By Michael Jorgensen
Who Watches the Watchmen?
Apparently, the NHL does… but only sometimes… and only if your name is Tim Peel.
Last week, professional NHL referee Tim Peel was FIRED “removed from participating” in NHL games as a result of being caught on a hot mic admitting he gave a make-up call during the Detroit vs. Nashville game. As a Leafs fan, my immediate reaction was one of pure schadenfreude, followed instantly by flashbacks of the Kadri suspension in the 2019 playoff series against Boston. This move represents a significant shift in the NHL playbook, one which has historically ignored accusations of game management by the referees. It establishes the fact that referees are unreliable in the eyes of the league and that they may receive punishment for game mismanagement.
Setting this precedent is problematic.
The Peel incident raises important questions about the role referees and expectations placed on them. Specifically,
Do we expect referees to enforce the letter of the law or the spirit of it?
Let’s look at the head contact penalty as an example. The spirit of the law is such that athlete safety is of primary concern. However, the letter of the law results in very few contacts to the head leading to penalties. I’ll highlight some recent research that evaluated the “zero tolerance for head contact” change by Hockey Canada. Following the policy change, 13.8% of head contacts in Canadian amateur youth hockey were penalized compared to 12.7% before1. This result shows essentially no meaningful change in the proportion of head contacts that were being penalized. Referees were aware of the laws of the game and aware of the policy change, yet still failed to penalize head contacts1. The researchers propose increasing referee education, but there is no reason to believe the referees aren’t already educated on the policy change, and “zero tolerance” doesn’t exactly leave much room for interpretation. Translating this to the professional level where similar non-committance is demonstrated in regards to head contact penalties, are we to assume that these professional referees are equally “uneducated”?
So what are the expectations of referees?
In the simplest terms, a referee is responsible for applying the rules of the game to maintain fair and safe competition2. This is no easy task. There are significant physical, cognitive, and emotional demands to refereeing, all of which impact their ability to effectively manage a game. The Tim Peel incident certainly supports this notion and, as the speed and skill of the game have increased, so does the eye test of spectators. In addition, referees often experience severe verbal, and sometimes physical, abuse throughout their careers3. These factors are further implicated by the support (or lack thereof) from sports organizations to mitigate these forces. If the organization doesn’t support its referees, how can they be expected to effectively manage a game?
Perhaps the biggest issue highlighted by the Tim Peel incident is not one of referee ability or bias, but rather one of expectation, burden, and support.
Many fans are lauding the NHL’s decision to punish Peel for his poor performance. The scapegoating of referees, however, does more to highlight the irony of perception than it does to solve the problem it pretends to: taking a stand against ‘the make-up call’ will likely be as effective as the aforementioned head contact penalty – less so considering the intemperate nature of professional hockey. It erodes the trust between the league and the officials and calls into question every decision they make. As a result, it diminishes their ability to maintain fair and safe competition during a game. The result of which is the development of informal game management strategies, such as non-calls and make-up calls. Referees will adapt and new problematic behaviours will be normalized. A perfect example of this is from the Leafs game vs. Ottawa where the referee covered their mic to talk to Simmonds about a missed call.
Welcome to the new meta.
As arbiters of the athletic arena, referees must reserve their right to have the final say. An authority that fans ought to respect more than they’ve been groomed to scrutinize. TSN sports broadcaster Ray Ferraro endorses empowerment over punishment in a tweet responding to the Peel incident.
“My thought is to simplify it all. Call the rule book. Empower-support the officials to know the league has their backs – they can call confidently the game. Players adjust and learn, there will be less noise in the officials head. And in a tie game when your team gets a late deserved hooking call, that is the way it should be.”
At face value, this is a great solution. It makes almost too much sense. Follow the rules! However, it is important to recognize that referees are actors within a system. A system that has been established by the league. By punishing Peel, those who decide the rules of the game and set the expectations for how they are enforced are absolved from any blame. It’s a diffusion of responsibility on behalf of the league and speaks to broader cultural concerns. For instance, why do referees feel they need to give make-up calls or non-calls? There’s certainly the entertainment aspect. After all, who wants to watch their team go down a man in the final minutes of a game? But what is happening here appears to be a confidence issue. When everyone questions your judgement, you start to as well. Referees then fall back on the basic responsibilities – which is to ensure safe and fair competition. Unfortunately, when referees follow the letter of the law rather than the spirit of it, fair competition is misconstrued as an equal outcome rather than equal opportunity.
So where do we go from here?
Perhaps Ray Ferraro’s point of simplifying it all wasn’t too far off the mark. Continuing with the head contact example, let’s look at how the penalty is defined in the NHL official rules:
Now compare this to the World Rugby laws on contact to the head:
The NHL ruling is highly technical and results in a heavy cognitive load throughout the decision-making process. It is almost impossible for a referee to be able to take all of those factors into account in dynamic and fast-paced professional hockey games. In contrast, the World Rugby laws embrace referee discretion and ensure the laws of the game are simple – a player must not make contact with an opponent above the line of the shoulders. This law is further supported by a decision-making framework provided to referees to ease the cognitive load of the decision-making process.
One solution then would be to simplify the rules and encourage referees to enforce them based on the spirit of the ruling and not the letter of the law. As fans, we need to remind ourselves that there are many factors that influence a referee’s ability to call a game and that they are actors within a broader system. In an effort to remove bias, the league has established a ruling system that is difficult to adhere to in the modern professional game. As a result, referees develop problematic game management behaviours such as non-calls and make-up calls. Punishing them doesn’t fix the underlying issue:
Because the devil is in the details, not behind the whistle.
- Williamson, R. A., Kolstad, A. T., Krolikowski, M. … Emery, C. A. (2021). Incidence of Head Contacts, Penalties, and Player Contact Behaviors in Youth Ice Hockey: Evaluating the “Zero Tolerance for Head Contact” Policy Change. Orthopaedic Journal of Sports Medicine. 9(3): 1-7.
- National Hockey League Official Rules 2020-2021
- Ackery, A., Tator. C. H., & Snider, C. (2012). Violence in Canadian amateur hockey: The experience of referees in Ontario. Clinical Journal of Sport Medicine, 22(2): 86-90.