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Are officials as bad as we make them out?
by Tom Forster
In the ten years or so I have been a hockey fan, I don’t recall many games coming away and hearing somebody in the street say “the ref had a good game tonight”. Upon advice from a fellow spectator, I was told I should not be biased when I analyze a call made by an official. So based on this over the last year, I have started to look at the officiating from an unbiased standpoint, and by doing this I can see that this standard isn’t nearly as poor as some people make out. I can be sat there and see an offence that clearly warrants a penalty but still there is an uproar of screaming from my fellow fans who express their disagreement and frustration. Prime example of this was on Saturday at the Steelers Panthers game, In the last minute of the game, Ryan Finnerty blatantly grabbed onto a panthers player and as it should be the referee’s hand reluctantly went up to signify a penalty, but upon the sign being recognized by the vociferous audience an immeasurable amount of abuse was heard directed at Carson, who was simply doing his job and enforcing the rules laid out. The guy get’s paid peanuts for giving up his time for taking 60 minutes of abuse from both sets of fans and players for whatever he calls! In reality he can’t win. Where is his sense of pride and achievement for doing his work if everybody dislikes him? If you were sat at your desk and somebody came in screaming at you that you are awful at your job, I don’t know about you but I would resign there and then. It’s just not acceptable. These guys take this onslaught 2-3 days a week for working damn hard. I don’t believe all the opinions about the referees wanting to be the star of the show I simply believe they are made to sound like this by the fans who use the officials as scapegoats for their own teams mistakes. On one hand they are asked for zero tolerance and to call everything worthy of an offence or to not call anything at all, on the other people ask for the game to flow and less calls to be made so that the game can continue in a smooth fashion, similarly to the NHL. But people don’t take into account that the league doesn’t have the money to spend training these guys to NHL standard, nor the money to employ a second official for the two-referee system. Either way the referee is screwed no matter which path he decides to go down.
At the end of the day the referee is the ultimate authority on the ice at any time, fans and even more importantly, players should respect any and every decision the referee or linesman makes without any disrespect being directed back towards them. The attitude of players in this country is disgusting at times, these guys are supposed to be role models and set an example to their audience of upmost respect and maturity. Contrasting to this when I read the elite league website every week I see at least 3 abuse of official penalties given over the course of a weekend. This is morally wrong, it would be a rarity to see 3 abuse of official calls in a month in the NHL. For me the league has to step in and punish players harder for abuse that they give, in the future as with rugby I’d like officials to be addressed as ‘sir’ and zero tolerance on any derogatory abuse and foul language…but the odds of that are minimal. I think people need to take off their tinted specs and observe from an unbiased point of view, maybe then they will see that these men are giving up time they could spend with their families or friends to maintain a game that they love, because frankly without them there would be no hockey in this country. Even if no one else does, I appreciate them and thank them for their efforts.
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5-3 |
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1-4 |
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4-4 |
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| 11th March 2006 19:00 | ||
2-4 |
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| 11th March 2006 19:00 | ||
| Club | GP | W | L | OL | GF | GA | Pts |
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5-8 |
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| 19th March 2006 19:00 | ||
5-1 |
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| 19th March 2006 19:00 | ||
4-1 |
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| 19th March 2006 19:00 | ||
5-2 |
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| 19th March 2006 19:00 | ||
3-7 |
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| 19th March 2006 19:00 | ||
1-1 |
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| 19th March 2006 19:00 | ||
| Club | GP | W | L | OL | GF | GA | Pts |
|---|
- Adam Walker
- Alex Birch
- Andy Pierce
- Chris Gent
- Christopher Beal
- Craig Simpson
- Dave Simms
- Elliott Stanley
- Gareth Chalmers
- James Broughton
- James Gordon
- Katy Madgwick
- Luke Catterson
- Mark Briggs
- Mark Duell
- Mat Young
- Patrick Smyth
- Promotion
- Russ Morrell
- Seanna Murdock
- Stephen Dowson
- Stewart Roberts
- Tom Forster
- Vicki Smart
- William Lyon
