NCAA Hockey: Focus on CFB's

Each year, we hear what the NCAA Ice Hockey Rules Committee wants the on-ice officials to focus on. This year is no different. This season, the NCAA wants the officials to project the puck carrier and focus on checking from behind penalties. During the WCHA preseason teleconference, Greg Shepherd, the Head of Officials for the WCHA talked about this.

This is what Greg Shepherd had to say during the WCHA preseason media teleconference on the checking from behind calls.

"Last year in the WCHA we had 47 majors and games for checking from behind," Greg Shepherd said. "If you see a player, his numbers and you hit him from behind into the boards, I don't care if the player gets up or not, thank God that he does. It's going to be five and a game. There's no gray area. The officials will be held accountable to make that call. "

So, my question is, how long will the refs call the checking from behind calls tight before they back off? Thoughts?

Ruling from the league on the Pattyn's non goal.

I emailed Doug Spencer from the WCHA to get the official ruling on why Steph Pattyn’s apparent goal didn’t’ count.

From the head of WCHA officials Greg Shepherd …

"The official waved off the goal right away and then reviewed it at the next stoppage. It was not conclusive enough to overturn the no goal call."

The Sioux and a Comment on Officiating (RW77)

First the good news:

Despite the ugliest series of the entire year for UND discipline wise (probably the same goes for DU as well), the Sioux leave Denver with 2 points. I think Eidsness played very well on Friday and, unless the score doesn't tell the story, ok but not great on Saturday. I now firmly believe that Dell will take at least one of the games next weekend. In any case, despite this there is good news:

Home ice is ours for the WCHA playoffs. Brad Schlossman and I think Jason Hejdu calculated that it is impossible for CC and MTU to move past us so as to have us drop out of the top 6. That's great news.

However, there is a very good possibility that we will be down to 17 skaters for the rest of the year. Sure, Dickin's not the most prolific scorer and he may not normally be missed if everyone else was healthy but... they're not. And going into the playoffs, consistent and timely play as well as depth (which means fresher legs late in the game) are key. The Sioux do not have depth at all... but our IR list would be a great line or two on most teams in the nation. So we go short bench from here on out.

Good thing Gleason is playing great right now. He looks more and more like Genoway every single game.

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A note on Officiating:

Yeah, yeah, UND fan talking about officiating again, but I'm not going to rag on Todd Anderson, Brad Shepherd or Don Adam. I'm simply going to state my conspiracy theory and watch closely as I expect it will become more and more true as we get closer to the BTHC and NCHC becoming a reality.

I believe that the officials, led by Greg Shepherd, will follow the rule book as required but will not do their professional best nor be held accountable for mistakes when it comes to any game involving NCHC or BTHC teams. They will care less if it is NCHC vs. NCHC, NCHC vs. BTHC, or BTHC vs. BTHC and care more as the permutations get closer to WCHA vs WCHA.

The reason is simple: They only are biding time with the NCHC and BTHC teams but are still trying to pander support among the WCHA teams (and future WCHA teams). So there is more incentive and intention to perform better administratively (which includes officiating) towards WCHA teams than there is to be towards future NCHC and/or BTHC teams.

So, in other words, expect really poor officiating if your NCHC or BTHC team is involved. If you are a WCHA team, there will still be brutal games but that will be because the WCHA officials are idiots and know very little about consistency.

It's like my tinfoil hat saying: Every weekend we have to beat our opponents and the officials.