Opinion: What Can We Really Do About NHL Officiating?

Last week, NBA star guard Fred VanVleet made headlines when he lashed out against NBA officiating. After a loss by his Toronto Raptors team, VanVleet did not mince words as he criticized the game’s referees.

“I think the jurisdiction and the power trip that we’ve been on this year with some of our officials in this league is getting out of hand, and I’ll take my fine for speaking on it,” said VanVleet, who was subsequently fined $30,000 for his comments. “Most of the refs are trying hard, I like a lot of the refs, they’re trying hard, they’re pretty fair, and communicate well. And then you got the other ones who just want to be (idiots) and just kind of (screw) up the game. And no one’s coming to see that. They come to see the players.”

VanVleet has every right to his opinion. And certainly, officials in all sports make numerous mistakes, which we hear about frequently in the NHL. But from our perspective, harping on NHL refereeing is a waste of time. There’s nothing wrong with noting errors officials make, and we do need to keep them accountable, but let’s get to the logical endpoint of all these complaints: what is going to be done about it?

Indeed, where are the improvement lanes for referees to take from here on? How are we going to ensure all the right calls are made all of the time? 

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.

Is there some ego involved in player and coach engagement with referees? Sure, there is. But, after talking to many officials over the years, I think any perceived ego from referees is more of a defense mechanism than an exercise in superiority. Most of them have talked (off the record) about not wanting to have the opinions of players or coaches override their opinions and decisions, even when those opinions and decisions can be challenged fairly. 

You understand where they're coming from – it's human nature to want to be correct or at least feel that they're correct. And when you put the egos of officials into a head-on collision with the egos of players and coaches, the results can be messy and ugly.

It's also fair to talk about refs who are consistent problems. But it's always going to take a good deal of time to (a) identify them and (b) weed them out. And again, what are the alternatives to the current refereeing situation? Is there a hidden island somewhere where the human beings on it are far and away better referees than the ones we have now? To ask that question is to answer it. 

Like them or not, the current officials are the very best ones we have. We can train them all we want, but they’re not robots. (That said, MLB is experimenting with robot umpires, but hockey officiating is an entirely different animal. Artificial intelligence is on the rise, but it doesn’t work for hockey – at least, until there’s a massive leap forward from AI.)

As far as the idea of allowing referees to review more incidents goes, we’re of a split opinion. 

On the one hand, it's worthwhile to give refs the leeway to review more plays, but if it leads to the expectation they're always going to get things right, people are fooling themselves. The subjectivity of the position will always be there, no matter how much help is provided by emerging technologies of the game or increased boundaries of officials’ decisions.

Barking at the refs isn’t going to go away. But you’re best advised not to work yourself into a lather over the people in stripes. They’re going to make mistakes, and sometimes it’s going to affect one team more than another team. That’s not on purpose. Good teams, and great players, find a way to thrive in spite of missed or mistaken calls. 

Our referees are the best we have, and the game would be better if we get past this blind hatred of them.