Greg Berge writes:
>The officials should be completely blind to the
>score or time left in calling penalties.  They should
>call the game consistently throughout.
 
And this is one of my main criteria for good officiating (another
being "keep control of the game").  Why should an official call a game
consistently?  Because both teams need to know what the boundaries
are - what they can and cannot do.  Scott was correct in saying that if
everything was called, the game would be boring, last forever and be one
long power play.  So, an official needs to establish what type of game he
will call AND call it that way all the way through.  When he does not,
he becomes part of the game, and an official who becomes part of the
game is doing a poor job.
 
One of the biggest problems exists when a game is close, time is running
out, and the team that is ahead suddenly has a borderline penalty
called against it that would have been let go earlier in the game.
The perception among fans and often players is that some referees feel
a need to let the losing team have a chance to come back.  This is the
opposite situation from letting everything go down the stretch, but
actually the two are quite similar.  They deal with an abrupt change
in officiating philosophy which makes it more difficult for the
players to do their job.
 
At times, such a change is necessary.  If a game becomes cheap, then
often a referee has to start taking guys off for borderline
infractions to maintain control.  But that's not a referee taking the
decision of the game into his own hands, which is what happens when
a borderline call is made against a team leading 5-4 with 3 mins left
and the game is clean.
 
Now it's time for a plug you usually don't see on HOCKEY-L: a pat on the
back to Hockey East officials, who I think do a really great job overall.
On the whole, they tend to keep control, officiate consistently, make
calls that should be made down the stretch and let things go that
should be let go.  Ever notice that in the game reports I send out,
you rarely if ever read anything about the officials except the line
that says
 
REFEREES: Frank Cole, John Gravellese.  LINESMAN: Bill Jones.
 
That is because that is how often they do a good job.  I read the
complaints some of you folks from other conferences (mostly ECAC &
WCHA) make about your officiating.  I have to conclude that either
1) you're too hard on them, or 2) they really are that bad, and we're
lucky in HE to have some of the best officials in DivI.  I haven't
figured out which it is yet :-), but I will close by saying that among
the other HE posters on HOCKEY-L, the number of complaints about
officiating is about as consistently low as with my Merrimack posts.
Think about that.
---                                                                 ---
Mike Machnik                                          [log in to unmask]
Cabletron Systems, Inc.                                  *HMM* 11/13/93
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