Sean Pickett writes:
>Go back to last Saturday's game tying BU goal on an *obvious*
>offsides play and it appears that Hockey East officials have
>*not* been very observant so far this season.
 
Two additional comments, with the disclaimer that I do not wish to be
thought of as one who believes the officiating is bad as often as some
people do - to be honest, I see some posts on HOCKEY-L from people in
which much of the game recap involves hammering of the officials.  I
believe that most of the time, officiating does not decide the
outcome.  I mentioned it in regards to the Merrimack-UNH game the
other night because in my attempt to be as objective as possible :-),
I truly believed that last two goals scored by UNH in its 6-5 win were
a direct result of bad refereeing.  That is actually a rarity among
the games I see.  It still shouldn't happen, though.
 
(also, I do not mean to imply that Sean is one who constantly hammers
officials...his comments suggest otherwise.  But he raises good points
about some problems that have existed thus far this season.)
 
Now the comments...first, in talking with a UNH writer tonight (Sat),
he volunteered the opinion that the 5th UNH goal Friday was offside
and that the 6th came after a very bad call on a penalty against
Merrimack.  This came after he watched the tape of the tv game.  His
opinion jives completely with what I posted after that game.
 
Second, I saw something else that disturbed me tonight.  Referee
Dennis Hughes (he did both MC-UNH games) was working the line in
Merrimack's offensive zone, and MC's Claudio Peca had just put himself
slightly offside as a teammate dumped the puck in.  Peca turned to
look at Hughes, who was several feet away, and as Hughes made no
motion for a call, Peca turned back and took off after the puck which
was already deep in the zone.  After Peca turned away, Hughes then
raised his arm to signal offside, then blew the whistle since Peca was
deep in the zone in pursuit.
 
Peca *was* offside IMO, but it was close.  Hughes had enough time to
call it in the time it took Peca to turn and look, but he hesitated
far too long.  You can't blame the player in this case - he did what
anyone could have expected of him.  It is up to the official to make
the split second decision that is required in this case.
 
A corollary to this is that one of the problems I have noticed is that
referees seem to be trying to juggle calling the new rules emphases
with keeping down the number of penalty minutes.  The result is that
there is much more haphazard calling of penalties not on the emphasis
list.  One of the qualities I consider to be very important in
officiating is consistency, and it seems that some referees are more
willing to let certain things go if they've just been calling a
truckload of interference and holding penalties.  Players start to
think they can get away with those things, and suddenly one of them is
called.  Hopefully this will work itself out as time goes on.
 
>My wife Betty,
>who is very biased and thinks Frank Cole is anti-BU and one of
>the worse referees in Hockey East ...
 
I just want to put in a plug for Cole here...I think he has probably
been the best referee in HE over the last several years, and he almost
always does a superb job of calling a game when I see him.  I can't
say whether he is really anti-BU or if it seems that way, but I have never
gotten that impression any of the times I have seen him do games
involving the Terriers.
---                                                                   ---
Mike Machnik                                            [log in to unmask]
Cabletron Systems, Inc.                                    *HMM* 11/13/93