Another Note on Referees
(originally published in 2002, updated a little as I move it to my blog…)
> I know my buddies that work basketball think hockey has too many strange
> rules to understand. So I guess it’s just what sport you work. Most of my
> friends that do basketball, just work varsity bb and no other sports. I
> don’t work basketball.
I reffed to JV highschool in basketball, JV in football and varsity
baseball, plus I judged diving for the swim team. I also did a little
exhibition wrestling, all back when I was in high school and considering
reffing as a career.
Football is pretty easy. You have a limited sphere of control, and the big
issue is staying out of the way (you do NOT want to get run down) and
keeping angles on the action. The interpretation was, for me, pretty
straightforward.
Baseball is concentration and consistency. A consistent strike zone is
harder than it looks. Otherwise, it’s angles and timing. I always found
baseball moderately easy.
Basketball requires you to be in good shape, keep up with the action, be
consistent, and keep your angles so you see what’s going on.
Diving is *all* consistency. I found it really tough, actually. Worse than
plate on baseball. Perhaps that’s because I didn’t do it as much, but it’s
one of those classic situations where an athlete lives or dies on the
quality of the judging (like gymnastics or ice skating — and both are great
examples of how sports are ruined by the politics of judging), and that
stress is tough. Even in baseball, a blown strike call rarely destroys a
game, a blown diving call can kill the entire tourney. Ugh.
I sit and watch hockey refs, whether it’s down in the rec leagues, wandering
off into the BCJHL on one of my road trips, or in the NHL, with awe. I don’t
know how you folks do it, folks. The action is so fast, there are so many
bodies, things change and are so fluid, and the angles you need to keep open
change so rapidly I’m amazed how well it generally gets done.
To me, the big difference between basketball and hockey is the
behind-the-play action. In basketball, if you take a good angle and keep
your eye on the ball, you’ll catch most of the action you need to catch. In
hockey, if you can SEE the puck through four guys screening you, you stll
miss the two guys behind you scrumming against the boards (the “Claude
Lemieux technique — wait for the ref to turn his back, and then slash
him…). You literally need eyes in the back of your head, and THEY’LL be
screened. Also, basketball’s goal is hanging in air, the hockey goal is on
ice and players can skate around and behind it. That really adds to the
issues of screening and vision. And hockey players are on skates, which are
much faster than basketball players, so stuff happens so quickly. Like
trying to referee a demolition derby in a pinto….
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