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When the late Ted Kennedy gave the eulogy at brother Bobby's funeral, he memorably recited one of his brother's favorite sayings: "Some men see things as they are and say why. I dream things that never were and say why not."

I found that to be inspirational. In fact, I used it as my yearbook quote when I graduated Groton School. As it pertains to hockey, I am all for innovations and technologies that make the game better. From an officiating standpoint, I'm in favor of exploring any idea for increasing the chance of getting calls right.

In and of itself, I do not have any ideological object to the use of replay. I also do not have a fundamental opposition to the idea of a coach's challenge. Both can be helpful tools. I just don't think the NHL thoroughly considered all of possible ramifications, which could have unintended consequences.

Why have a coach's challenge? To increase the chance of a correct call. Ah, but did the NHL ever ask the question "Why not?" and consider all the potential consequences of the system as it is structured.

First of all, hockey is not football. Hockey timeouts and football timeouts simply do not equate. It does not make sense to essentially force a coach to hang on to his team's lone timeout on the chance he needs to challenge an on-ice goal ruling related either to goaltender's interference (a very common controversy) or an offside play that is initially ruled onside and continues onward to become a goal (not rare but not common either).

There is often a legitimate need to call timeout earlier in the game. Perhaps his team got caught on a long shift that ended in an icing. Maybe it got off to a bad start in the game and the coach needs to get the troops refocused. That tool should be a coach's disposal without having to risk the unpredictable possibility of the ruling on a would-be goal play later on not being able to be challenged if he feels the wrong call was made.

Here's a much more equitable and sensible idea that still contains an element of risk for challenging a call: make challenging a goal ruling the same as challenging a potentially illegal stick. If replay bears out the challenge, change to call to the correct one. If a replay delay upholds the original call, then it's a delay of game bench minor.

A bigger issue: By implementing a full-fledged coach's challenge, the NHL opened a can of worms. First, of all, from a practical standpoint, there is a significant problem with the vagueness of how the goaltender interference rules are written into the NHL Rule Book. I hate to sound like a broken record here but inconsistent rules can only produce inconsistent enforcement.

When should a goaltender interference penalty be called? When should a would-be goal be disallowed? How does one define "incidental contact" between an attacking player and a goaltender? Basically, this is the hockey equivalent of determining whether the soup is too salty or just right. In other words, it's a personal judgment call for whomever makes the final decision.

There are literally dozens of potentially troublesome scenarios that can arise around physical contact with a goaltender. As presently written, the NHL Rule Book does a poor job at presenting guidance to make the correct judgments on goaltender interference (Rule 69). In other words, the coach's challenge only underscores -- not solves -- a bigger problem.

In like manner, I don't like the way the NHL structured its current system where the on-ice officials themselves cannot take a look and have no input in working with an unseen and unnamed crew in Toronto (none of whom are former officials) who makes the final decision. It's not that they are off-site that bothers me. It's that the people on the ice get cut out of the decision when they could have valuable info to impart from being in the middle of the play as opposed to hundreds of miles away watching various angles from television monitors.

I can cite multiple examples from my own officiating career -- in the period where there were in-house replay officials who communicated directly with the on-ice officials -- where the replay officials thought they saw something that I knew 100 percent for certain to be otherwise having been right on top of the play.

One night at Madison Square Garden, officiating supervisor Matt Pavelich and the Replay Judge phoned down to me after a whistle to tell me I had missed a goal. The puck that had just been shot at the Ranger goal and then bounced crazily out toward center ice, in fact, had hit the twine.

"It's a goal," they said.

I told them that I couldn't agree but it was their call to make. I asked them, prior to actually stamping the shot a goal, to rewind the tape again, to look and see exactly where I was standing.

They did and said," You are right next to the post with your hand on the crossbar."

I then asked them why they thought it was a goal. They responded by saying that the puck was shot with speed and it must have hit underneath the cross bar because it came out dead and took a funny bounce as a puck would, had it hit the twine.

"Did you clearly see the puck go in the net?" I asked.

"No, your arm and hand were in the way."

I did not argue that point but then added, " All that's true, but it didn't hit the net or the pipe."

"How do you know? It must have," they surmised.

"Well, I know because the puck hit my hand and broke my right index finger. It's no goal, trust me!"

The no-goal call on the ice stood. My right index finger is crooked. Come play a round of golf with me and I'll show you.

On one snowy night in Hartford, I worked a game between the North Stars and Hartford Whalers. The replay official actually arrived at the arena a little late -- the game had just started -- and he was in the process of getting everything set up upstairs. After a scramble around the net in which the puck slid near the goal line but clearly never came even close to crossing it, I got a call down at the scorer's table from the replay official. He told me he thought it was a goal for Hartford.

"No way," I said. "It was nowhere near being a goal."

"It can't hurt to look at it," the replay official said.

Then he told me to wait a minute, explaining he'd been caught up in bad weather-related traffic and had just gotten to his post upstairs.

"Don't they have the Weather Channel at your house?" I said. "Everyone else got here on time."

I told him to hurry up and stalled as long as I could. Finally, I had enough and started play. Just as the puck dropped, the horn went off. I blew play dead immediately and, aggravated, went back to the scorer's table.

Whalers coach Rick Ley was incensed, and frankly I could not blame him.

"You can't review it now, you already dropped the puck!" he hollered.

"False draw," I said, knowing full well there had not been a goal scored. I also knew I'd take heat no matter what I did in that situation. But all that really mattered was the right call.

Sure enough, the replay official said, "Stewy, I'm sorry. I don't know what I thought I saw originally but you were right. It wasn't even close to being a goal."


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Paul Stewart holds the distinction of being the first U.S.-born citizen to make it to the NHL as both a player and referee. On March 15, 2003, he became the first American-born referee to officiate in 1,000 NHL games.

The longtime referee heads Officiating by Stewart, a consulting, training and evaluation service for officials. Stewart also maintains a busy schedule as a public speaker, fund raiser and master-of-ceremonies for a host of private, corporate and public events. As a non-hockey venture, he is the owner of Lest We Forget.