My biggest tip to a new guy would be to keep his mouth moving. Say high to the coaches before the game, introduce youself, and have a meeting with the team captains and alternates before the game, introduce yourself, and have them introduce themselves. Also, give commands out there on the ice. Yell "Keep the sticks down!" or "Move the puck" if it's stuck in the corner. I've noticed that players are usually a lot more easy to get along with if you talk to them.
This response is from Sean Roche from Canada, he writes:
As a Canadian Level 4 official, the best advice I can give to new officials is to work hard in every game you work whether it is a Novice house league game or a Junior A game. Always remember that for the kids playing the game you're working, that is their equivalent of game 7 of the Stanley Cup finals. As such, they expect and deserve the same effort from the officials that they are giving as players. Remember to keep the game safe for the players and to always have fun on the ice.
This response is from Chris Brindle, from Tampa, Florida, he writes:
I am a level 3 official in Tampa, Florida. I have been refereeing for 6 years and playing since I was seven years old. I'm 45 years of age. This tip is definately good advice to any official of any level. Always show your partner respect and consideration by giving him the opportunity to make any call which falls into his realm of responsibility first before you intercede. All too many times I find my partner deep in his own zone with his hand up for a delayed offside while I'm standing on the blue line. It seems to me that he should be more preoccupied with other things than what's going on 40 feet away from himself on a blueline which I have a much better sightline on to make a call. Give your partner the signals for icing and the 2-line offsides pass regardless of whether or not you think they will actually occur and let him make the decision to wave them off or stop play. If he has made an obvious mistake or has not been making good eye contact with you then you can step in and exert your authority. Remember that you and your partner are a team and that sometimes your areas of responsibility won't always overlap depending on where the play is and what's happening. Anytime you both are watching the same thing there's something going on somewhere else that's not getting it's share of the required officiating coverage.
This response is from Lindsey Cooper
I am a level 3 ref in the SHA. To a new official, the advice I would give is that there never is a wrong call, but only if you see it. In other words don't be scared to call something, as well as letting the players know the limit by yell something like "sticks down". If the player continues to have the stick high, peanlize the idiot!! This year I thought about going to semi- pro hockey in my future, and I am working had at what I do on the ice. I always ask the older and more expeirence refs "How can I make my reffing better?" Take tips one at a time and work directly at that one thing, but still doing all the good things. This year and next year, have fun out there and GOOD LUCK!!!
What I basically said, without going into much detail: is that coaches and parents/fans need to learn respect for the Game Officials. I also think that this coach should be banned from coaching USA Hockey affiliated games all for life. There is no room in this sport for crap like this.
This response is an part of an e-mail from Gene Altena. He writes:
My biggest concern these days is demonstrated in your question. You say "I've been pushing (the) Zero Tolerance policy down these peoples' throats,..." My concern for the game of hockey is this precise theory that the Zero Tolerance policy is answer to everyone's concerns about official abuse. Since this policy's inception and implementation into the wording of the rules, there certainly has not been a reduction in abuse. In fact I would not be surprised if there has been an increase.
I think it is the best interest of the officiating world to remove this wording from the rules. My reason for this is that by including this theory, implies that the officials are always correct, inhuman, unlike the rest of the people in the arena. It is only human to question the judgment of others. Zero Tolerance (ZT) has been interpreted to mean that this is no longer allowed and is punishable. In the ages before ZT, questioning the judgment never changed the call, but it was allowed. In today's time, simply requesting an explanation is usually rejected. Offering an alternative view point on the situation will most likely result in a penalty. I may make it all sound very innocent, but when you tear away all the emotion this is the situation at the core. ZT puts officials on a pedestal that none of them really want to be on. If you ask any referee what their task involves, none of them will say "To be right all the time."
You may ask, "So... what is the solution?". It is all about communication. I feel that if Referees/Coaches and Players all took a short time before the game to establish what the tolerance is, there would be a drastic change in attitude of all involved and would build this level of Respect that you referred to in your question. In addition, during the game it is vital that the lines of communication remain open. If approached after a call, refusing to discuss the situation severs these lines. Keep in mind that everyone involved needs to gain the respect of the others. A whistle and shirt with stripes does not earn you respect, your actions do. Officials, Coaches and Players do not deserve respect. I think it's said best by the Michigan Referee-in-Chief "...as an official, professionalism, knowledge and hustle are of the utmost importance." All said, I will not argue that the solution is entirely in the hands of the officials, but it certainly is the very best place to start.
This response is from David Baker from Calgary, Alberta, Canada. He writes:
Hi, I linked to your site from Rob Mills' site. I would like to add a comment about the situation you highlighted on your page. More importantly, about the comments by one poster regarding Zero Tolerance. He is right in that communication is the key. When we instituted the Zero Tolerance policy, too many officials were erecting a big wall between the coaches and
themselves. This is not the intent of the policy. In fact the intent is quite the opposite. It is to promote more effective communication between coaches and officials. Having said that however, we must keep in view the fact that it is very difficult for a young, novice official to get everything right all the time (in fact, this is even tough for the older, more experienced officials!). Officiaiting is an apprenticeship, we learn by doing. This is considerably hastened by those that feel it is "part of the game" or human nature to abuse officials. Does that mean to say that people can't have opposing viewpoints? Of course not. It is how it is conveyed that is the problem. We teach our
children to respect our elders, and then we ask them to officiate and suddenly become the authority figure in front of numerous adults who are screaming at them like raving lunatics!!! And it is only a game. Agreed, we must teach all officials to communicate better with the coaches, but coaches (and parents and fans) must realize that abusing an official is totally unacceptable behaviour. People need to understand that young officials learn very quickly in this abusive nature that it is easier to NOT call a penalty, than it is to call one. If the violation is overlooked, the play continues and quickly everyone's attention turns to the play. If, however, the official raises his or her arm and stops play, suddenly, everyone's attention is on the official, and now the abuse starts if someone doesn't happen to agree with the call. The official doesn't need that added pressure. The job is difficult enough already. What needs to be done is to encourage rationale conversation between coaches and officials, and the acceptance by all that officials will make mistakes. Having said that, even when a mistake is made, it is not permissible to verbally abuse the official, otherwise, the appropriate penalties must be assessed. Now, to the main problem as I see it. As parents, none of you would accept sending your child to the arena to play in an organized hockey game without a coach behind the bench to guide your children. So why do we constantly allow young officials, fresh out of their clinic, to officiate game without an officiating coach? I encourage all of you to contact your local minor hockey associations and referee associations and ask them what they are doing to assist the development of their officials. Are they providing coaches for them? Do they have a mentorship program? Do they try a shadowing program for new officials? How much supervision do they get? The supervision should be part of their development and their evaluation to determine how their are assigned into the various levels of the game. So, rather than critisizing our officials, we should be helping them to be the best that they can be. Yelling at them because you don't agree with their decision will NEVER make them any better. Zero Tolerance can work if it is accepted as intended, to increase the amount of rationale communication, and to eliminate the totally unacceptable forms of abuse currently being treated as "part of the game".
David Baker Manager, Officiating Canadian Hockey Association
This response is a comment about David Baker's from Gene Altena. He writes:
In response to David Bakers message, hats off to him and his suggestions about mentoring young officials to strengthen them. In the region of the country that I'm from it appears that there is a shortage of young officials. Does he have any suggestions of how to attract and sustain interest of young officials? There also seems to be a tendency to rush the apprenticeship and raise new officials to levels that they are not suited for. He mentions in his message the tendency to not call penalties to avoid conflict. I believe this accelerated pace may be contributing to this type of practice. Does he have any suggestions of how and who should evaluate the progress of officials?
A point to make is, USA Hockey does not have any type of evaluation requirement for level 1, 2, 3 officials. They simply have to pay their dues, attend a clinic and pass an open book test by a certain percentage. (I have taken the test in the past and unless it has changed, the percentage level was not difficult to reach.) It might be in the best interest of USA hockey to include the evaluation results, that Mr. Baker mentions, into the requirements for level 2, 3, 4.
Lastly, I agree with Mr. Baker that the Coaches and Players should not yell or verbally abuse (what is the technical definition for that anyway?) while addressing an official. On the other hand, while it doesn't look good and is a bad example for children, what fans and parents yell and scream should not effect the way an official does their job. There may be no excuse for it, but the damage has been done if the attention of the official has been diverted away from the game. As he say's "Yelling at them (officials) because you don't agree with their decision will NEVER make them any better." Blaming the fans for poor officiating and poor sportsmanship will NEVER make them better fans. Our concern should solely be with the individuals on the ice. Solving the problem there will help solve the problem in the stands.
This response is from Eric Harper from Welland, Ontario, Canada. He writes:
Im a level 2 Certified official in the Ontario Minor Hockey Association, and my home base is welland, ontario (Near Niagara Falls) and im replying to the email about the official who was abused by the coach. We here in the OMHA had a little problem with that last year so this year they put in the Zero Tolerance rule for coaches and players against officials. This year our
supervisors where enforcing that we toss coaches and players for even as much as arguing a call. So i feel that if you had a rule like that in place it would solve a lot of problems. Also i believe that the official was only 13, in the OMHA you must be 16 to receive your level 1!
This response is from PLEAUDINE from Marquette, MI. He writes:
I am all for the writer of the referee question. Just becuase the official is 13 years old doesn't have anything to do with what happened at that game. Maybe a call was made wrong, but every official makes mistakes. I know many officials that started before thay were 13 years old and were probably doing higher level games too. In Michigan a bill was passed to let younger kids officiate under certain conditions. At my assosiation in Marquette, MI I havn't seen a problem with younger officials. It's some of the older ones I see coaches and parents yelling at. I'm all for zero tollerance. If a coach steps on the ice for a reason like in the question, he's got a game misconduct. If he attacks parents and officials he's got a gross. THATS THAT. Yelling profanities at referees is not put up with were I ref.
B1: 2+2 R1: 2
B2: 2
I don't know what the USA Hockey interpretation is, so I'll give you the Canadian answer. The correct Canadian answer is that team B plays shorthanded for 4 minutes, 5 on 4.
Our penalty cancelling criteria is called MOTO:
M: Cancel as many penalties as possible. In the above
situation, you can cancel one minor aside.
O: Cancel so as to make a team one-man short. In this situation, if you cancelled one of B1's penalties, team B would be two men short.
T: Avoid taking an extra man off the ice. Once again, if you cancel one of B1's minors, you have to take an extra person off the ice to serve B1's remaining 2 minute penalty.
O: Cancel in Order of Occurance: When the above 3 criteria fail, cancel the penalties in the order they occured. This criteria is not applied in this case.
This response is from Patrick Hunt from Ontario, Canada
B-2 and R-1 penalties cancel each other out and B-1 sits for 4 minutes. That would be the ruling in the OMHA in Ontario.
This response is from Grant Harrison from Ontario, Canada
According to MOTO, (cancel as many as possible etc.) the player on team B with the double minor will serve his four miunutes while R1 and B2's penalties cancel eachother off-they stay for their 2 minutes and wait in the box until the 1st stoppage of play, b1 must serve his four minutes completely. 5 on 4 for 4 minutes.
This response is from Mark Thomas from Pittsburgh, PA
It is a 5 on 4 game because the double minor is 4 minutes and the 2 minors are coincidental penalties. That means if those were the only 2 penalties given, the game would be 5 on 5 and the players would have to wait for a whistle after their time is up and sice there is also a double minor, the player would sit out for 4 minutes and then the game would be 5 on 4 until his time is up. When his time is up, the other two penalties would have to wait while B-1 can go out.
This response is from Ryan from Western Canada
Regarding your question, the way to do it here in
Canada according to the Canadian Hockey Associations
rules, would be as follows:
B1: 2+2 B2: 2 R1: 2
Team R would have a 4 minute powerplay. (Team B
penalized for 4 minutes, B2 and R1 are same duration,
so they cancel each other out as coinicedentals, and
they get out the first stoppage after 2 minutes has
been up... )
Anyways, you can check out the Canadian system at the
CHA website at www.canadianhockey.ca Thanks!
Ryan, Western Canada
This response is from Chris Sokolfrom Suffield, CT.
USA hockey rules- 5 on 4 OR 5 ON 3, depending on B captains choice. He can make B-1's first minor coincident with R-1 minor, making it 5 on 3. Or, he can make B-2's minor coincident with R-1 minor, making it 5 on 4. Captain's choice.