Having two referees means .... well, consider this.
 
 
        Okay, all you goalies out there, relax and take a deep breath and
imagine .... the opposition whips the puck into your zone off the side boards,
and your left defenseman corrals it.  You notice that the referee has his
right hand in the air, orange armband ablaze, whistle at the ready ---
what do you do?  HEAD FOR THE BENCH!!  DELAYED PENALTY!!  But when you get
within about 10 feet of the bench, the official's hand goes down, he skates
away, and all of a sudden the opposition is pressuring your defense
in front of a very wide open net with no apparent worry about an impending
whistle.
 
        A cruel joke on the referee's part??  A bad dream??  No, as Dave
Barry might say, "We're not making this up."  It actually occurred in the
Cornell-Waterloo game last week.  What happened, of course, was that one
of the two referees was "playing linesman" and had his arm up for a delayed
offside against Cornell; he retracted his arm when the Red cleared the
Waterloo zone, by which time Waterloo's goalie was a stick's length from
a bench full of screaming, waving, panicking teammates.
 
        The moral: a goalie had better pay really close attention this year
and make sure that the referee's **left** hand is pointed at an opposition
player (indicating a delayed penalty against that player) before skating
off to the bench when the referee's **right** hand is in the air and
the goalie's team is in possession of the puck.
 
 
                                Dave Delchamps and Dan Turgeon
                                Cornell University
                                Let's Go Red !!