All excellent points, Mark.  You do have to allow some flexibility for
the referees to alter what they are calling in order to maintain control
of some games, but I see no reason why refs from different conferences
cannot be trained to respond to the same rules interpretations in the
same way.   If they were then you wouldn't find chaos caused by two refs
on the ice calling different things.  BTW, I think on some penalties,
the ref sees something and knows a penalty has occured, but what they
report as one two minute penalty to the anouncer was, in fact, a
different two minute minor.  Nevertheless, the great majority of them do
a fantastic job seeing infractions and calling them.

My biggest refereeing gripe is when they "swallow the whistle" to let
them "decide it on the ice."  That is utter BS.  If it is a penalty in
the first five minutes of the game, its a penalty in the last five.  Not
calling it is not letting them decide it on the ice, its altering the
rules so that those who push the rules get away with more.  OK - my
annual rant is over now.

Tom Rowe

-----Original Message-----
From: - Hockey-L - The College Hockey Discussion List
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Mark Lewin
Sent: Tuesday, May 16, 2006 11:46 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Four-official system proposed for college hockey (and other
off-season tidbits)

I agree that the "Let the Boys Play" play issue is a big problem. But
aside from the amount of fighting that is tolerated in the NHL (and I
assume that's a league philosophy as opposed to individual taste on the
part of each ref), I find that there is much more consistency across the
board in the NHL than in college.  Of course, that is due to the fact
that you have a higher pay scale (and presumably better qualified
individuals) and a consistent ruling body.

One of the big issues in college hockey is the oversight of referees and
rule enforcement on the part of the individual leagues. It  would be
virtually impossible to get inter-league consistency in the NCAA since
leagues like the ECACHL have low tolerance for physical play, especially
along the boards while the western leagues allow much more physical
playing but have a lower tolerance for the clutching and grabbing seen
in the ECACHL. When holiday tournament time comes around and NCAA
tournaments come around, the result of two teams from different leagues
playing (and a referee from a third league officiating), the results can
be somewhat chaotic.  And that doesn't even address the issue of
differing referees within a single league.  Ideally, it would be nice to
let the boys (and
girls) play.  But, what I mean by that, is that it would be nice for the
players and coaches to know what constitutes holding, what constitutes
hooking and what you can and cannot do along the boards and in the
corners.
And it would be nice if you only had to learn those definitions once,
not have to relearn the definitions each game for each new referee (and
sometimes re-learn from the same referee at the start of each period).

At this stage, I believe it's less important for college to adopt the
NHL standard than it is for the entire NCAA to adopt the same standard
and enforce it uniformly across the board.  The game should be about the
players, playing within the rules. You can't have that if the rules are
open to each and every official on the ice.  Then the game starts being
about them rather than the people  competing.

On 5/16/06, Erik Biever <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> Having watched a bunch of NHL playoff games, I must say that I like 
> the four-official system.  I'd also like to see college hockey adopt 
> the current NHL standards for holding and interference, i.e., actually

> calling the penalties.  The NHL somehow avoided geting bogged down in 
> the "let the boys play" argument that pervades college hockey.
>
> -- Erik
>
> Wayne writes:
>
> > Larry Mahoney of the Bangor Daily News writes about a four-official 
> > system proposed for college hockey, Hall of Fame game at the Xcel 
> > Energy Center, the Maine hockey banquet and other items of interest
...
> >
> >   http://www.bangornews.com/news/templates/?a=133940
> >
>