This issue has been resolved. There was NOT a non-certified official. My mistake. Sandy.

I would contact Ken Handley of the OVHOA. His address is on the mid am referee web page. http://www.midamref.org He is the Cincy supervisor of officials and he is also the scheduler. He would never use an uncertified official. Your information has to be erroneous.
What age level does your son play?

Please send me the time and date of your game and I will find out who was on the game. I will assure you that I do not and never will schedule officials who are not currently certified to work games. I will gladly invetigate the crew who worked your game.

Ken Handley
USA Hockey Local Supervisor
USA Hockey National Training staff
Khandley@fuse.net

quote:

Originally posted by Coach Handley:
Please send me the time and date of your game and I will find out who was on the game. I will assure you that I do not and never will schedule officials who are not currently certified to work games. I will gladly invetigate the crew who worked your game.

Ken Handley
USA Hockey Local Supervisor
USA Hockey National Training staff
Khandley@fuse.net

I have replied to Mr. Handley offline and will await the outcome of his investigation.

Sandy.

Wow. You write that the ref admitted he wasn't certified. But you didn't hear the admission first hand. So now we spread gossip when we are unhappy with the outcome of a game.

Let's not kid ourselves, you are complaining becuase you are unhappy with the games outcomes. You got a tie, but if the ref's were not so bad you would have won.

Look, every organization - Cincinnati, Indy, Columbus, Lexington, etc - have good refs and bad refs (some are very bad). I am sure your organization has some bad refs. You may not notice it because your "home" team gets the majority of good calls - as you believe the Cincinnati "home" team did during your game.

Being a ref is not easy. I am not justifiying bad refs, but how many good refs have left the game because of the abuse they take from parents. Virtually every game I go to, at home or on the road, the refs get abuse. This abuse comes from both sets of parents - home and away.

I can't tell you how many times I've been at games and the ref's miss a head check call against one team, and the other teams parents go ballistic. Then later in the game, the refs miss a head check on the other team. Now the roles are reversed. Two missed calls - the same missed call - but on both teams. Do parenst say, "well they missed one on us earlier, so it balances out"? NO, they cry foul when its against there team, but chear when its against the other team.

Aks for consistent refs. Not perfect refs. They have a lot of ice to cover (physically and visually). They can't see everything. Stop the constant abuse (and spreading of gossip)and I'm sure you will see improvement in the refs.

Sandy

You are over reacting. Remember this is a public forum and you chose to bring this topic here.

I have probably personally watched (as an adult) an average of 30 hockey games a year for over 30 years. Early, most of those games were Division 1 college games. Over the last 6 years I have watched my son play (usually at a travel or select/travel level - LCAHL or Buckeye) 40-60 games a year.

Over those years I have seen very good refs, good refs, average refs, poor refs and bad refs. I have seen very good refs have bad days and very bad refs have good days. The last 2 years I have watched my son ref games. He re****tion as a maturing young ref is growing. He is unbiased, consistent, knowledgable and assertive. However as a young ref he is also in a growing minority. Qualified players are either not starting to ref or quitting refing becasue of the abuse (primarily parents but an occassional coach). This will catch up with the sport if we as parents can't stay out of the abuse business. If we run out of experiened refs the ganme suffers. To get experience they have to learn, make mistakes and get better. Just as players grow and mature, refs need to grow and mature. These are the games where we recruit and develop the next geration of officials.

When there is a problem that needs addressing (and not all are important enough to address - last weekend my son's team was refed by two adults who did not know the rules regarding substitution for an injured goalie when the team only had one dressed and while it marginally may have affected the game it is not worth creating a scene)- go to the right sources. Your son plays in the Buckeye League. The Buckeye League has a great website. All of the league officials are linked. The Area reps are linked. Contact the President, the Conduct Chair, the Division Director or the Organization Representative. As an alternative, contact USA Hockey. These are the proper places for your inquiry.

By posting on this Forum and personally attacking both refs ("bone-head" and "physically unfit")you have chose to take this gripe public and negative. Swiss may have overreacted, I would guess he is either a ref or the parent of a young ref. However, they underlying message he made is appropriate. Your response personally attacking him for how he presented his underlying message was out of line.

As a parent of of a young player thank you for caring about the level of officiating. It is important. However I would take exception with your belief that you have done it in an appropriate manner. Your team has a score sheet. Get the officials name. Check - was he wearing a current crest? Make the calls. Get an answer.

Stay on this - but do it privately with a sense of understanding and compassion.

P.S. If this is the game it appears to be, I note that Cinci was called for 4 minor penalties your team was called for 4 minor penalties (and your son's team had a coach thrown out of the game (It appears that only 7 coaches have been ejected from Buckeye games the whole year from Mites to Midgets - what does it take for a Squirt Coach to be tossed?). Is there really more to this Complaint than the postings todate indicate?

quote:

Originally posted by Sandy:
I'm done with this forum altogether. Sandy.

Sorry to hear it and wish you wouldnt go but you are the one that decided to air your concerns on a public forum. You have noone to blame but yourself not the forum. I think you ought to be a bit more thick skinned and not take everything to heart. There is alot of information and good conversation on the forum. Best of luck.

Sandy:

Do not leave this forum. There are good people here. Is is usually a good exchnage of ideas. It also provides a realtity check to all of us on occasion. We all get carried away at times and need that check. I believe that the underlying message of Swiss was positive. I believe that the intent of your original post was to improve the game. I hope that my original post was valuable. But perhaps all three posts may have crossed a line at one point or another.

I apologize. My comments were not intended to be a personal attack. What I attempted to do (apparantly too heavy handedly) was to (1) point out that there may have been a better way to approach the problem and (2) educate/remind you (as well as every other reader of this forum) of some of the problems that exist at the officiating level (viewpoints that seldom get expressed and viewpoints I did not appreciate befoe my son started officiating).

We need good people on this forum. We need people who have the right perspective (I invite you to read some of my other posts relative to the proper role of parents in this sport). This is a great game. It teaches lessons to these players that really no other sport teaches. But to florish it needs to take hold of parents and coaches and hold both accountable to to the nature of this game.

If you leave, I believe we have lost one of those parents who gets it.

p.s. I hope that if the younger "ref" was not certified your actions have eliminated a repeat of this incident. We do not need uncertified refs (other than perhaps at the mini-mite instructional level and then working with older certified refs). As to the other ref, without any reference to his officiating or physical ability - there is value in reporting observations so as to enable the appropriate supervisors to review performance. (I know in our area the supervisors take the review process very seriously).