During any point of time during your work week, some stakeholder in your sport will hate your guts. You make a bad call, and you have tens of thousands of people booing you and throwing insults your way that have got to hurt. You have massive, conditioned and irate professional athletes in your face telling you that you’re a moron (probably worse, but I’ll keep it PG). You have coaches or GM’s going on air after the game criticizing a split-second decision you made in a sport that moves way faster than it looks. And then you have the media, who get the luxury of reviewing your split-second decision in slow motion, criticizing it all the way through.
John Tortorella voicing his displeasure with the calls at the Winter Classic.
- Stammer giving it to the ref over a call.
Just look at John Tortorella, who went out in a press conference after the NHL’s Winter Classic and suggested that the referees and NBC conspired to send the game to overtime. He did so in an eloquent way, masking it with backhanded compliments like “these refs are both great guys and I like them both,” but the message was clear. I like John Tortorella. I think he is a great coach and I loved his presence in HBO’s 24/7. And I give him credit for a sincere apology in the wake of his tirade. But that made him look stupid and whiny like a child, and he probably should have been suspended for questioning the integrity of the game. The worst part is his team won the game, so it didn’t even matter in the end. This is hardly the first time I have seen NHL coaches do this. Often they will speak in the intermission and complain about some call or missed call, or some series of hooks and slashes that no one remembers. But why? Wouldn’t it be more sensible just to talk to the ref personally and explain your case than to humiliate him on National TV?
Referees definitely eat the most garbage of any job in NHL hockey. But it doesn’t end there. If you’re a ref in a recreational or minor league you take the same punishment, except you barely get paid to do it. I have read numerous stories of minor hockey refs getting physically attacked by parents during games as low as atom hockey. Yes, atom hockey, where the kids barely even understand the rules of the game. It seems ridiculous they can get anyone to take these jobs anymore.
But to give one concrete example about the stupidity of being a referee, I can’t imagine why anyone in their right mind would ref a men’s league hockey game for a couple of extra bucks. It can’t be for the skill level and competitiveness. Most of the leagues have few skilled players and the lack of body contact and altering of rules changes the game so that it more resembles pick-up pond hockey.
However, in some leagues, like the one I play in, you might have a team with some good players on it. But that only makes them more angry and uncompromising to bad calls. Players who come from a competitive background like Junior or College hockey probably know the game better than the refs in their game. At very least, they certainly have the self-entitled ego that would suggest they know it better. So when a bad call is made, they fly off the handle. Just last night three guys on my team got tossed for ‘Gross Misconduct – Abuse of Official’ penalties. I can hardly remember the call that set it all off looking back. All I remember is these guys screaming obscenities at the refs and making them more likely to call penalties against us (we ended up getting an additional two minors after this initial penalty).
And what must the refs be thinking? They probably have day jobs and families to go home to. I’m sure getting berated by a bunch of guys all night is the perfect cap to their Wednesday night. And how do they handle the situation when things get out of hand? I have watched first hand men’s league fights, or spears, or cross-checks, slew-foots, the list goes on and on. Should the refs step in during these scrums and risk getting a shiner before going into work the next day? Or should they let these guys pulverize each other in a way that would get them an assault charge if the same situation happened on the street. The problem is when you get these competitive players coming into a non-contact league they end up doing something dumb when they get mad. What is a ref supposed to do when there is really no accountability for this stuff? At least in the NHL or any kind of organized hockey, if you hit a referee you’re going to receive some kind of major punishment. Well not in men’s league. Last night I watched one of my teammates get tossed out who is a fighter in the NLL. He also stands about 6-foot-8 on skates. If I were the ref he was harassing on his way off the ice, I would have bolted for the locker room and called the game.
The fact that this discussion is even going on is ludicrous. The attitude that players, fans, coaches, GM’s and media have towards referees trickles down in every level of hockey. The fact that minor league parents think it is in any way acceptable to hassle, let alone attack a referee in their child’s game shows how serious people take hockey at such an inconsequential level – but they obviously picked up this competitive spirit from somewhere – probably the NHL. The trickle down of this negative attitude towards refs could even start negatively affecting the game. While referees are trained thoroughly and held to a high standard, they are still human at the end of the day. I know if some hero is yelling at me because his 7-year-old got tripped up by another child, I’m not going to go out of my way to rectify that missed call. In fact, I might even take my autonomous power to the bank and call a penalty on his team. What can he possibly do to me (aside from accost me in the parking lot after the game)?
We might even start seeing this in the NHL – though a lot less likely. But for arguments sake, imagine I ref 20 Dallas Stars game in one season, and Steve Ott is constantly hounding me and calling the game in my ear. That kind of constant annoyance can only be a detriment to his team. Even if I am trying to be objective, I will already have it in my head that I hate that guy and would be more likely to call him for a penalty, or give him a misconduct for something small based on the bottle-up and boil-over theory. In addition to my personal problems with him, I wouldn’t hesitate to tell my reffing colleagues about how this guy is a pain, potentially influencing their in-game decisions. This kind of referee bias will trickle down all levels. While NHL refs might be able to remain objective because it is their profession, I can’t see why the guy reffing my men’s league game for 25-bucks an hour will give us the same courtesy
The better decision will always be to shut up about it and play the game. Refs meet in between periods and after games to discuss what went on. They will know when they messed up and will be more likely to rectify it or make the right call in the future if they haven’t been heckled about it. If it is so egregious a mistake that it can’t be forgotten, then let the captain and coaches talk to refs in a civilized manner. They are the ones that are supposed to be doing this anyway. That way, players and coaches can get their point across without infuriating the people policing the game. The best way to get over a bad call is to respond on the ice. Burn the penalty or score a goal without complaining. Let the play do the talking. By butchering the referees every time you don’t agree with a call, it hurts the game and sets a precedent for poor refereeing and unacceptable behaviour across all levels of hockey.
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