Referees: What makes the good ones good, and bad ones bad?

[IPv6Freely 2092]

I always tell players "that's enough" and turn away from them.

Oh boy, I wish ours did this. The refs where I play not only argue (not explain, ARGUE), but they will at times be down right offensive.

[Captain Sane 2]

I just started reffing, mostly because I was "inspired" by some of the refs in my league (mostly by their incompetence), and I feel like I have two goals out there: 1.) Keep the game flowing, especially since our league has a running clock for all but the last two minutes of the game. So I try to keep things moving pretty fast, if I call a penalty I'm not going to read the guy the rulebook, just tell him the penalty, tell the score keeper, and drop the puck.

2.) Make sure I (and my partner) don't lose control of the game. I generally let guys play, but if I have to make a call I will, mostly when a scoring chance gets taken away or there's just too much rough play (no checking, after all). The situations I've seen where things got out of control largely happened because the refs let things go early on, then tried to make up for it later, and guys got pissed off. I'm really big on consistency so if it's not a call early, it's not a call late.

I've only done a handful of games so far, but I haven't had any issues, so it seems to be working out well.

And one piece of advice for other refs, if you're going to say something to each team at an intermission, please make it more constructive than 'Make sure your watching the stick play' or something. That provides no info to the players. Seems like every game a ref will tell each captain this between the 2nd and 3rd periods in my league.

[mattisoffside 0]

I agree on calling the beer league games more tightly. Everyone has to get up and go to work in the morning, you can't let that kind of stuff go. Of course the 5% of guys that want to play that way are the most vocal when it comes to complaining about officials. That said, I always liked Paul Stewart's way of calling the little face to face pushing matches. If you get in and break it up right away, you'll be doing that all game. Give the players a chance to work it out themselves. They'll either back down or escalate it. Either way, they're going to resolve the problem for you. Obviously, that only works if both parties are actively involved.

I'm totally on board with a tightly called game. When there are certain guys on the ice, you can usually guess how chippy or rough the game will get. I like a ref that will try to nip situations in their infancy and keep the game moving and under control. Of course, there's always the odd guy or two that never seems to get the message or doesn't care, and then things naturally escalate to a boiling point. I'm not so sure about players working it out themselves, sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. We all know it depends on how much ofan idiot the parties involved are. That being said, I do appreciate a ref that recognizes when there's dirty behavior going on that will become problematic if it isn't resolved early on.

[pbhockey4 0]

I am a ref, I have been refereeing for the last 11 years. I always ref a good game and call everything I see. If I made a mistake I would tell the tell the team I am calling a penalty against that I am sorry for making a bad call. I dont want to ever be labeled as a bad ref. I played in this summer beer league with a lot of my friends I hated this one ref who refereed the whole league. He missed a shit load of calls when he could obivously see them. When my team was in a semi final game with one of our rivals a player from the other team checked a player from behind into a corner of the boards (no penalty). This also was a textbook example of a checking from behind. Luckily my teammate was ok but later in the game the player who checked my teammate into the boards scored the game winning goal....

Its even worse it was a 2 man system and both refs didnt care much about the game. I try to tell the owner of the league but he is just too dumb....

I could of refereed a better game from the stands.

[IniNew 53]

Typical commentary.

[chippa13 1844]

If I made a mistake I would tell the tell the team I am calling a penalty against that I am sorry for making a bad call.

Never tell a team that you made a bad call. If they question a call, simply tell what you saw and why you made the call. If you missed something because you were blocked out or your focus was elsewhere, explain that quickly and move on if questioned. If you're hustling and making sure that you are in position then "bad calls" and missing things should be at a minimum and teams will accept that.