14C.2.2 The Referees
Comments about this discussion:
Started
I would like to discuss the following rules:
* The First Referee restarts the game after every interruption by a long blow of the
whistle.
* The First Referee drops the ball in for the face-off.
In case of a face-off on the (near) side of the playing field where the second referee is usually positioned, it is usually also the second referee who conducts the face-off.
For such cases the rule should allow the Second Referee to drop the ball for the face-off and also blow the whistle to restart the game since he knows best, when he drops the ball. It is just unpractical to have the First Referee change sides to conduct such face-offs to obey the rules.
Comment
I agree. It's always been weird to have a first and second referee, especially since it can be quite random which ref is first and it can give problems if you have a more experienced second ref yield to the first ref. We've had some discussions elsewhere about effective play time and this is a good way to restart the game quicker and get more effective play time.
Comment
The first ref-second ref is required as it creates consistency of who blows the whistle for 95% of calls. Otherwise you sometimes have the ball go out and then end up having two whistles being blown.
However this a good point that largely is only important for face offs that are conducted on the opposite side of the court of the first ref. Any free shots can still be whistled by the first ref even if on the other side of the field.
This issue could be solved in two ways.
1) If a faceoff is given on the opposite side of the field, the referees switch locations to allow the first ref to drop the faceoff ball and blow the whistle in these situations. Face offs are infrequent outside of the start of each half, and often when faceoffs are given they are after some discussion between referees so they are in the same location prior to awarding a faceoff.
OR
2) We add wording that allows the closest referee to drop a ball for a faceoff and blow the whistle for the start in these instances.
Comment
Why is it a problem that two whistles are blown? It seems better than situations where no whistle is blown because the first ref for some reason is whistle shy and the second one yields to that. The latter is the situation I've more often seen and that typically leads to a bad game for everyone.
Comment
My example of the need of a first-second ref above was not a very good one.
The biggest problem is multiple whistle being blown to restart play. If a referee blows a whistle to restart play, a team immediately hits the ball and then the other referee blows a whistle a split second later then you are in the situation where no one knows if there was an incorrect play of the ball and everyone must stop, or the other referee was blowing their whistle to also signal the start of play but was a bit too late.
The second referee can blow their whistle to call a foul if they see it, with big courts the referees are spaced apart so they can clearly see both sides so the second referee may see things that the first doesn't. At worst, having a first-second ref results in the whistle for the foul being slightly delayed if the second ref waits to see if the first ref will call the foul. But we are encouraged to play advantage so that doesn't change much anyway.
The referees are supposed to talk to each other before the match and decide who is first ref. The most experienced ref becomes first ref as they overrule the second ref.
As long as the referees do their job before the match starts you shouldn't have a problem of no whistles being blown.
I think this is a problem of referees not sorting themselves before a match rather than the system itself