Walt,
 
Thank you for your response.  I will attempt to address some of the
points that you have made.
 
>Thanks for responding. I have seen you officiate several times
>and think that you do a fairly good job.
 
Thank you.  I am curious as to where you have seen me since I live in
Ann Arbor and do most of my officiating in the Detroit area.
 
>One of quality standards that I judge referees by is consistancy.
>I felt and still feel that the referees were exceptionally
>inconsistant during the MSU/MTU fiasco.
 
>If a referee is going to call holding and interference in one situation
>and not the next, I am going to be unhappy. If a ref is going to
>call holding but not tripping, again I am not going to be happy.
 
>You, as a referee, make a decision as to when to be blind and
>when to raise your arm. If you are consistant in your calls so that
>the players know exactly where the line is, and if you tend to
>maintain the same standard as the norm of the other ref's in the
>conference, you will generally be a pretty competent ref.
 
The previous three paragraphs essentially indicate your desire for
consistency.  I agree.  I also feel strongly that it is extremely
difficult to have consistency in the two referee-one linesman system
that is employed by the NCAA (with the exception of CCHA).  That is the
reason that the CCHA coaches voted UNANIMOUSLY to return to the one
referee-two linesman system last season.  I wonder when the rest of the
NCAA will wake up and figure this out.
 
>How are referees qualified and selected for tournaments?
 
The CCHA officials assigned for the GLI are chosen by the CCHA
supervisor of officials.
 
>Does anyone look at how well they have performed in the past?
 
Absolutely.  In the CCHA, officials are constantly evaluated by coaches,
faculty representatives, and supervisors.
 
>Do ref's put in the same amount of time as the coaches and players?
 
Of course not.  Coaches are paid a full time salary and the players are
students, most of whom are on scholarship.  The officials have full time
jobs since officiating income is not enough to live off of.  If you want
the conferences (which actually means the schools) to pay for full-time
officials, then you can have full-time officials.  There is only one
league in North America that pays enough for their officials to make a
career out of officiating--the NHL.
 
>Does the game have as much of an impact upon them as it does for the
>coaches and players?
 
Do not think for a second that the officials do not take their effect on
the game seriously.  These guys are not just out there to collect a pay
check.  There is just as much, if not more money to be made (given the
time involved) doing senior no-check games at home.  Officials at this
level are doing it for the love of the game and for the thrill of
officiating "big games".
 
>Are good performances rewarded and and poor performances sanctioned?
 
Yes.  Officials do get released from Division I conferences and other
higher level leagues (Junior "A", IHL, NHL, etc.) for performance
reasons all the time.  In the case of the NHL, one only needs to look
back at the Andy Van Hellemond incident in last year's playoffs for a
case of an official being sanctioned.
 
Officials are also rewarded for good performance in a variety of ways.
The better officials are typically given more games assignments and the
more prestigious assignments as well.  Also, in the CCHA, the referees
are paid on a three-tiered scale.  What this means is that the top three
referees (based on last year's ratings) make one per game rate, the next
three make another rate, and the remaining referees make yet another
rate.  The linesman who worked in last year's playoffs are also paid an
addition $10 per game.
 
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