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February 7, 2024 • 31 mins
Big Ten coordinator of ice hockey officials Steve Piotrowski joins hosts Jim Connelly (@jimmyconnelly) and Ed Trefzger (@EdTrefzger) to discuss rules and officiating, including video replay, points of emphasis, and possible rule changes for next season.

This episode is sponsored by the NCAA Division I Men's Frozen Four, April 11 and 13 in St. Paul, Minnesota. Visit ncaa.com/mfrozenfour
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(00:03):
Usccho dot com. Welcome to usCHO Spotlight for Wednesday, February seventh,
twenty twenty four. This podcast issponsored by the NCAA Men's Division one Frozen
four April eleventh and thirteenth at XcelEnergy Center in Saint Paul, Minnesota.

(00:28):
Visit NCAA dot com slash M Frozenfour to get your tickets. Today,
I'm ed Trefskier alongside Jim Connolly andJim Every year we talk about how important
it is for fans to really understandwhat's going on on the ice with officials
and officiating, rules and video andjoining us this week on us Echo Spotlight.

(00:50):
He's the head referee, Referee inchief. Will call him from the
Big Ten Conference. He's the formerNCAA Rules secretary as well. See Pittrowski.
Great to see you, Pie.Always good this time of year to
kind of catch up, particularly ina year like this where there's going to
be some rule changes coming. Butwe'll talk a little bit about officiating,

(01:12):
what you're seeing on the ice,and you know, maybe get into a
little bit more, but you're justright off the hop, you know,
I guess we you know, refereesare always under the microscope from October to
April. But it does feel aswe get into the league races, we're
coming down the stretch, you know, they're more scrutinized, more criticized than

(01:34):
ever. What are you seeing thesedays, especially in your league with the
officials and coaches, and how thereactions go and how how difficult is your
job been, you know, inrecent weeks and months? Yeah, I
mean it not nothing's changed year everyyear other than the dates, right,

(01:55):
So as we get to the endof the yearly, what's noted this year
is everything is so close, guys. You know, the standings are close,
and in each game is very important, not only from a conference perspective,
but from a national perspective in nationalrankings. So the scrutiny as soon

(02:17):
as video was introduced, many manymany years of cook out, there's there's
no doubt that it just continues tobe enhanced. And you know, our
officials need to be accountable just likeplayers are. And that's why most,
if not all, of the conferencesmake a significant investment in their video resources

(02:37):
to train their officials and to ensurethat those officials are into video weekend in
week out, to minimize errors,to minimize inconsistencies and help everyone come along
in terms of development. What wealso have to be conscious of or remember
is that when you have humans involvedin judgment in many of our rules around

(03:00):
judgment, not all of our rulesare black and white, there's going to
be an ingredient and disagreed and hopefullywe can narrow that gap in disagree.
But at the end of the day, when there's judgment applied, as long
as we're staying within the parameter ofthe rules, as officials, there were
not making egregious errors or misinterpretations.Judgment you can discuss, okay, but

(03:27):
you can't misinterpret the rule. That'sthat's a big error. From an efishing
perspective, I want to ask youabout what you see from your officials in
terms of the biggest challenges. Youknow, I get to see a lot
of hockey, whether it's live andgames that I'm broadcasting or just at home
like last Saturday night. I thinkI watched seven different games and four different

(03:51):
leagues last week, and you know, I look at it, and you
know, from my perspective, Isee a lot lots of issues with some
of the big types of thing hitsand you know where players aren't very responsible
for what they're doing, and thatthus, you know, we get some
controversial major penalties those types of things. And then I see some issues with

(04:14):
diving and embellishment. There are thingsI think we've been talking now about for
more than a decade, both ofthem. But have you seen a rise
in some of these things? Andwhat do you see is some of the
biggest issues. Well, you're spoton with with what you mentioned about the
hits. You know, we haveto remember that contact is part of our
game. Contact has to be fairand legal, and sometimes the hitter goes

(04:39):
astray and and it makes an illegalhit that we need to make sure that
we enforce properly. I think forthe officials at all levels, major penalties
hitting from behind contact they had areprobably the biggest challenge. And not to
mention video replay, a long goalgoalkeeper interference, uh, those are probably

(05:03):
uh, you know, the moremore challenging of the situations that the officials
have to deal with, you know, trips and hooks and things like that
that that's going to go on everygame and you're going to agree on something
you're not going to agree on others. But you know, player safety,
he has to stay at the topof mind for all officials and all players

(05:25):
and coaches and administrators, and andso given the physicality the speed of the
game, I would probably say thoseare the areas right now that are that
are very challenging, not to mentionthe embellishment and and where where it becomes
difficult is especially along the boards whenwhen guys give their bodies up I'll call

(05:45):
it that way, where they knowa hit is coming and they just kind
of melted to the boards and thecontact is there. The hitter has already
committed, he's in a short distance, and then then there's contact into the
boards. You know, under arule, contact directly from behind the fish
does not have discretion. They caneither call it a major penalty or escalated

(06:09):
to a game is conduct and disqualificationdepending on the severity. But there are
when when the rule is rolled outto allow discretion on applying a major penalty.
It was for things like the simultaneousto the moment that there's contact,
body position changes. In other words, they turn okay, or they lower

(06:30):
their body position on an open icehit, and then the hitter is already
committed, and now the body positionchanges, and so you know, there's
contact directly to the hat or themain point of contact being the had or
the player turns and then he stillgets hit into the into the boards.
So you know awareness and I saythis a lot when I talk to you

(06:57):
guys. I mean we have tohave that mutual cooperation cross off fronts.
And what I mean by that isthe referee's got to do their job enforced
hit player safety, but the players, the coaches and administrators have to support
those kinds of decisions that are madeby officials to penalize appropriately, into train
and teach players to make sure whenthey approach players from behind it's in a

(07:20):
responsible way. When there's contact tobe made on an unsuspecting player, they're
aware of what actions they need totake to ensure that they don't hit the
player in the head. So youknow, all those things are multiple discussions
that have taken place over years,and I think as long as there's contact,

(07:42):
obviously we're going to see it's thatgo straight for sure. You just
mentioned one of your challenges goalie interferenceon the review, and I'd love to
hear your thoughts. It seems likeone of the most misunderstood penalties, especially
by fans, and you'll hear fans, I don't understand what goalie interference is.

(08:05):
I know the college rule differs alittle bit from the NHL rule,
But what is it that makes thegoaltender interference rules so difficult for people to
understand when they're when they're watching agame. Well, one thing in particular,
and this this is what someone mentionedto me a couple of weeks ago,
is that they didn't realize that theredidn't have to be a penalty enforced

(08:31):
in order for to be go goalkeeperdeference. In other words, if you
have contact with the goalkeeper and there'sphysical contact that doesn't allow them to play
the position, and that you don'tnecessarily have to have a penalty for that,
but you can disallow the goal.So that was something that was really
misunderstood. And then the other areasare really there's three primary areas of that

(08:54):
of rule seventy three, which isour goalkeeper interrestruls, the rights of the
goal keeper, which is basically toprotect him in the blue and allow him
to play the position, the rightsof the attacking player when they stay outside
of the blue and allow them toscore goals. And then the role of

(09:15):
the referee in that situation to properlymanaged and apply judgment to those situations.
So that that's really really important interms of remembering. But as I'm going
through all of these areas right now, all all three require judgment, right,
So it's not we don't have ablack and white rule. And did

(09:35):
an interesting exercise last year with ourcoaches at our spring meetings and Naples,
and I put six six fully interferenceplays and these weren't easy ones. These
weren't clips that the neighbor kids couldfigure out what the decision was right.
These are these are clips that werechallenging. I put six contact to the

(09:58):
ad in, six hitting from behind, and uh. We went through each
one and I wanted them to takea look at it from an exercise perspective
of if they were officiating the gameand they had this available to them,
these angles available to them, howwould they roll? And the concludingless and
that exercise is that one hundred percentof each of the plays no one could

(10:22):
agree to unanimously. So there's there'sthere's opinions, there's judgment. You know,
some are more again I guess conclusive, but that way Jim, But
other others when you apply judgment,you know what what was it? You
know, was it a significant contact? Did not allow the goalie to play

(10:43):
the position? Did he have achance to get back into his position?
All those things enter in the minduh Ash as you're reviewing this, particularly
in the fact that if there's aninitial on ice called JIM in order for
their referees to revisit that played,they can't do it from a discretionary perspective.
It has to be challenged under ruleMore with Steve Pittrowski in Just a

(11:07):
Moment. This podcast is sponsored bythe NCAA Men's Division One Frozen four April
eleventh and thirteenth, twenty twenty fourat Excel Energy Center in Saint Paul,
Minnesota. Where are my hockey fansat? Welcome to Fandom one oh one.

(11:30):
It's NCAA Ice Hockey Championship time,when the hottest teams in the country
face off under one group. Bethere to see your squad hoist the ultimate
trophy overhead the NCAA Men's Frozen FoolApril eleventh and thirteenth in Saint Paul,
Minnesota. Attendance is encouraged, Passionis mandatory by r sees today at NCAA

(11:50):
dot com slash mprozen pool class dismissed. We're back talking rules and officiating with
Steve Petrowski from the Big Ten andSteve I wanted to pick up on that
on what can be called or whatcan be initiated as a video review by

(12:13):
officials, what needs to be challenged. I hear so many people unsure about
how that works, and even coachessaying, why should I have to challenge
this to see that something happened.Well, that's the great that's the great
debate. I mean, we wantthe games to to have flow and to
move forward. But you know,when we when we stopped the games as

(12:39):
we had when the video review rolledwas first s threw about rolled out,
the coaches were unhappy with as manytimes as officials were going to review do
because it was killing the full flowin no matter and of the game and
suck of life out of the game. So, you know, a lot
a long this journey of video whereyou and the the elements that provide and

(13:03):
allow for discretion to the referees.The Rules committee pushed more away from passing
things on to the coaches, youknow, allowing the referees to make the
decision at the ice level, andif the coaches felt that they wanted to
revisit things, because you know,they're they have video capabilities, They have
a video coach that's watching the gameand can communicate down to the bench to

(13:28):
say this is probably a good thingthat we need to challenge that they're they're
allowed to do so. So I'mnot sure that's probably now that you mentioned
that, it's probably one of thevery big areas in the spring meetings and
that the Reals Committee will look atin terms of how to how to change,

(13:50):
how to make it more comprehensive,what things possibly could change to make
it more understandable, and potentially youknow, there's been some discussions in the
past of no longer allowing it timeout. You know, if you want
to challenge things like the NHL Challenge, if you don't all return in and
you're unsuccessful, then you're going toget a penalty for delay a game.

(14:13):
I'm sure with coaches they have toreally weigh that into consideration too. Usually
when I've been seeing challenges, it'seither something to do with a goal or
something where they think something happened duringthe play where there was head contact or
some of those things that may notbe as easy for an official to see
real time, like a kneeing ora slew footing away from the play.

(14:35):
But there is a hesitation there.Even still the timeout seems easy to give
up. But then when you startthinking about penalties, you know, a
minor penalty, a benchminor for thechallenge if you lose it. How do
you weigh trying to reduce the numberof calls that go to video as opposed

(14:56):
to giving the opportunity to catch somethingthat's behind the play. Sure, that's
going to be part of the discussion. Well, I think I think when
video reviews rolled out, the intentionwas to correct an egregious error, right,
It wasn't intended to reefficiate every play. And I think that's where where
everyone's getting lost and caught up.You know there's going to be calls where

(15:16):
you're going to agree and disagree with. But if we start to use video
and put the expectation to say,hey, anything that there is being called
where we now want to want totake a look at, and you know
that that's going to be impossible toofficiate the game. And and at the
same time, you know the lookthat the official has normally, if you

(15:41):
if you really look statistically at home, what's the success rate of overturning calls
from a challenge from a coach,It's it's not very good, you know,
it's it's it's under it's under thirtypercent and in most cases, so
I understand from their perspective that,you know, it's the timeout is important

(16:03):
as we get later into the game. But you know, the trade off
the game and is to create anexpectation for the referees any call that is
in certain areas, they want thethey want the official to review any calls
around the goal. Because if Ilook at our statistics from our conference year
over year, the most challenged andmost reviewed area has been the potential for

(16:30):
major penalty and injection of the studentathlete. Secondary to that is did the
puck completely across the line, Andthirdly to that is goalkeeper interference. So
you can see, you know wherewhere those are coming from. And you
know, if we have that inthe only require if it's required, or

(16:51):
we only allow discretion, uh andset the expectation they have the officials to
it. Got a lot of lotof money down games we've talked before about
the change a couple of years agoon face offs going to warnings instead of
throwing the player out of the circle. Is that something that's possible to come
up on rule changes? And letme just insert here. I've seen quite

(17:15):
a few women's games this year theladies line up and the puck gets dropped,
and the men's games, the guysare cheating, moving, wiggling,
given the linesmen all kinds of fits. The linesmen are trying to get people
set. I mean, it seemsto me this is just just off the
top of my head watching it,that it's a no win situation for teams,

(17:38):
for linesmen and all the way thingsare going right now, is that
going to get looked at? Doyou think her senna will be looked at?
And I think the groundswow support isto make a change and go back
to checking the center. And here'sthe major reason is there's no consequence under
the current rule. You can warna player, you can warn the center,

(18:03):
and again removing the center now nowbecomes a strategic situation for the teams
because you you know, if youhave your center who's good on your draws,
and now he's being reviewed removed becauseplayers encroached or or he he came
through the face off circle. There'smore consequence to that and has more teeth

(18:23):
versus what we're doing now, becauseI've talked I've talked to centers across across
the country and they say, well, you know, if I know,
I'm just going to get a warningand I cheat fifty percent of the time,
and I'm I only get a warningthe other fifty percent the quick drop,
there's a chance for me to bemore successful on that. So I

(18:45):
think we've got to power of theline's been empower the game and allow allow
the consequence to occur by removing thecenter. So I do think that the
rules committee will seriously discuss that,and I know it's supported at all levels
too, to make a change backto removing the center on a violation and

(19:07):
then the second violation that the secondviolation of the same base off, then
that would be a penalty, Andthat's pretty significant for even how the game
is played. Who do you putout on the ice in a defensive zone
draw late in the game to makesure that you've got maybe your second best
centerment out there in case the firstguy gets tossed. We end up going
back to some of that strategy forteams too. One last thing I wanted

(19:33):
to ask you about, is thereanything else out there rule change wise that
that maybe we're missing or we haven'tseen that. It's going to come up.
You know, there's going to besome discussion, I believe on alimone.
I mean, the minor penalty waswhen a goal is scored on the
delay, that's that's the rule.Yet we've had in place for a number

(19:55):
of years, which can be adouble lannie. You know. Yeah,
I've seen games turned aroun around whereuh, you know, the one goal
game, there's a delayed penalty,they pulled the goalkeeper for the extra attacker,
they score a goal goal to tiethe game, and now they're going
on the power play and they andthey end up winning that power play because
under our rule, the the minorpenalty on the delay has to be served

(20:21):
whether it get yes score or not. So I think there's going to be
some discussions on that. I thinkthere's there's some discussions on on high stick
of the puck and just kind ofclarifying and redefining. I think this is
probably going to align with with theNHL, that guy rule is four feet

(20:41):
you know played it does an involvedgoal at a non goal situation, it's
four feet. But if you havea six foot five guy, you know,
he's it's under his shoulders fault.It's not four feet for him.
Right, So how it will bedefined basically is any kind of goal situation
still be crossbar. Stick has tobe where the pup contacts the stick.

(21:06):
It has to be below the crossbar, and then any open ice plays involving
non goal situations would being up wouldbe shoulder. That's that's how the NHL
does it. I know the CCHAright now had had filed the waiver at
the beginning of the season two experimentwith it in their league play, and

(21:26):
so they they'll bring some data backto the rules committee so that you can
see that changed. Another one that'sbeing discussed is the potential for eliminating in
the five minute over time the timeoutavailability when when you're in tournament play and
NCAA play, you know, youget a time out per each over time

(21:49):
segment. And that goes back tothat North Dakota Minnesota's lose game that went
multiple multiple over times and then theyonly had one for that entire Seaquin,
So there's some discussion about that.There's also some there probably some discussions and
I'm speculating this, there probably besome discussions on on throw protection in follow

(22:12):
up to the tragic death of formerMissota to this player in the Britain League.
So there are just some of thethings that probably will take place.
I know again, the video replayrole over all ninety three will be discussed
in great detail. Bye before welet you go. This is almost like

(22:33):
the All Star season for your officials. You're trying to pick the best to
referee the Big Ten tournament and thenfrom there it's picking the best of those
that will go onto the NCAA Regionalsand Frozen four. How thrilling is it
to be able to reward some ofthe great officiating on the ice with the

(22:53):
big assignments in the postseason. It'sit's very exciting, and that's what every
official and our league is buyers to. Just like the players. You know,
they want to be standing with thelast game every season. They work
hard for that. You know,sometimes it it works up for guys,
uh, and sometimes it doesn't.Everyone starts in our in our conference and

(23:18):
most of the other conferences just likethis start with a clean slate, but
whether you went all the way throughthe season before, if you don't you
don't perform throughout the season, you'reprobably not going to advance. And so
in many cases it becomes very close, becomes little things that do make the
difference. We're rewarding official and tellingthem the great news and then allowing that

(23:45):
recommendation to be passed on for thoseparticular officials to the NCAA and then allow
them to make their picks for thenca tournament. It's very thrilling for those
guys to receive call from from theNCAA announcing their their selection to work and
continue to work to the tournament.Well, Steve, we always appreciate you

(24:07):
joining us on this program. Anduh, you know the candor with which
you speak about officiating rules and allof those things. You've got the certain
long list of experiences that you've gonethrough. I guess, like us,
it just means we're all old.But we appreciate everything you do and and

(24:30):
uh joining us and hopefully we cantalk again out in Saint Paul during the
Frozen four. Yeah, no,of course, and I'm happy to connect
with you. Guys, and andlikewise to the accolades. To you guys,
you gets to a really great jobyou promoting college hockey, giving the
fans UH a full gamut of everythingthat's involving the game, in cleaning the

(24:52):
teams and officiating, which is alwayscurious for for people to understand, you
know, what, what's involved.But thank you for allowing me to be
on the program. That's Steve Petrowskifrom the Big Ten supervisors the officials in
that league and has been part ofrules in officiating around college hockey for years.

(25:15):
Jim, so much discussed there insuch a short amount of time.
What's your major takeaway from the wholething? I think the thing I take
away is maybe when he gets intowhat will be considered for rule changes this
year, it feels like what isnew or what is old will be new
again. You know a lot ofrules were changed in the last decade,

(25:37):
and it sounds like a lot ofthem that there's a desire to bring it
back. The face off rule andnot throwing out the center. That's something
I know has been discussed a lotfor the last four years. The double
jeopardy on the power play where youcould score a goal during the lady penalty
call and still get the power play. It looks like that'll aligned back with
the NHL rule high stick. Youknow that the high stick at one point

(26:02):
was always shoulder for the regular puckcrossbar for the goal. Now it looks
like we're going to go back tothat after you know, had it had
gone to the fore foot rule throughoutthe entire ice. So I think that,
you know, it's interesting. Ifeel like college has always done a
good job with trying to experiment withsome rules, and they implement rules,

(26:23):
but then once you actually go intothe gameplay situations, I think that people
realize that some of the the NHLrule books a pretty good book, and
if you you know, it mightbe sometimes just easier to align with the
NHL book as much as possible.I know that there are some things that
you know aren't exactly aligned, butyou heard them even talk about you know,

(26:47):
we've talked to college game because youdon't have the same technology like iPads
on the bench. You don't youwant to give that, you know,
one option to challenge a play andnot face a penalty and just lose your
time out for that for challenged andit sounds like they won't to even take
that and align that with the NHLrule. So we'll see where things go

(27:07):
and how many of these rules mightget changed or changed back. But it
does feel like what what is youcoming up for maybe next year is what
we've already seen in the past.Video continues to be something that needs to
be refined and massaged and explained andworked on quite a bit. There's so
many aspects of it, from thetraining of the off ice officials to coaches

(27:32):
understanding what they should and shouldn't challenge. And you know you brought up video
coaches seeing something and maybe saying,yeah, this is something we need to
challenge. But even those coaches arenot going to see half a dozen views
of it, and they may notget the camera angle that leads them to
understand whether they can challenge or not. There's still it's still a fuzzy area

(27:53):
that probably will never be really naileddown the way everybody would like. Then
that's correct, And I the onething I will just say is the technology
from building to building being so different. I'm talking about the cameras and a
number of camera angles. If you'rea building, I can just speak from
Hockey East, where I broadcast inalmost every building. You know, you

(28:18):
can go to be at Boston College, you have the highest definition cameras possible.
That these are the same things thatalign with what ESPN would use in
a broadcast. And then you cango to another school in the league and
they had good cameras ten years ago. But the technology keeps getting better,
so you're not these the view isnot as good, so you can't you
know, get into some minutia areas. But again maybe you don't need to

(28:42):
that, you know, going backto what Pie said, video review was
always put in process to fix egregiousmistakes. You know, you're not trying
to dissect a fly. You're tryingto make sure that you don't miss the
big penalty. You don't miss,you know, goaltender interference. You don't

(29:02):
you know, call a goal ofgoal that never went in the net or
something like that didn't cross the goalline. So those I think those are
really the areas. I think we'vegotten to a point, even in the
NHL, and because the cameras areso good in some buildings, you've gotten
to a point that you you youdo almost want to reofficiate the game with
video review, that's what slows thingsdown. So I think it's interesting to

(29:25):
hear Steve talk about that and andknow that you recognize that that is one
of the biggest issues, is theoveruse of video review. The one thing
I didn't ask him about that Iwant to give him kudos for, in
which every league did, is mikeup the officials so you understand what is
being looked at, what the callwas, what the decision was, and

(29:48):
so forth. I think that addsa lot to the game for fans and
probably coaches and everybody else too.That needs to be mandated. Every single
one of the Division one programs,men's and women should have that. It
just makes it easier for the fans. If you're going to attend the game,
it's easier to be communicated with,and that that lack of communication that

(30:12):
still I believe more than half theleagues don't have Big Ten I know has
it, and I know the NCAAChas it. I know Hockey East is
not. I don't believe Atlantic does, I don't believe ECAC doesn't. I
don't believe the CCCHA does. Idon't know even about some of the independent
schools out there. But that's aninvestment that every school should be required to

(30:33):
make because it would make the fanexperience better and it would take away so
much confusion on what is being lookedat during video review. Well, with
that will wrap this edition of USCCHOSpotlight. This podcast has been sponsored by
the NCAA Men's Division One Frozen fourApril eleventh and thirteenth at XL Energy Center

(30:56):
in Saint Paul, Minnesota. VisitNCAA dot com slash Frozen four to get
your tickets Today For Jim Conley,I'm ed Trefsker and this has been US
E h O Spotlight
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