Hockey- the Referees

Savannah, this past weekend at a tournament.

Now, I love hockey (most of the time) .  The coolness of the arena, the sounds of the skates on the ice and the puck hitting the boards.    But the one thing I can't stand is stupid Refs.

I really try to give the refs a break - for the most part.  I know they have very hard jobs to do and more people are critical of them than anyone else in the game.   But sometimes there are obvious issues.    Like being biased toward a team by assigning more penalties to the other team.   I have seen cases of this where it is so obviously blatant that parents from the other team have apologized.

The one BIG issue I have with refs around here is that they tend to assign 14 year old, brand new referees to games.   Now this isn't too bad  IF there is an adult ref paired with them.   I realize the need to train new referees and that during tournament weekends it is hard to find ones that can work.   But the following should Never happen.

About 6 weeks ago, Madison and Paige had a game up in Thief River Falls.  They both play on the girls 12 and under team.   Maddie is 12 and Paige 11.    Unfortunately for them, the refs assigned to their game were BOTH young.  It was a disaster.   They had no clue of the rules of the game.   They did not know where to bring the puck back to after a whistle blow.  They made idiotic calls and worst of all they disallowed a goal made by our team because it was a "slap shot" goal.  The refs were under the impression that slap shots are illegal in 12U.   They are not.  They are illegal in 10U, but are perfectly allowable in 12U.  During the break the coach brought this to their attention and showed them in the rule book where it did specify this.   Unfortunately for us, they still refused to give us the point stating that the "point needs to be awarded at the time of the goal".

Now why get so worked up about this you say?  It's just a game and a learning event for the kids".   Yes it is.  But  I try to teach my kids that you should always do your best at any job and to leave things you don't know much about to the professionals.   I believe in learning, but feel that a younger referee should be paired with an adult for at least a certain period of time.

The truth is...I don't know why this works me up so bad.  It shouldn't.   I should be able to let things slip off my shoulders more easily, but I can't.

Life isn't fair.  No it's not.  But does this give people the excuse to not even try?  Maybe.