In my first blog for HockeyBuzz, I briefly touched upon the importance of accountability and acceptability for officials as well as players. Several readers asked how I would define these traits in real-life hockey terms.
Let me start by saying that the two ideals are inseparable to a degree.
Accountability is best exemplified by U.S. President Harry Truman's famous declaration that "the buck stops here." The saying is a twist on the slang expression "passing the buck"; in other words, shirking responsibility and passing it on to someone else, especially if there's a screw-up and someone is to be blamed for the mistake.
As a referee, I always believed that the buck stopped with me to exercise proper judgment about whether to make a call or to let something slide. There are three components to making a call: 1) the action of a player, 2) the rulebook definition of that action's legality, 3) the effect of that player's action on an opposing player and/or the flow of the game.
Some officials weigh the third factor more heavily than others. I was always one to use my feel for the game and the flow of play as a guiding factor in making a judgment call. In doing that, I knew full well that the buck would stop with me. I had to be accountable and my attitude was bring it on -- they gave me a sweater and a whistle and I knew the rulebook, so let me judge.
Accountability as a hockey official means that you are answerable to your teammates (meaning your fellow officials). It means that -- within reason -- you are willing to explain a call to the team captains and benches and face the music if you know you messed up. It means knowing when the time for talk is over. It also means that you are willing to accept
constructive coaching and criticism from your supervisors, and not only take it to heart but also put their advice into practice as best as possible.
The best possible thing that an official -- or player or coach -- can gain is acceptability. That means you can work well with the game and enjoy the respect and tolerance to dust yourself off when you make a mistake and keep moving forward.
So how does one gain acceptability in hockey? Well, being accountable is one huge piece of the puzzle but it's not the only part.
A second component is there must also be a strong work ethic. Specifically, that means hustling on the ice at all times. Skate hard and be in the right position. Keep yourself in the best possible physical condition. Show a commitment to self-improvement, such as continually working to refine your skating.
A third component is hockey sense. Know where the puck is going and how to anticipate where the flow of play is taking the game. As an official, know the rulebook thoroughly.
A fourth component: display the proper attitude. No game is "beneath" you. To you, whatever game you are participating in right now is the most important one in the world. Understand that your actions will affect your teammates and, possibly, the outcome of a crucial play.
In my post-active career supervisory capacity, I recently had the unfortunate duty of firing two referees. They simultaneously demonstrated poor knowledge of the rulebook and bad attitudes. As such, they lacked the acceptability that is crucial for officials and had no genuine desire to learn how to gain it.
I was by no means infallible as a referee, nor was I infallible as an enforcer during my playing days. I certainly made my fair share of mistakes. But what I did have on the ice was a pretty high acceptability factor with most players and some coaches.
To a certain extent, I think there is a certain amount of nationalism that plays into acceptability. That exists even today with the still rather small minority of U.S.-born referees that make it to the NHL and the lack of acceptability given to the notion of incorporating top European referees. It also happens overseas, where there is often a higher acceptability quotient afforded to domestics than to the imports.
By the way, there is a flip side of acceptability when it comes to players gaining acceptability among referees. People have asked me both here on the HockeyBuzz message board and face-to-face whether referees make "reputation calls" against players.
The answer is yes. There are players that referees feel like they can't trust and those players sometimes get bad calls made against them as a result. On the flip side, there are players, including ones who play a physical brand of hockey, who enjoy strong acceptability among officials and, consequently, may get a few more breaks on marginal calls.
I'm not saying that it's right. I'm not saying that I was completely immune. What I am saying is that in a game played and officiated by human beings, it is naive to think that reputations are totally removed from the equation. This goes on in every league.
In my estimation, however, reputation penalties are most commonly called by referees who are afraid of the game and constantly fearful of their supervisors. They referee by fear. These officials tend to be afraid of physical play; scared that even a clean body check is going to escalate the intensity and make it tougher night for them. They are quick to dispatch such players. As leagues have moved to take more and more judgment away from their officials, there has been a corresponding rise in refereeing by fear.
Quick anecdote: I recently spoke with a highly penalized player in KHL after attending the game to assess the officiating. He had been whistled for a couple penalties in a game and I asked him what he thought of the calls.
"One of them was a terrible call," he said. "I never touched the guy."
"Do you want to see what I wrote in my notes?" I asked.
"Yes, please," he said.
So I showed him my two-word note: "Reputation call".
Now, contrary to popular belief, a player need not kiss up to a referee to achieve acceptability. What he DOES need to do is learn to heed warnings. He needs to establish a degree of a trust factor in the relationship. For instance, if I think this guy might spear someone as soon as my back is turned, you'd better believe I'm going to keep a closer watch on him throughout the game.
Players can change their reputations over time. For instance, for a long time in my refereeing career, I felt like I couldn't trust Dino Ciccarelli as far as could toss an anvil. As a small player who made his living around the net, he was on the receiving end of a lot of abuse so he used his stick as a weapon of intimidation and as an equalizer. Sometimes he was blatant about it, other times he tried to be sneaky behind the play. He was also no stranger to diving to trying to buy calls.
Over time, I began to gain respect for Dino. I still had to keep an eye on him but he scaled back on some of the nonsense.
Another example: Dave Brown was a player I never really had much of a problem with. He was a tough guy who generally settled scores under "the Code". But he had a pair of nasty stick incidents in the mid-1980s with the Rangers' Tomas Sandstrom, stemming originally from an incident where Sandstrom high sticked Mark Howe and Brown retaliated with a cross-check to Sandstrom's head. He got a five-game suspension from it.
In the latter incident, which happened on Oct. 26, 1987, I was in attendance at the game in Madison Square Garden. Once again, Sandstrom mixed it up with the Philadelphia players.
Early in the third period, with the score tied 1-1, Brown fought Larry Melnyk without a clear winner. Shortly after he left the box, there was a stoppage of play. A moment after the whistle sounded, Brown cross-checked Sandstrom in the head, blindsiding him. Brown received a match penalty from Denis Morel for intent to injure. It was absolutely the right call. As I watched it happen, from a vantage point near the Zamboni door, I immediately thought, "What a dumb thing for Brown to do. He deserves to sit a LONG time for that one."
The next night, I refereed a game at the Philadelphia Spectrum between the Flyers and Devils. I was there when Brown's hearing was held in New York earlier in the day. He got suspended for 15 games; 13 consecutive plus each of the next two games against the Rangers.
Due to an appeal by the Flyers, the suspension did not kick in for a few more games. Dave did not have anything of note happen in the Devils game I worked, apart from a routine holding penalty.
At any rate, as I said, I never really felt like Brown was a player I flat out could not trust on the ice. But with some fellow officials, the second Sandstrom incident absolutely followed him around for awhile. Brown had quite a few reputation calls made against him after the 15-game suspension. However, Brownie managed to overcome that during his career and eventually gained a high degree of acceptability among the officials.
For example, in 1991-92, Brown had 14 fighting majors yet he only had 81 penalty minutes for a season where he dressed in 70 games. In other words, he wasn't hit with many extra penalties that left his team shorthanded. When he went off, he took someone else off with him for five, and that was that.
I would gladly take a player like Brown over someone like Matt Cooke. Brown had an issue with one particular opponent and handled it the wrong way. In Cooke's case, I am not among those who believe he has changed his ways. He's still a ticking time bomb who has not had his final incident yet of injuring an opposing player. How do I know? I know because he's done it too many times in his career to have achieved acceptability. I don't buy what he's selling.
If you want to achieve longevity in the hockey business, gaining acceptability is a must. It's not given automatically. It has to be earned.
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Recent Blogs by Paul Stewart
Uniformity: The Tuck Rule and Related Matters
A Challenge to the Hockey Media
Leagues Need More International Refs
Kadri and Refereeing by Result
Skate, He Said: Why Today's NHL Refs Get Bad Coaching
Bad Dreams Are Made of This: Some of Them Want to Abuse You
Pat Burns, Anti-Homerism, and the Hall of Fame
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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 only American-born referee to officiate in 1,000 NHL games.
Today, Stewart is a judicial and league discipline consultant for the Kontinental Hockey League (KHL) and serves as director of hockey officiating for the Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC).
The longtime referee heads Officiating by Stewart, a consulting, training and evaluation service for officials, while also maintaining 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.
Stewart is currently working with a co-author on an autobiography. 
Blogger •Former NHL Referee • 
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