I don't want to start a whole round of complaints about the officaiting
again, but since we discussed the "new emphasis" penalties at the start
of the season, I think its worth discussing again.
 
This weekend, I was listening to the Wisconsin-Denver games on the
radio (why didn't *we* get it on TV?) and the conclusion of the
announcers was that all the talk about the "new emphasis" penalties was
just that talk -- as last year, by the Christmas break, everything was
"back to normal" in the WCHA -- games being called a lot looser, lots
of hooking/holding/interference being ignored, etc.
 
As one of them put it, "The coaches run the league, and the coaches won
the war."
 
So, WCHA watchers -- is this what you have seen? I haven't seen enough
games recently to make a judgement, plus of course, each game and each
ref is different....
 
And for you non-WCHA people out there, what is the situation in your
league?
 
For everyone who had a chance to see inter-league play (tournaments or
just non-conference games) did the officiating by refs from another
league seem very different to you?
 
Thanks for your comments,
 
	--david
 
ps: Discussing officating can't be 100% objective, but we can
keep it productive and avoid general ref-bashing, right?
--------
david parter				university of wisconsin -- madison
[log in to unmask]			      computer sciences department