Any Referees on the Forum?

[ilyazhito]

Are there any users here that also referee? I know that a lot of you haven't considered it, but I'm curious to see if there are any here and get their perspective. My day job is with an accounting firm, and I also ref basketball, football, and soccer. If I didn't have a chance to become a professional official in football or basketball, I would be out there reffing hockey as well as playing in goal. 

What adjustments have any goalie refs had to make between goalie skating and ref skating? Are there any goalie habits that help you to referee (or line) games? 

[KootenayKeeper]

I reffed a game today. It's our year end Mashup tournament and the team that just finished playing has to ref the next game. No one wanted to do it so I volunteered. The twist, I skated in my goalie skates, pants and pads. I figured I'd get some extra skating practice in. To pick up the puck I would drop down on one pad and slide to it. Okay, probably not helpful so let's see what some others have to say.

[ilyazhito]

That is interesting. I doubt you'd do a sanctioned game that way, but it still must have been fun to do (and entertaining to watch). 

[KootenayKeeper]

Well I'm not a referee so yeah, that wouldn't happen. I did it for fun. Came in handy a couple of times a faceoff when I got whacked by the players swatting at the puck. But the term goalie ref was fitting. 

[insertnamehere]

I reffed hockey for 10 years. It's been 8 years since I last did it, I don't miss it too much.

Quit because it started actually costing me more money via turning down OT at my day job when I'd made a commitment to reffing already. 

Actually, other than being required to use player skates, I did a lot of shuffling, c cuts bumping off the wall to get out of the way of players and pucks and a good amount of backwards skating so thinking about it there was some overlap. 

[A.YOUNGoalie13]

I did it for two years and didn’t like it very much. I did younger kids and the coaches act like its the nhl. I didn’t care about the parents but the coaches were awful

[ilyazhito]

Wow. I've had the same issues (delusional parents and coaches) in rec soccer, and, to a lesser degree, in basketball. Some basketball coaches are jerks. I have had to give technical fouls several times this high school season because coaches were questioning calls and acting crazy. I even had a coach ejected this season. I've also had to call a few unsportsmanlike conduct penalties in HS and college football. 

I'm with you, @A.YOUNGoalie13. It must be tough when parents are delusional and coaches crazy. If experiences like yours are common, it's no wonder why there is a shortage of officials. 

[Ertl35]

I've been a ref at the USA Hockey level, and beer league for the last 8 years. Coaches are absolutely the worst, all their kids are going to the show lol. I prefer reffing beer league because I can actually chirp back when the guys are jawing at us.

As for doing anything directly related to goaltending, just watching other goalies play can help. The skating doesn't exactly translate due to the use of player skates. Getting used to player skates after exclusively playing goalie for so long was the biggest adjustment at first, but now I can go seamlessly between goalie and player skates. The only goalie habits that tend to impact my reffing are my desire for quick whistles on goalie covers, which admittedly sometimes results in plays being blown dead at a poor time for the attacking team.

[ilyazhito]

Interesting. Do the beer leagues you work for use USAH sanctioned officials? I'm asking, because one beer league in my area  uses in-house officials, but the others appear to use USAH officials (I've seen the officials wear USAH patches at those games).

How did you adjust to using player skates? Were there any techniques you used to compensate for the rocker on player skates? 

[A.YOUNGoalie13]

19 hours ago, ilyazhito said:

Interesting. Do the beer leagues you work for use USAH sanctioned officials? I'm asking, because one beer league in my area  uses in-house officials, but the others appear to use USAH officials (I've seen the officials wear USAH patches at those games).

How did you adjust to using player skates? Were there any techniques you used to compensate for the rocker on player skates? 

You just kind of naturally adjust to them after a few minutes of skating around. Get a feel for the edges before them game starts and you should be fine.

[ilyazhito]

Are there any performance differences when using rockered skates that one needs to adjust to? I'd think balancing characteristics are different, because less of the blade touches the ice than with flatter skates.