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Ref Memories

    Officiating a hockey game is a tough job. The penalties are quite often controversial amongst the fans, it is a no-win situation for the officials. The hardest penalty to call was interference. Who is running the interference? Whose piece of ice is it? Hard decisions to be made!

    The player without the puck who gets knocked down by a player from the other team should be assessed a minor penalty. Some are easy to call, but others are difficult because players are so smart they will fall down, so did they dive? It is the officials to decide, it is his judgement that will determine if there is a penalty or not.

    Cross checking is also hard. At what point does a player receive a penalty? If you watch the NHL, you have to drill someone to get a penalty called, but sometimes in the officials’ judgement it wasn’t severe enough. The rule book does not describe how vicious a cross check has to be to call a penalty. There are a lot of gray areas!

    What about a penalty shot call? If a player has a clear-cut breakaway a penalty shot can be assessed if the player is impeded in any way where his opportunity to score is taken away. I think I only ever called maybe 3 penalty shots as I felt if the player got a good shot off at the goalie, a 2-minute penalty would be assessed for the infraction that had occurred. Teams get upset if a penalty shot is called. I never understood that! A penalty shot is one shot and what is the success rate of taking that shot? If you watch shootouts, you know the success rate is not very successful. It is a one and done play! If the player who is taking the shot scores, well you have 2 minutes that you would not have had to play the game at full strength. It is very interesting to hear what teams would choose in a particular situation. Anyway, enough about penalty calls for now. Until next time!