How to Referee Hockey: It Is Not Just About the Rule Book

By Mitchell Jeffrey

Ask hockey fans the primary job of a hockey Official and the answer will probably be, "Call penalties, offsides, and icings." However, the skills required to successfully officiate hockey go deeper and are more detailed than just making the call.

In How to Referee Hockey: it is not just about the Rule Book, you will learn how to use positioning to stay out of the way and to see the play, procedures to work with your colleagues and manage stoppages, and game management to reduce the risk of incidents and respond when they do occur.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tellwell Talent
• Release date: Jun 16, 2021
• ISBN: 9780228847250

Mitchell Jeffrey

Mitchell Jeffrey lives in Winnipeg, Manitoba. He earned a Bachelor's Degree with Honours in Psychology from the University of Winnipeg in 2008 and a Master's Degree in Occupational Therapy from the University of Manitoba in 2013. Mitchell has officiated hockey since 1999 at the minor, AAA, high school, junior and senior levels.Mitchell has served in various roles since 2013, including Vice President of Officials for Assiniboine Park Hockey Association, St. James-Assiniboia Minor Hockey Association, and the Manitoba Women's Junior Hockey League, as well as the Principal of Hockey Winnipeg Referee Development. During this time he has contributed to the development of more than 500 Officials.

Book preview

How to

Referee Hockey

How to Referee Hockey

Copyright © 2021 by Mitchell Jeffrey

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Tellwell Talent

www.tellwell.ca

ISBN

978-0-2288-4791-5 (Hardcover)

978-0-2288-4724-3 (Paperback)

978-0-2288-4725-0 (eBook)

Contents

Introduction: The Big 4 Skills

Chapter 1.  The Development System Around You

The Bad News: Explained

The Good News: Explained

Chapter 2.  A Quick Start Guide for First-Year

Officials in Game One

Equipment

Arriving at the Game

Valuables in the Dressing Room

Using the Dressing Room with People You Barely Know

Starting a Game: Before the Centre Ice Face-Off

Dropping the Puck

Starting a Game: The Centre Ice Face-Off

What’s Next?

Positioning:

The Skill You Need to See and Stay out of the Way

A Primer for Positioning

Chapter 3.  Two-Official System Positioning During the Play

End Zone Positioning 1: The Piston System

End Zone Positioning 2: The Bump & Pivot

Blue Line Positioning in the Two-Official System

Pursuit of the Play

What’s Next?

Chapter 4.  Three-Official System Positioning

During the Play

Working the Line: The Linesperson’s Positioning at the Blue Line

Linesperson’s Pursuit of the Play 1:

Deciding to Transition to the Other End Zone

Linesperson’s Pursuit of the Play 2:

Switching Lines with Your Lining Partner

Linesperson’s Pursuit of Play 3:

Releasing the Line After an End Zone Face-Off

Linesperson’s Pursuit of Play 4: Covering for the Referee

Referee’s Pursuit of Play and Positioning 1:

Entering the End Zone

Referee’s Pursuit of Play and Positioning 2:

End Zone Positioning

Referee’s Pursuit of Play and Positioning 3:

Leaving Your End Zone Positioning

Referee’s Pursuit of Play and Positioning 4:

Puck in the Neutral Zone and Gap Control

Referee’s Pursuit of Play and Positioning 5:

Energy Conservation

What’s Next?

Procedures:

The Skills to Work with Others While Managing Stoppages

A Primer for Procedures

Chapter 5.  Two-Official System Procedures for Stopping Play

Altercations and Fight Procedures

Altercations and Fights 1: Altercations

Altercations and Fights 2: Fights

Goal Procedure 1: The Official in the End Zone

Goal Procedure 2: The Official at the Blue Line

Goalie Covers the Puck Procedure 1: The Official Stopping Play

Goalie Covers the Puck Procedure 2: The Official at the Blue Line

Icing Procedure 1: The Back Official

Icing Procedure 2: The Front Official

Injury Procedure

Offside Procedure 1: Offside on a Rush

Offside Procedure 2: Delayed Offside

Penalty Call Procedure 1: The Official Calling the Penalty

Penalty Call Procedure 2: The Official Not Calling the Penalty

Penalty Shot Procedure 1: Stopping Play

Penalty Shot Procedure 2: Carrying Out the Penalty Shot

Handshake Line and Exiting the Ice Surface

What to Do for All Other Stoppages

What’s Next?

Chapter 6.  Two-Official Procedures for Starting

Play with Face-offs

Preparing for the Next Face-Off 1: Official Supervising the Line Change

Preparing for the Next Face-Off 2: Official Dropping the Puck

Diagrams of Officials’ Positions before a Face-Off and

Movement after a Face-Off

What’s Next?

Chapter 7.  Three-Official System Procedures for Stopping Play

Altercations and Fight Procedures

Altercations and Fights 1: Altercations

Altercations and Fights 2: Fights

Goal Procedure 1: The Referee

Goal Procedure 2: The Linespeople

Goalie Covers the Puck Procedure 1: The Referee

Goalie Covers the Puck Procedure 2: The Linespeople

Icing Procedure 1: The Back Linesperson

Icing Procedure 2: The Front Linesperson

Icing Procedure 3: The Referee

Injury Procedure 1: The Referee

Injury Procedure 2: The Linespeople

Offside Procedure for Referee and Linespeople 1: Offside on a Rush

Offside Procedure for Referee and Linespeople 2: Delayed Offside

Penalty Call Procedure 1: The Referee

Penalty Call Procedure 2: The Linespeople Escorting Players

to the Penalty Box

Penalty Call Procedure 3: A Linesperson Stopping Play for

Too Many Players on the Ice

Penalty Call Procedure 4: A Linesperson Reporting a Penalty

at the Next Stoppage

Penalty Shot 1: The Referee

Penalty Shot 2: The Linespeople

Penalty Shot 3: Carrying out the Penalty Shot

Handshake Line and Exiting the Ice 1: The Referee

Handshake Line and Exiting the Ice 2: The Linespeople

What to Do for All Other Stoppages

What’s Next?

Chapter 8.  Three-Official System Procedures for Starting Play with Face-offs

Preparing for the Next Face-Off 1: Referee’s Line Change Procedure

Preparing for the Next Face-Off 2: The Linesperson Dropping the Puck

Preparing for the Next Face-Off 3:

The Linesperson Not Dropping the Puck

Centre Ice Face-Offs: Linesperson or Referee Dropping the Puck

Diagrams of the Referee’s and Liners’ Positions before a Face-Off and Movement after a Face-Off

What’s Next?

Game Management:

The Only Skill the Arena Notices

A Primer for Game Management

Chapter 9.  Preventing Incidents using Presence at Hotspots

Hotspots 1: Identifying the Most Important Places on the Ice

Hotspots 2: How to Prioritize Hotspots

Hotspots 3: You Must Deal with the Hotspots at Every Stoppage

Presence 1: What Is It?

Presence 2: Using What You Say to Create Presence

Presence 3: Managing Your Stress to Create Presence

Presence 4: Using Your Signals to Create Presence

Presence 5: Using Positioning and Procedures to Create Presence

What’s Next?

Chapter 10.  Preventing Incidents Using Awareness

Head. On. A. Swivel.

Peripheral Versus Central Vision

Snap Decisions: You Just Know Where Something is Going to Happen

Situational Officiating

What’s Next?

Chapter 11.  Responding to Incidents, and Communication with Captains,

Coaches, Each Other and the League

Deciding When/If to Talk to a Coach or Captain

Decreasing Long Conversations: Ownership and Leaving

Yourself an Out

RESOLV: Positive Body Language in a Conversation

Discussing an Incident with Your Partner(s) During a Stoppage

Writing a Game Report to the League

What’s Next?

Chapter 12.  Responding to Incidents Using Impact Penalties and Non-Calls

What Are Impact Penalties?

Examples of Impact Penalties and Explanations

Using Your Voice to Create Impact Non-Calls to Contrast

Impact Penalties

Impact Non-Calls That Do Not Use Your Voice

Just Call Nothing Versus Just Call Everything

Three Problems with Just Call Nothing

Three Problems with Just Call Everything

Using Impact Penalties Is like Holding a Bird

Using Impact Penalties to Create a Fair and Safe Game

Using Impact Penalties to Deal with Referee Harassment

Self-Reflection and Impact Penalty Selection

What’s Next?

Professional Skills:

The All-Encompassing Category

A Primer for Professional Skills

Chapter 13.  Professional Skills

Comportment: How You Carry Yourself

Organizational and Prioritization Skills

Receiving Feedback

Giving Feedback

Skating

Fitness and Nutrition

What’s Next?

The Four-Official System and Wrapping Up

Chapter 14.  Comparing the Three- and Four-Official Systems

Positioning for the End Zone Referee

Positioning for the Neutral Zone Referee

Line Change and Penalty Procedures for the Referees

Referees’ Game Management in the Four-Official System

Linespeople in the Four-Official System

What’s Next?

Chapter 15.  Wrap-up: How does It All Fit Together?

Back to the Beginning: The Development Model

Maximizing the Arena’s Trust: It’s Not Just About Game Management

This Is a Game to Most, but It’s a Responsibility to Us

Appendices A to H

Appendix A.  Bump & Pivot

Situation 1: Puck Moves from below Goal Line toward Blue Line

Situation 2: Puck Moves from Blue Line to below Goal Line

Keys to a Successful Bump & Pivot

Appendix B.  Additional Thoughts on Calling a Penalty

Appendix C.  No-Change Icing

The Referee’s Role

The Back Linesperson’s Role

The Front Linesperson’s Role

Two Thoughts about Seeing the Right Players

Appendix D.  Hotspot Worksheet

Appendix E.  Hotspot Worksheet Answer Key

Appendix F.  Impact Penalties Worksheet

Appendix G.  Impact Penalties Worksheet Answer Key

Appendix H.  Exercise Time, Calories Burned, Kilometres Skated and Steps During a Game

Results

Comparing Referees, Linespeople and the Two-Official System

Conclusions

Limitations to this Research

Acknowledgments

Introduction

The Big 4 Skills

I have lived the majority of my life in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and have spent more of my life as a hockey official than not a hockey official. When I was thirteen years old, I officiated my first game at a cold, dark, small, damp arena. The dressing room was the size of a closet, and there was one co -e d bathroom with a communal shower shared by all the teams and officials. The ice surface, normally 185 feet long in Canada, was less. Cold. Dark. Small. Damp. That was the arena. That was how I felt after my first game.

My partner for that game was an old British guy. However, as I reached adulthood, I now believe he was in his late twenties or early thirties. All adults seem old when you are thirteen.¹ My first penalty call was a tripping call in front of the net in the second period. I can’t remember if it was the right call or not nor can I remember if I was in position to make the call. What I do remember from that game was wishing I had more help² and that being certified as an official was not enough preparation to officiate a hockey game.

After the emotions of that first game, I wouldn’t have blamed thirteen-year-old me for quitting, but I stuck with it because I wanted to be a hockey official. I successfully refereed AAA hockey, lined junior and senior hockey and continue to officiate hockey today with no plans of stopping.³ However, at some point in my mid-twenties I realized two things. The first was I had reached the top of my officiating career. I noticed I was competing with other officials who were better skaters and had played a higher level of hockey than I. I also wanted to focus on earning a master’s degree, and I was starting to think about having a family. That is not to say I couldn’t have done all those things at once; I just ran out of motivation to pursue hockey at levels higher than I was doing. Ultimately, you will find that your ability to move up is determined by your skills and your motivation. You need both.⁴

My second realization was my ongoing fascination with building the best grassroots official development program ever. Seriously. That sounds like hyperbole, but it really was my goal when I started building development programs in 2013. So, while other officials I grew up with moved on to long careers in junior, senior, the Western Hockey League and the American Hockey League (one has even flirted with The Show and may still get there), I refocused on development. Indeed, my career and education as an Occupational Therapist⁵ fits very well with developing officials.⁶

By combining my Occupational Therapy education and officiating experience I developed four skill categories to organize a developmental system and this book. Indeed, I didn’t create these skills, but this is the first officiating book I have found that organizes and explains the relationship between the skills:

•Positioning: where you need to be to see the game and stay out of the way;

•Procedures: how to work with your fellow officials during stoppages;

•Game Management: how to prevent and respond to incidents;

•Professional Skills: intangibles that are integral to officiating.

Image 1: the officiating skills organized to show positioning as the foundation, procedures above, game management at the peak, and professional skills all around.

Knowing those skills is not enough. The best practice in teaching these skills and training an official is shown in the pyramid (Image 1). Your skills will develop best from the bottom of the pyramid upwards because:

•If positioning is weak, your vision of the ice is poor. This reduces your ability to select the correct procedures when play is stopped.

•If positioning is wrong, you will misinterpret calls and non-calls, which negatively affects game management.

•If procedures are weak, your ability to create presence on the ice is reduced, as is your ability to manage the game, which opens the door to possible incidents.

The professional skills around the pyramid include comportment (how you carry yourself), organizational and prioritization skills (can you get yourself to games?), receiving feedback (getting better), giving feedback (helping others get better), skating (need to keep up), and fitness and nutrition (you have to keep up!).

This book will follow the model in Image 1 to develop your skills in the Two- and Three-Official Systems. We will start at positioning and develop skills right up into game management. We will then explore the professional skills that will help you in all three of those areas, and finish with a brief transition into the Four-Official System and wrap-up.

The book is divided into five sections to reflect the different skills you will have:

•Positioning: The Skill You Need to See and Stay out of the Way

oPositioning takes place during the play and allows you to establish sight lines and avoid the puck.

•Procedures: The Skill to Work with Others while Managing Stoppages

oProcedures are used to work together to stop play, separate players, start play and reduce the risk of bad things happening.

•Game Management: The Only Skill the Arena⁷ Notices

oGame management is not only about penalties. Instead, it is about the flow of positioning and procedures aided by presence, awareness, communication and impact penalties. Unfortunately, most casual discussions about officiating focus on penalty selection.

•Professional Skills: The All-Encompassing Category

oThe professional skills surround everything and are necessary for you to learn the skills in the pyramid.

•The Four-Official System and Wrapping-Up

oThis final section gives a brief transition to the Four-Official System. This final section also wraps-up the book by demonstrating how the different skills, when applied together, gain the arena’s trust in the officials.

The different chapters of the book are organized so there are five ways to read it:

•If you want to review everything, read from beginning to end.

•If you have never officiated before, you can skip the chapters on the Three- and Four-Official Systems and focus on the Two-Official System.⁸

•If you are starting as a linesperson or ref in the Three-Official System, then focus on the chapters about the Three-Official System.⁹

•If you are starting as a linesperson or ref in the Four-Official System, then focus on both the chapters about the Three- and Four-Official Systems.¹⁰

•If you want to pick and choose skills to review, you can use the Table of Contents to skip around and expand your skill set depending on your needs.

As you read this book in any of the five ways, keep in mind that it is not a rule book and rule interpretations are not discussed. The title of the book, How to Referee Hockey: it is not just about the Rule Book, suggests this was done on purpose, and it was. Rule books are published by governing bodies (Hockey Canada, Hockey USA, the International Ice Hockey Federation) with great amounts of detail. This book is not about the rules, rather it is about all the skills a referee needs to be successful and how these skills work together.

As you explore your new or expanding skill set, celebrate the journey. Life is 10% what happens and 90% how you react to it. So, know your job, do your job.

Have fun.

Mitchell Jeffrey, O.T.Reg(MB), M.O.T., B.A.(Hons.), C.E.E.S.

Chapter 1

The Development System Around You

I have good news and bad news. The bad news is that, if you are in a typical development system, the extent of your development will be determined by your willingness to seek out information and learn on your own. That is, if you do not ask for help, you are likely not going to get it. The good news is that if you are in a typical referee development system as a new official, the extent of your development will be determined by your willingness to seek out information and learn on your own. That is, ask for help and you will ge t it.

But that is the same news! I hear you saying. You are right. The good news is also the bad news, which is also the good news. Onwards and upwards. Let’s continue.

The Bad News: Explained

For the most part, minor hockey official development is volunteer run. This is further complicated by a lack of money, a limited number of volunteer mentors and a limited amount of program development knowledge at the grassroots level. Therefore, a single Referee-In-Chief (RIC)—the person who is responsible for co-ordinating official development (amongst many other tasks)—may be using their limited resources to manage the development of dozens, if not hundreds, of officials. There are often not enough resources to ensure that every official receives even one formal mentorship per season, which means most officials are on their own for their development (i.e., camps, research, rule review).

This doesn’t mean there is no formal support for young officials. Your governing body provides annual certification courses, and there are for-profit camps available. If you look you will find ways to receive formal support. You will be assigned games with experienced officials who will give feedback between whistles, periods or games. However, unless the senior officials are assigned to mentor the game (not work the game with you), their feedback will be limited as they divide their attention between you and the game.

This also does not mean there will be no training programs available. Some officials will have an RIC who builds a very good program for a few years but will suffer volunteer fatigue and quit. Every time an RIC quits without implementing a succession plan, programs usually regress and officials find their skills in neutral or back-sliding.

Consider that the average official who successfully moves to higher levels of hockey (such as AAA) requires between three and five years of development. The average volunteer RIC holds the role for three to five years. Therefore, the RIC only has enough time to develop one or two years of those officials who reach the AAA levels. That leaves a lot of officials who do not have the same RIC through the entirety of their effort to reach the highest level