Ryan writes:
>Do we really want the coaches to have control over who will continue to be
>assigned games?
 
First, the coaches don't control who officiates which games.  Officials
who are alumni of, say, BC can't do BC games in order to prevent any
possible allegations of conflict of interest.  Other than that, the league
assigns officials to games.
 
But the coaches' evaluations are a major piece of information used in
determining which officials the league will retain to do games.  And that's
how it should be.  If I suggested that it is the only thing used, I'm
sorry; of course, evaluations from the director of officials who personally
watches these guys work are considered as well.
 
>I hope (expect) that the coaches' input is just that one set of a large bunch
>of inputs which determines an official's overall performance.
>When you consider what a coach is looking for in an official, one who doesn't
>call many penalties on his team and is able to catch all of the cheap shots
>committed by his team's opponents, how can you say these coaches are good
>jugdes of referees?  The only officials who will get good overall ratings by
>all coaches are ones who let everything go.  Which makes college hockey more
>and more like pro hockey, with everyone hooking and grabing everyone else.
 
I think you are too cynical in your belief.  Coaches aren't going to rate
officials well because their teams got all the calls or because fewer penalties
were called on their teams.  They are sincerely interested in keeping the
level of officiating high, and to that end, the factors that bring high
ratings are consistency, control of the game, etc.  I know Merrimack's Ron
Anderson always waits until the next day to fill out his evaluation.  That
gives you time to cool off if a game got pretty emotional.
 
Also, if an official is consistently rated poorly by *both* coaches in a game,
that should tell you something, shouldn't it?  That was the case here.
 
 
- mike