As I must admit, I sometimes butcher opposing team names as I cannot always tell how they are spelled from our announcing staff. The mistakes are mine and I alone am responsible. My apologies to the Wisconsin players (Williams, Tok, and I think, Rafalsky) who suffered at the fingers in my ears. Otherwise, I hope my game reports were more or less accurate. I have received a number of supportive comments on WCHA ref's in addition to those made public on Hockey-L. One commentator asked that I publish why I am upset with the ref's on a play by play basis. I am unable to do this as I do not note each or any faux pas of a particular ref. Ref's are human despite my comments otherwise. Thus they are entitled to blow a call now and then. While there may be instantaneous reaction to this, it is soon forgotten. However, certain ref's tend to set a pattern over time which is more distinctive than an occassional blown call. In the WCHA this year and over the past several years, a number of officials seem to feel that their views of hockey are more important than the game between the opponents. Some see any contact as cause to whistle down the play. Some can't tell which side of the blue line is which and whistle offsides more or less randomly. Others, sometimes members of the previous sets, can't seem to tell if icing occurred or did not occur. Holding was supposedly one of the special points this year: most refs made their own inconsistant interpretations. I clearly do not like a game of hockey which is broken up by needless stoppages and dominated by specialty team play. Grievous and blantant disregard for rules must be called; however the players are now beginning to realize that diving is an important skill. Hockey is game meant to flow and to create dynamic plays. Hitting and checking is part of the game. The players know this; the coaches know this. Some of the refs know this, some don't. A few of the WCHA refs are excellent: I have admired the ability of Greg Sheppard to call a game. There are not many that are better in any league. I feel that Christenson and Ames have improved despite the reputed performance in Minnesota this weekend. I would much rather Christensen and Ames than several like Yackel, Goddard, Krieger, and Schmidt to name a few. That is not to say that Christensen and Ames are good: not yet. But they are making progress and that is encouraging. Others, such as Anderson and Brandt seem to be ok: they occassionally make mistakes (probably fewer than I do trying to spell opposing player names) but they try to make the best call of the game that they can. I don't think we can ask more than this. However, I have named four (some in Minnesota will claim six) ref's that are extremely inconsistant, do not seem understand the game or the rulebook, influence the game with blown calls and do not seem to improve their judgement over time. The coaches are muzzled by the league from making statements about the refs; there many indications that the coaches are not happy about the refs or the muzzlement. We need to look at what can be done to improve referee quality. Muzzling the coaches is not the answer does not help the situation. I believe that one learns to be a referee and that training is essential. I don't know how much training is done for college hockey officials: perhaps someone will comment on this. My guess at this point is that not enough has been done to train and qualify referees for this level of play, speed and complexity. The coaches probably can help in this regard. Walt Olson MTU