Paul Stewart: Straight Talk on the Officiating Crisis

I think the issues with no officials are hard to address. A few things:

- No one wants to hear how bad they are. Never playing above semi-pro, the only words directed towards an official I ever heard were neagtive on bad/blown calls, never positive for good ones. That is not a desirable position.

- You have to work your way up. Starting locally, then working your way up the ladder (high school, NCAA, juniors/USHL, ECHL, AHL, NHL). Most players are willing to go through this progression because it's their childhood dream to play hockey; I doubt many kids' childhood dream is to be an official.

- At the mid levels, you will have to do a good amount of travel without getting the bigger pay days where this can be a fill-time profession. Again, this would sit better with most people as players as opposed to officials. Also, this may put strain on any person with a family.

These are some of the issues to address off the top of my head and, if I am incorrect on any of them, then I apologize. And again, I don't have an answer on how to fix them, simply that I understand why there's not a lot of people who are gung-ho to get started.

jmatchett383,

Great post sir, and Paul's blog is exactly right on this issue. What both of you said here is true in many other sports across the US, and maybe in Canada too.

It is a consequence of the failure of our society too. Nobody wants booed, nobody is willing to do something for somebody else, and very few people care enough about sports, kids, and the game to take time and get into officiating. And many of the few who try get discouraged quickly and quit.

As an official in other sports for many years I'm used to being booed or being yelled at by fans, it comes with the territory. But the abuse is getting worse in many places, and more and more people think officials are targets for anger because they do not understand the rules, the game, or the fact that winning is not the most important thing in life. Worst of all more and more people officials are out there only to cheat them or their kids.

If officials were really out to cheat others they would become politicians and bureaucrats, that job pays a lot better than what officials get paid.

jmatchett383,

Great post sir, and Paul's blog is exactly right on this issue. What both of you said here is true in many other sports across the US, and maybe in Canada too.

It is a consequence of the failure of our society too. Nobody wants booed, nobody is willing to do something for somebody else, and very few people care enough about sports, kids, and the game to take time and get into officiating. And many of the few who try get discouraged quickly and quit.

As an official in other sports for many years I'm used to being booed or being yelled at by fans, it comes with the territory. But the abuse is getting worse in many places, and more and more people think officials are targets for anger because they do not understand the rules, the game, or the fact that winning is not the most important thing in life. Worst of all more and more people officials are out there only to cheat them or their kids.

If officials were really out to cheat others they would become politicians and bureaucrats, that job pays a lot better than what officials get paid.
- jkumpire

FWIW, I'm not a good enough skater, especially right now with how out of shape I am, to referee anything more than maybe 13-14 year olds. If I didn't have 2 young kids, it's something that I would actually consider doing in all honesty. However, with a full-time job M-F, I'm not willing to sacrifice my week nights and weekends with my kids to make a few extra bucks on the side.

My biggest obstacle was the assignors/politics. Every schedule that was sent to me was 1/3-1/2 filled in before I ever saw it.

Unfortunately it seems like rather than trying to make things better and easier to be a ref the leagues gradually make things more difficult over time.

One example that might make things more difficult (although not being one I cannot say for sure) is the widespread legalization and acceptance of sports gambling nowadays. It seems like 1/3 of all the commercials during hockey games are for companies running this stuff. I know it has always gone on but being underground in the past it was not as easy for people to do it.

It is one thing to be a fan and see your favorite team lose an important playoff game on a bad call (refs are human and like all other humans myself included, make mistakes). It is another when some idiotic deranged fan drops $10k on that same game and loses it on that call and then has to take out another mortgage or sell his car to cover his debt. If such a fan is deranged enough he could cross the line and physically attack the ref, should he find a way to do so. In any case I would not want to be that ref.

This is my first season having called it quits after 24 years. Here's where I view the issues, at least around here:

1) Essentially zero support from the higher-ups in terms of abuse. Yes, there's a reporting system where you can report abuse from fans/coaches/etc, but nothing is ever done about it. Why would a kid go out there and try to referee a game for $20 when they know they're going to be screamed at by insane parents who think their baby is a shoe-in for the NHL, and that hooking penalty is the sole thing robbing of them of their millionaire dream?

2) Far too much politics. Unless you're willing to Play The Game, you will never advance, full stop. (Up until this season,) the person in sole control of if you were able to get into AAA hockey here never refereed beyond AAA himself and made absolutely no secret that if you piss him off, you will never see good hockey. He acted like a god over the system, everybody knew it, and nobody who could stop it cared, because he was a part of the Old Boys Club. Despite that the association rules clearly state that you need multiple negative supervisions in a season to be pulled from a league, he unilaterally pulled me out of my highest referee league and didn't even bother to tell me.

3) The feeling of no path forward. This recentish trend of the pro leagues completely ignoring career officials in favor of high level players is utterly discouraging, because it doesn't seem to matter how good you are at actually officiating, just how good of a player you were. Been refereeing elite hockey for a decade? Too bad, guess you should have played in the AHL instead.

4) Compared to other sports, garbage pay. In many cases for minor hockey, you could go referee basketball instead and make twice as much money, or volleyball for around the same money, while also taking far less abuse. The cost-benefit ratio of refereeing hockey is horrible.

For two decades, hockey was my life. I was on the ice 4-5 times a week. But now? I don't miss it at all. I miss skating dearly, but there's basically nothing I miss about refereeing, and I fill the hockey itch in my body by scorekeeping or timekeeping. Any joy I found in it was slowly squeezed out of me by abusive parents who never faced repercussions, idiot coaches that never had to learn the rules, and executives who treated the rankings system as their own personal plaything.

@ freedomgundam:
Your post should be required reading by all professional leagues - especially the NHL - prior to developing an action plan for amateur leagues that would be endorsed by the NHL.
But like so many others today they probably could never understand why that would be the smartest thing they could ever do in their own self-interest. Better to spend the time and energy on an "underserved" (read unexploited) market like China than to make sure the existing one survives. Sad.