[CorsiHockeyLeague]

It's not hard to call the rulebook and stop "game managing". The problems are these.

1. The rulebook has some... issues. Some penalties aren't worded clearly, and some are worded in such a way that they don't reflect how we want the penalty to be called. There are also rules that are never called. So step 1 is a new draft of the rulebook to clean these issues up.

2. The referees themselves mess up. They're human. They miss things that seem obvious on the broadcast, and make calls that don't make a ton of sense. Calling the rulebook will result in some incorrect calls. This is, first, not a reason not to do it - they get things wrong now, too - but second, there are ways to address it. First, a third official watching in a video room who can communicate to the officials to blow the play dead once the penalized team touches the puck is a pretty easy addition, and just due to the different perspective can fix some of these issues (especially now that they're doing the "referee huddle" after calls to make sure they're right). Second, refs should be given a big pay raise, but with it, considerably more accountability: you have to answer to the media, and if you mess up you risk getting suspended.

3. Calling the rulebook incentivizes diving. We need to disincentivize it. First, the video room ref helps - when you go to your referee's huddle, he can say, "look, this was a dive". In that circumstance, you only call the dive. This is written into the rulebook; embellishment eliminates the original penalty. Second, the DOPS now has significantly more leeway to punish divers, including publishing video of them doing it and handing out significant suspensions for fakery. There are no double standards allowed here - star player or otherwise, you get the same treatment. And put the onus on the player here. For example, if a guy almost high sticks you and your head snaps back on reflex, but he doesn't get you, a ref might think he did and call the high stick. But you know it didn't hit you, and you'd better go tell the ref that so he can rescind the call, or you're getting a suspension for it. Unless you'd rather have a 2 minute power play this game than be allowed to play next game, you're better off.

4. Anyone who takes the view that they're "ruining the game" by calling too many penalties or that these new standards are bad because too much of the game has become power play needs to be immediately and mercilessly booed off TV, or out of their newspaper job, or their coaching position, or whatever. If you think there are suddenly too many penalties, the blame must be placed squarely on the people taking the penalties. Once a new standard is implemented and you know it's being applied, if you continue to cross check guys in the corner during puck battles (but we used to do this all the time!) or interfere with them off of a faceoff (but this happens every game!) or lightly tap their hand or leg on a breakaway with your stick (but it was so minor!), the fault is entirely yours when you get a penalty. The phrase "it wasn't much of a penalty" needs to die an immediate death. Everything gets called. If it's the last 2 minutes of game 7 of the cup final, and you think it would be a travesty for your team to lose on a weak cross check to a guy's ribs, don't ####ing do it.

That is my rant on fixing NHL officiating. It's currently considerably better than the NBA (borderline unwatchable due to the degree to which the outcome is influenced by officiating) or the NFL (not nearly as bad as the NBA but has a higher proportion of games directly decided by biased or incompetent refereeing than the NHL does). It still has room for a lot of improvement.