Articles in Officiating

from Dave Stubbs of the NHL's website,

Wally Harris, a former NHL referee who in retirement became the League’s first Director of Officials and subsequently an influential, highly respected supervisor of game crews, died Thursday in a Montreal-area hospital following a short illness.

He was 88.

Harris refereed 953 regular-season games and another 85 in the Stanley Cup Playoffs between 1966-83, working Stanley Cup Final series in 1973, 1975, 1976, 1980, 1982 and 1983. He also officiated in two NHL All-Star Games -- the League’s 28th in 1975 at the Montreal Forum, and the 34th in 1982 at the Capital Center in Landover, Maryland.

The native of Montreal-suburban Lachine took ill during a recent trip to Florida. He returned home and was hospitalized in late March, remaining in the facility’s care until his passing.

“With a personality that would light up the room, Wally Harris was respected and revered by all officials he managed,” said Stephen Walkom, NHL Senior Vice-President and Director of Officiating. “There was an assuredness and confidence that he instilled in his people and an absolute love for the game of hockey.

“Wally understood the importance of officials in hockey and worked non-stop to pass along his great wisdom to the next generations. When he needed to be serious and get his point across, he did this exceptionally well, with both team executives and the rank and file on the ice.”

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from Mark Spector of Sportsnet,

You may have noticed on an NHL game sheet or roster report this season: The league doesn’t use the term “linesmen” anymore.

Beginning with the 2023-24 season, they are “linespersons.”

Which begs the obvious question: Is the NHL close to following in the footsteps of the NBA and the NFL in employing female officials?

Well, meet Kirsten (pronounced: KEER-sten) Welsh, the AHL’s only female lines… Person.

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from Mark Spector of Sportsnet.

The checking-from-behind penalty was given major and game misconduct status for the 1991-92 season.

But why is it that today, more than three decades later, we still have so much checking from behind?

“So, body checking,” began cerebral Tampa head coach Jon Cooper. “The back is part of the body. So, when you turn at any moment, as fast as this game is, your back can be exposed.

“I don't know a player in the league — well, maybe a couple — that would go around thinking they're going to hit a guy in the back. There's way too much respect among the players. Because it's played so fast, some of those checks are going to happen. But I just don't feel that guys go in and hit a guy deliberately in the back.

“I just I have not seen it, whether it's my team or other teams.”

After a skein of such hits — from Evander Kane on Jonas Brodin, to Nick Cousins on Erik Gudbranson, to Eric Robinson on Justin Barron — we spent time talking to a few NHL players off the record. Then, we put our questions to Cooper, one of hockey’s smartest coaches, and one of its most thoughtful defencemen, Mattias Ekholm.

Our initial takeaway?

All of us folks on the outside of the game are more worried about this so-called “problem” then are the people who actually play and coach the sport.

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from Joshua Clipperton of the CP,

Players and coaches have to face the media on a daily basis. Why not referees and linesmen?

"It'd be a great idea," Draisaitl said. "There's no ref out there that's trying to purposely make the wrong decisions."...

"Your perspective's maybe not always the same as the (referee) across the ice from you," Kadri continued. "If you've got the ability to go look at a replay and then answer some questions on what you're thinking after, I think that's a good idea. You get some clarity instead of having to go through six, seven other people or a whole committee or a union.

"Just go get it right from the horse's mouth."

more players respond...

from Scouting The Refs,

The updated NHL Rule Book is hot off the presses with some minor tweaks for the 2023-24 season. Here’s the rundown on the changes:

Terminology

The league has made two changes to word choices throughout the rulebook:

• “Linesman” has been changed to “Linesperson“
• “Fouls” are now termed as “Infractions“

Rule Updates

Helmets Required In Warmups (Rule 9.6)

The NHL added a requirement during last season to mandate helmets in warm-ups. That change – which applies to anyone joining the league in 2019 or later – is now officially part of the rulebook:

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from Sean McIndoe of The Athletic,

There are lots of ways we could improve the NHL rulebook, and you can probably come up with a few suggestions of your own. But here’s one that’s relatively simple: Let’s go through and remove most of those references to injury.

The word appears 75 times in the most recent edition of the rulebook. We don’t need to get rid of all of them, as some are about stopping play when somebody is seriously hurt, or allowing special equipment to protect a player with an existing injury or what to do when a player is physically unable to serve a penalty or take a penalty shot. Those are all fine and necessary, but they’re the exceptions. Most of the references fall into the same category: determining what kind of penalty should be called.

Is the player hurt? The penalty gets more severe. Is he OK? Then a two-minute minor is probably enough.

Most fans are familiar with the distinction when it comes to high-sticking — two minutes in most cases, but it becomes four if there’s an injury (which usually but not always means blood, even though that wasn’t in the rulebook until a few years ago). The injury distinction shows up for other penalties, too. Charging, slashing, elbowing, spearing, interfering and even hooking have differing levels of penalty based on whether there’s an injury.

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from Michael Russo of The Athletic,

For as long as Dan O’Rourke can remember, his dad has been visually impaired.

But there’s not one time that he recalls him saying, “No, I can’t do that because I can’t see.”

That meant coaching Dan, now one of the NHL’s most experienced referees, and his brother, Steve, an associate coach for the Oshawa Generals, in hockey. That meant playing catch in the backyard, with his sons hoping to hell that they didn’t nail Dad right between the eyes. And yes, that even meant driving a wee bit longer in life than he probably should have in their tiny, one-stoplight town in British Columbia....

Seeing all that his father, now 75, has overcome served as an inspiration for O’Rourke, and this summer, he’s taking that inspiration and channeling it into a cause.

O’Rourke is teaming up with the National Federation of the Blind in setting off on a 42-day bike ride, planning to cover more than 2,700 miles along iconic Route 66 — starting in Santa Monica, Calif., on July 27, and ending in Chicago on Sept. 6, not long before O’Rourke and his officiating brethren head off to training camp.

The money Dan raises through contributions in the name of his “Ride for Literacy” will go directly to help blind children, with an NFB goal of $250,000 to fund everything from Brail literacy and technology learning to really anything that helps them fulfill their lifelong dreams.

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from Damien Cox at the Toronto Star,

Since the dawn of time — which for NHL fans, was 1917 — it has been an annual rite of spring to complain about officiating.

We get that. The team that loses complains loudest. Few NHL champions have spent much time during their victory parades registering their unhappiness with how their games were officiated.

Some want more calls. Some want fewer calls. Some say let them play. Some say letting them play simply allows the less talented players to slow down the stars.

The different points of view, and the fact it’s usually the losers doing the complaining, has allowed hockey administrators to get away with a lot of lazy explanations over the years. Pretty much since the day Gary Bettman assumed office, his stock answer has been to say NHL officials “are the best in the world” and to annually express satisfaction with the fine work they do.

Which is a lot of ingenuous fiction. Indeed, under Bettman, there have been many changes to NHL officiating in recent years. Many officials have retired early or been fired. They had the names taken off their striped jerseys to make each individual more anonymous. A second referee was added in 1998, which was a tacit acknowledgement that an awful lot of calls were being missed.

The rules have frequently changed. There have been “crackdowns.” Sometimes that extra enforcement has lasted, sometimes it hasn’t.

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from Adam Proteau of The Hockey News,

The answer, of course, is that there is no way to guarantee officials are perfect, and there’s not going to be a way, either now or down the road, to make them perfect. There will always be a degree of subjectivity in the interpretation of the rules, and that is not going to change.

This isn’t to say we can’t do better on the officiating front. This writer has advocated numerous times for the addition of a third referee in the NHL, one who would occupy an “eye-in-the-sky” position off the ice and could buzz in with a stoppage of play when they see some infraction the on-ice officials have missed.

Using a third referee would be a notable change, but people said there would be terrible difficulties when the NHL went from a single referee for games to two referees for games, beginning in the 1998-99 season. For the six decades years prior to that, only one referee was the norm and was what everyone was accustomed to. But fans, players, coaches and officials all adjusted, and we’d argue the game is better officiated now because of that change.

The same could and would happen with three referees. But even then, mistakes would be made, calls would be missed, and people in all cities would begrudge officials for “bias” against them. To the contrary – fans have to recognize the increased speed of the game makes it impossible for hockey referees to get everything right. And if there was a legitimate case to be made for referees having a bias against a player or team, the league would move very quickly to address the problem. But most officials are admirably professional in all their tasks.

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