I have seen refs from the 4 leagues within the past two years (haven't seen
any from Atlantic or CHA) and frankly think that all leagues are coming
together with the exception of the ECAC.
There are several refs in the ECAC that seem to have bought into the program
with the possible exception that the ECAC is much less tolerant of boarding
and hitting from behind. The unfortunate part is that there is a huge
variation in referees within the league.  There are one or two refs who
still seem to think that hockey is a non contact sport.  As the years have
gone by, I've seen the Hockey East refs go more and more toward a western
style interpretation.
Perhaps this trend partially explains why the ECAC has been in decline in
the NCAA tournament.  Since ECAC teams never see ECAC refs, they usually
face teams that are more used to the physical aspect of the game and play
under refs who allow that type of play.  The only ECAC team that plays a
disciplined but physical style of play is Cornell and coincidentally, they
are the only team with ongoing success at the NCAA level

On 3/27/06, J. Michael Neal <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> David Parter wrote:
>
> >On a side note:
> >
> >Since there were WCHA teams in both the Green Bay and Grand Forks
> >regionals, the WCHA refs went East: John Campion in Worcester and Derek
> >Shepherd in Albany. Both worked the regional finals by the way (but Pi
> >couldn't work the East regional final since Michigan State was in it,
> >righ? ).
> >
> >Hmmmm... any WCHA folks surprised? I don't think the WCHA has any
> >outstanding refs right now. I would not have picked Campion and Shepherd
> >as the best either...
> >
>
> I really like Todd(?) Anderson.  Derek Shepard gets in purely on nepotism.
>
> --
> J. Michael Neal
> http://idonotlikeyoueither.blogspot.com/
>