have a video replay in college (note: video not audio) WHEN the whistle blows is of NO consideration in ruling on the play. It is WHEN THE REFEREE INTENDED TO BLOW THE WHISTLE which matters, which normally is say BEFORE the whistle actually blows, and is AFTER the penalty or infraction actually happens. So assuming an infraction which constitutes reason for blowing the whistle upon contact by the infracting team, allowing the goal was a misjudgement by the video referee. Particularly a misjudgement given the ruling on the ice was no goal. There would have been no real nor conclusive evidence to over rule the on ice official, whose call is the ruling unless proven wrong by other (fanciful or video) evidence. 

I love being able to use referee and blows in the same paragraph.

However, the statements before are ABSOLUTELY correct : it is a beautiful game and if you can ignore the zebra mistakes as you ignore the player mistakes, then you can see more of the beauty and enjoy more of the game. Referee success is X>50% of positioning and Y<50% judgement. The referee's judgement IS better than yours, the only question is their positioning. The call that sticks in my craw is Steve Piotroski's tripping call in overtime in the St. Paul final of Minnesota vs Maine. I still say it was a bullshit call, but he was in the right position, which is visible from any camera angle. So, I accept it as a good call. Maybe that player had been warned before about near tripping, or maybe an eariler one was not called, or, whatever. He was in the best possible position, end of complaint, despite the final goal and national championship being decided by a referee call.

Nathan Hampton


-----Original Message-----
From: - Hockey-L - The College Hockey Discussion List on behalf of Craig Powers
Sent: Fri 3/30/2007 6:38 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: question on ruling
 
Will Devine wrote:
> The television replay showed that the puck crossed the line before the
> whistle blew, although just barely.  The original call made by the ref was
> that the goal didn't count, but it was changed after review.

If I were with SLU, I would have protested the game if that is the 
actual grounds for changing the ruling.  Stoppage of play by the 
official is not one of the allowed grounds for video review -- see pages 
HR-78 and HR-79 of this season's playing rules.

Mind you, I'd be in favor of the timing of the whistle being subject to 
review, but it's not in the rules and Colgate was famously denied an 
overtime goal in the Albany regional several years back because of a 
supposedly early whistle by Fitzy (when it appeared to this observer 
that the puck was in the net before the whistle, although I was at the 
other end of the ice).