A lot of people will watch an ice hockey game and see someone get tripped and wonder why it's not a penalty for tripping.
Hockey officiating is based a lot on judgement and there are generally four criteria that race through an official's mind before calling a penalty:
1) Was a scoring opportunity lost or gained?
2) Was there a change of possession?
3) Was it obvious?
4) Is there injury potential?
The No. 1 criteria, however, is that the offending team cannot gain an advantage by making a play that breaks the rules.
The NHL is letting this slip and needs to make some changes, one minor and one major.
A pet peeve of mine is watching my team win a faceoff only to see the linesman blow the play dead because the other team cheated on their positioning. Then they re-do the faceoff and the other team wins it.
If a team cheats and still losses the draw, just let the game go on. In the case above, the cheating team is the team getting the benefit and this needs to change.
As a more major concern, I believe the NHL should institute a new criteria for pun ...
Read Full Article at Bleacher Report - NHL
Article written by Brian Winett
NHL Officiating: Let the Punishment Fit the Crime
March 16th, 2010 by Brian Winett Leave a reply »
Advertisement