The NHL has fined NJDevils head coach Sheldon Keefe $25,000 for "unprofessional conduct directed at the officials" late in Sunday's game at Vegas.

[TheGreenTBer]

Keefe had the right message, but wrong incident to express it.

Gary doesn't want coaches hurting the integrity of the league by questioning the officiating.

This message brought to you by Game Management™ and FanDuel.

That about sums it up.

 

[Ulysses31]

edit: nm hits his skate

 

[CarolinaBlueJacket]

Yeah, but I didn't see anyone saying it's easy, I see you projecting that you think people say it's easy. Saying the referees suck isn't the same thing.

The problem is a lack of visible accountability, and also with the fact that players are out there ending seasons for $5000 fines or a few games' suspension while a coach says a few emotionally charged sentences and gets fined $25k.

Make it make sense.

Ok you didn't say it was easy. You said that the refs suck and I said it's not easy and you should give it a try just to experience what they experience.

 

[Summer Rose]

Yeah, but I didn't see anyone saying it's easy, I see you projecting that you think people say it's easy. Saying the referees suck isn't the same thing.

The problem is a lack of visible accountability, and also with the fact that players are out there ending seasons for $5000 fines or a few games' suspension while a coach says a few emotionally charged sentences and gets fined $25k.

Make it make sense.

Personally I don’t agree that a lack of visible accountability is a problem. There’s accountability, it just exists behind closed doors. It doesn’t come in the form of being fined for making bad calls. My source on both of those is being directly informed of each by a former NHL official (Wayne Bonney if you want to look him up, he worked as an NHL linesman for 10 seasons and helped out with working with officials in Arizona during my time as an official there).

We do get to see at least some of the accountability in terms of who gets selected to work the playoffs and who makes the cut for later rounds. They get bonus pay per round they get selected for so there’s motivation for it.

As for their accountability ever becoming public, well, the officials have a union too and would never agree to it. I spun it would be very high on the league’s list of things to try to negotiate with the NHLOA on either.

 

[CarolinaBlueJacket]

Personally I don’t agree that a lack of visible accountability is a problem. There’s accountability, it just exists behind closed doors. It doesn’t come in the form of being fined for making bad calls. My source on both of those is being directly informed of each by a former NHL official (Wayne Bonnet if you want to look him up, he worked as an NHL linesman for 10 seasons and helped out with working with officials in Arizona during my time as an official there).

We do get to see at least some of the accountability in terms of who gets selected to work the playoffs and who makes the cut for later rounds. They get bonus pay per round they get selected for so there’s motivation for it.

As for their accountability ever becoming public, well, the officials have a union too and would never agree to it. I spun it would be very high on the league’s list of things to try to negotiate with the NHLOA on either.

Exactly. I have been in a situation where one employee had a legitimate grievance against another employee. The grieved employee want to know what I did to the offending employee. The truth is that everything done for the grieving employee against the offending employee was done behind closed doors and I could not divulge anytime to the grieved employee. He wanted me to fire the offending employee and make it public. That is just not how it works. As someone in a management position I have to be impartial and unemotional. Same goes for the refs. There is no way that they should be held accountable in public. That would lead to quite a number of negative consequences.

 

[1989]

Personally I don’t agree that a lack of visible accountability is a problem. There’s accountability, it just exists behind closed doors. It doesn’t come in the form of being fined for making bad calls. My source on both of those is being directly informed of each by a former NHL official (Wayne Bonney if you want to look him up, he worked as an NHL linesman for 10 seasons and helped out with working with officials in Arizona during my time as an official there).

We do get to see at least some of the accountability in terms of who gets selected to work the playoffs and who makes the cut for later rounds. They get bonus pay per round they get selected for so there’s motivation for it.

To the bolded - what does the accountability involve, if it's not all financially motivated?

There's been many a time where officials who are generally percieved as "bad refs" make it into the later rounds as well.

Exactly. I have been in a situation where one employee had a legitimate grievance against another employee. The grieved employee want to know what I did to the offending employee. The truth is that everything done for the grieving employee against the offending employee was done behind closed doors and I could not divulge anytime to the grieved employee. He wanted me to fire the offending employee and make it public. That is just not how it works. As someone in a management position I have to be impartial and unemotional. Same goes for the refs. There is no way that they should be held accountable in public. That would lead to quite a number of negative consequences.

Yes, and all of the things you described are common practices in private corporate environments. All reasonable and understandable in those places of employment.

The difference is that this is the world of professional sports entertainment where their performances (or lack thereof) are there for the world to see, and hold increased expectations to be publicly scrutinized.

Otherwise, why do we hold the general expectations of entitlement to the information regarding the consequences of player and staff actions (including GMs, e.g. Chayka) when officials, whose actions have very real consequences within the industry, get to be exempted from such public scrutiny?

 

[hirawl]

Reffing in NHL is one hard job. Game is fast af with lots of hard contact. You're doing your job in the middle of it all at the ice level. Trying to stay away but still catch everything. And your performance on your job is immediately picked to pieces using several slo-mo camera angles.

Anyone calling a veteran NHL referee incompetent is a f***ing moron. Maybe try reffing your daily cereal bowl for a change. Teal vs. yellow fruit loops baby.

 

[Summer Rose]

To the bolded - what does the accountability involve, if it's not all financially motivated?

There's been many a time where officials who are generally percieved as "bad refs" make it into the later rounds as well.


Yes, and all of the things you described are common practices in private corporate environments. All reasonable and understandable in those places of employment.

The difference is that this is the world of professional sports entertainment where their performances (or lack thereof) are there for the world to see, and hold increased expectations to be publicly scrutinized.

Otherwise, why do we hold the general expectations of entitlement to the information regarding the consequences of player and staff actions (including GMs, e.g. Chayka) when officials, whose actions have very real consequences within the industry, get to be exempted from such public scrutiny?

Bonney didn't go so far as to tell us the details and none of us asked. However, just guessing based on patterns I've noticed, it's not entirely unlike players who perform poorly (or well) - their performance affects their next contract with the league in terms of whether they actually get one or not, and presumably how much they get paid. Though, somewhat unlike players, seniority also has an effect on the latter. The numbers are about 10 years out of date (but you can do the math on pay increases over time presumably), but linesmen would start out with an annual salary of about $70,000 and referees would start out with an annual salary of about $150,000. A veteran linesman who performs well could expect to get up to $150,000 and a veteran referee who performs well could expect up to $230,000. Underperforming linesmen and referees could expect less, if offered a contract at all. There's some more financial motivation for you, in that case.

Personally, I was never going to make the NHL as an official even if I started young enough, though in large part that's because I'm a woman. I'm 38 now, and there has been buzz about the NHL making a run at hiring female officials - though only as referees, not linesmen - but that still has yet to happen. What I could have hoped for had I started younger and continued officiating, is to eventually get higher-paying game assignments, and more of them. If you don't make it to one of the very few leagues that hires officials as full-time employees, you get paid on a per-game basis. For my situation, being from Arizona, there was a big difference between getting only 5-10 games a month at around $25 per game (about what they paid for the average kids game) because you're not a very good official and getting 40-50 games a month at up to $50 per game (what I got paid to be a linesman for high school games, though I had plenty of kids games for less per game mixed in).

Slight digression, but Arizona State University started a women's ACHA program around the time I had to move away from the Phoenix area, and the men's ACHA games paid $200-250 (I imagine the women's games would have paid around the same). Being one of the few female officials in the entire state (I think we had like 5 total), I could have easily cracked into doing those games, then maybe getting noticed by the NCAA. That's probably about where I would have topped out.

 

[PatriceBergeronFan]

No, I think a beer league ref would be a better ref than Wes McCauley in particular. Not any NHL ref.

That is nonsense. Majority of veteran refs remaining are in that Sutherland/McCauley mode of game management/spotlight seeking. They at least remain consistent.

The newer, younger officials are nearly all in the NHL years ahead of being prepared. The Luxmore types. Utterly lost.

The NHL needs to revisit officiating as a focus. Game management is the worst part of the NHL but adding in the new wave of unprepared and incompetent officials is another issue.