Kenny Zalewski writes:
>called it off. This is an example of an officiating error, which is
>a bit different than inconsistent calls or judgement calls, which are
>all opinionated things. We often see icing or offside errors, especially
>with the new 2-1 system. These mistakes are not as "crucial" as a
>bad goal call. Unfortunately, mistakes are made, and the players,
I must disagree in part with the above statement. Offsides and icing calls
can be just as crucial as a missed or disallowed goal. Players, namely
defenseman play all their lives with the knowledge that the BLUE LINE is their
friend with respect to Offsides, and many times we see backcheckers use this
to their advantage taking their opponent offsides by mere body position. Once
an offsides is waved off which should have been called you are allowing an
offensive advantage which should not have been allowed. On the flip side,
which has happened more often in the 2-1 system this year, an official, usually
the lines man is in good position to make the offsides call waves it off, and
from somewhere in the middle of the rink the Referee blows it offsides, thus
taking away a scoring opportunity. Yes, it is easy to see the impact of
disallowing a goal that went in, but refs will never catch all those. As a
goalie myself I know I have pulled more than 3 or 4 pucks out of the net without
the Official or Goal judge ever knowing it crossed the line. But, if a play
is blown offsides which wasn't, we never even give the refs a chance to mess up
on the goal line.
In short, Yes missing a goal is CRUCIAL, but thinking that line calls
are not as crucial is very near-sighted.
-Ryan Stone
Lawrence University (Appleton, WI) '93
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute '93
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