It’s pretty apparent that despite good intentions the coach’s challenge has been more detrimental than positive, since it’s inception. Disrupting the flow of the game to see if someone’s skate was a mm offside or if the goalie was breathed on too heavily despite all the on ice officials not calling an infraction at the time is uber frustrating. Not to mention that there is absolutely no consistency when it comes to reviews. How was Rittich not considered interfered with in the Dallas game? How is Tkachuk supposed to make sure the goalie doesn’t initiate contact with him when he’s well outside the crease? So how do you fix it?
- Get rid of the challenges altogether
This is what I’m leaning towards. Let the on ice officials make the call in real time. It’s annoying when a missed call might result in a goal against but it’s so much worse when a good goal is called back because a player is a fraction of an inch offside. If the offside is only visible under ultra slo-mo HD and multiple camera angles, let it slide. Same deal with goalie interference. If it’s not an obvious infraction to the on ice officials, let it go.
- Time limit to initiate a review
I’ve seen this suggestion pretty frequently. Some people are suggesting something similar to the NFL where the coach has to ask for a review within a short time frame and doesn’t have access to a camera replay first. This would greatly eliminate the “what the hell, let’s give it a shot” reviews.
- Only allow the goalies to ask for an interference review
They’re the ones who are going to know mostly if there was contact. You’d have to get rid of the loss of a timeout for a failed challenge though. I don’t feel like the goalies should be punished in a case like last night when it was actually Hanifin who made contact with Rittich’s mask.
- Have a review official
Have an extra official, up in the press boxes with all available cameras whose only job is to watch for offsides and goalie interference in real time. If he doesn’t initiate a review, the play stands.
Any other ideas?
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The issue is that the reviews often don't get it right, at least from a consistency standpoint. The results often contradict one another, which eliminates the whole purpose.
I'd be fine with getting rid of challenges and going back to the old replay system for goals.
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Time limit of two minutes to review the play. If it takes that long to decide something, the call on the ice should stand.
Also, add a delay of game penalty for all unsuccessful coach's challenges.
For offsides, I think they should take a common sense approach. What I mean is that as long as the players skate is onside, regardless of if it is on the ice or not, then the play is deemed onside. Also, the offside in question should be relevant to the goal, i.e. if the offside occurred while entering the zone and after some zone time they score, the goal should stand.
I like the idea brought up in game thread if it is obvious in the first 30 seconds of review, overturn it.
Replaying grainy footage of the toe of a skate blade at the blue line on a tiny iPad or whatever the hell they were looking at for 4 minutes last night is garbage.
Get the call correct, in the spirit of the game.
Only should review for whether or not the puck crosses the line.
Goalie interference needs to be called by the refs as the play happens, no more reviews for that.
No coaches challenge for offside, the types of plays that was meant to catch were the egregious ones where someone is clearly offside, not this ticky-tacky crap we see now. In order to catch the obvious ones, Toronto, or an official upstairs can signal with the horn to talk to the refs and let them know it was clearly offside. I'm talking about the Duschene style one:
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I don't care about the off side challenge anymore because there is a penalty attached to it if you are wrong. Only thing that would make it better is if the blueline was a vertical plane so it wouldn't matter if a skate was on the ice.
For the goal-tending interference, i think all challenges need to done by a war room so there is consistency. It is so much easier to show examples to 4 war room techs than 80 odd refs. The more people that are involved just opens things up to their bias.
Although refs are supposed to be impartial, you do see the odd game where they are emotionally involved because they may think they have been slighted. Having people not part of the game removes that element.
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Review should be done by a command centre, same officials to ensure consistency.
Written decision of each review, with a detailed explanation (or in the case of offside clear evidence). Keep the decisions transparent and accountable.
I also think the standard of reviews should be on a balance of probabilities and not clear irrefutable evidence to overturn a call on the ice.
Also command centre that makes these decisions shouldn't have access to the score, period or time left in the game. Those aren't factors and adds to the BS game management. If possible to obscure the teams that would be even better.
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Coach's challenge is great. Would be better if each game had a "VAR official", but it's still better that we have it than we don't - even for offsides.
Problem #1 is seemingly no accountability and the NHL trying to review all of this on a shoestring budget.
Upgrade the cameras and place cameras at better locations for more definitive views. Keep investing in puck-tracking technology and bring the game up to 2019. It's silly that we're all trying to determine what happened from the low-quality footage we have today.
Also hire officials to ref the game from above the rink. I've brought up the FIFA example multiple times, but they demonstrated an ability to quickly make the correct call. They seemingly solved officiating for their tournaments and I think all NA leagues should be looking in that direction for solutions.
Problem #2 is that no one seems to know what the rules are. There needs to be a full sweep over the misconstrued rules and someone needs to make this clear going forward. Are there tolerances? If so, they need to be written and agreed to.
Problem #3 is that a little common sense needs to be used every now and then. Unfortunately, problem #2 is going to conflict with sentiments here considering the state of officiating today - but a mm offside isn't affecting the outcome of the play.
I think we use technology to review everything, we have more people working on those reviews so they can happen during the game and avoid stoppages in play... but most importantly, do your job well.
Last night's call-back was a mistake, and you'd expect in most environments that there would be a learning moment from things like this. In the NHLs current state though, it's just another precedent to point to as the NHL will run into this issue again... and it's a coinflip on whether they make the same call again.
It doesn't need to be open to fans, but I think teams and officials should be on the same page about the success or failure of a call. Last night, for example, should be an example of a bad call and everyone can expect that the opposite call will be made properly in the future.
It'll never be perfect, but there's a lot of room and logical next steps for this to be much much better. But officiate the game better, and I don't think the coaches challenge needs to exist the way it does now.
WAR room officials with 80 inch monitors and high res, able to check different angles, speed up/slow down footage, with real technology that can handle video switches and feeds quickly (to speed up the process) - seems infinitely more reliable than the on ice officials on an ipad.
Only allow goalies to ask for an interference review? LOL, what does this even mean?
Why wouldn't they ask for one on every goal?
At the end of the day, the rules today, although far from perfect, mean that there is less errors made than previously. That's some progress.
And most of the complaints come from people who don't like the decision made, even though I would suggest in many situations the correct decision was likely made.
Just because it's not perfect isn't as reason to scrap it in favour of a less perfect method.
Only allow goalies to ask for an interference review? LOL, what does this even mean?
Why wouldn't they ask for one on every goal?
At the end of the day, the rules today, although far from perfect, mean that there is less errors made than previously. That's some progress.
And most of the complaints come from people who don't like the decision made, even though I would suggest in many situations the correct decision was likely made.
Just because it's not perfect isn't as reason to scrap it in favour of a less perfect method.
The problem with goaltender interference challenge is that there is not a clear definition of what it is or at least not one all officials agree on. So either you bring in officials that are in Toronto that do nothing but decide goaltender interference challenges or you scrap it. Leaving it to the on ice officials doesn't work because honestly they are incompetent.
One problem with the NHL is their desire to over-complicate. They add these rules within rules within rules as band-aids, instead of fixing the root issues to begin with. I have little faith in them getting things right, especially when it comes to goalie interference and coach's challenges. The people that make these decisions don't have it easy, you'll never please everyone. But more often than not I find anything new just further muddles the water.
3 on 3 overtime being a dramatic exception to this.
Here's a novel idea. Get rid of offsides all together. It would immediately spread players out more leaving more open space for quick hockey and fancy plays.
2. Enlarge the crease and eliminate goalie interference calls. Neither defenders nor attackers would be allowed in the crease. Enforce delay of game penalty or use a similar version of the icing rule. Whith the way goalies play these days it really makes me nervous when 240 pound defencemen and 200 lb forwards crash and fall on the goalie. So fix it. Goalie leaves crease penalty. Player enters crease penalty.
How do you fix the coach’s challenge?
