>>> RIT Tigers 2016-17: That was fun; let's go for three!

[blazer777]

Re: >>> RIT Tigers 2016-17: That was fun; let's go for three!

All teams have seen enough bad calls that trends can be established and the league can and should step in to make sure that officiating is as consistent as it can be among the different crews calling these games. When I'm sitting at Tate there is sometimes a collective groan among the season ticket holders around me when the refs first skate on the ice and we see who is calling the game. We already know we are in for a night of a high amount of penalty calls and no flow to the game or a game with inconsistent calls bordering with being out of control, scrums after every play stoppage.

I do agree with kwm that RIT and I imagine other Atlantic Hockey teams see a different style of refereeing when playing OOC games with OOC refs. This can sometimes be a big disadvantage as our Atlantic teams don't know how a game is going to be called so they come out soft and timid and get dominated early or they come out hard and are in the box right away... I don't blame this on our teams I blame this on the inconsistency of refereeing in Atlantic Hockey which prevents them from playing on the edge from the start which they must do to successfully compete in OOC games.

I also agree with kwm that inconsistent refs are not isolated to Atlantic Hockey, most leagues and teams have refs that they would rather not see ref their games. Both Capital District ECAC teams (Union and RPI) lost tough games this weekend to Cornell late in the third on late penalties. Both fan bases were grumbling about the late calls in two very exciting games and of course you had the same crew refereeing those two games on Friday night in Schenectady and Saturday night in Troy.

Back to Atlantic Hockey, when fans gripe and whine that's one thing but if the coaches are absolutely flabbergasted on the calls or lack thereof that tells the paying fans something, at that point the league really needs to get involved not only to make play fair, but to make it safe. It's not an easy job and I know they will get things wrong but try to be consistent.

Thanks for the kind words about the Norrish twins, no matter what happens for the remainder of the Tigers season and post season I'm proud of the effort the freshmen D-men have put forth in trying to fill the void left by those two big pair of skates.

So, in football (I know, not hockey), any official can throw a flag and other officials can overrule some flags via communicating what they saw, why not for hockey? I'm sure the linesmen see stuff that the referee's miss or get wrong. Instead of just reporting infractions to the referees and seeing if they raise their arm, linesmen can call the penalty themselves and that might take care of the majority of non-calls. I think these are the ones that **** off most fans and coaches.

 

[Downstate_RIT_Fan]

Re: >>> RIT Tigers 2016-17: That was fun; let's go for three!

So, in football (I know, not hockey), any official can throw a flag and other officials can overrule some flags via communicating what they saw, why not for hockey? I'm sure the linesmen see stuff that the referee's miss or get wrong. Instead of just reporting infractions to the referees and seeing if they raise their arm, linesmen can call the penalty themselves and that might take care of the majority of non-calls. I think these are the ones that **** off most fans and coaches.

I believe the way they get around bad calls is to "even it out" later in the game. We sometimes hear our radio guys talking about this, that if RIT has a disproportional amount of calls go against them one period, we hope they will get a few calls go their way the next period. I'm not saying it is right but I'm sure there is a lot of jawing on the ice or on the players bench about bad calls and that the refs "owe us one" going forward. I haven't looked at the actual box scores to prove my point but it always seems to me that minor penalties are always about even with one team maybe having one or two more over the course of a game. Maybe that's how they get around not 'picking up the flag' and saying they made the incorrect call. They just make another bad call to even it out.

 

[Tom Naeger]

Re: >>> RIT Tigers 2016-17: That was fun; let's go for three!

I'll say this much there all most seems to be no coaching of officials. Even when a somewhat infamous character was running ECAC officials I at least gave him credit for being at games rating officials.

It's hard to actually blame the Refs when the league seems to do so little to coach them...

Sent from my SM-G935P using Tapatalk

 

[AICJacketsVoice]

Re: >>> RIT Tigers 2016-17: That was fun; let's go for three!

I do agree with kwm that RIT and I imagine other Atlantic Hockey teams see a different style of refereeing when playing OOC games with OOC refs. This can sometimes be a big disadvantage as our Atlantic teams don't know how a game is going to be called so they come out soft and timid and get dominated early or they come out hard and are in the box right away... I don't blame this on our teams I blame this on the inconsistency of refereeing in Atlantic Hockey which prevents them from playing on the edge from the start which they must do to successfully compete in OOC games.

I wanted to isolate this point because it's something I've been bothered by for a long time. When teams are playing non-conference games--and not just AHC teams, ANY team (we've hosted ECAC and HEA teams in the past), the different standards of officiating within each league can sometimes make games messy for the visiting team. I firmly believe there's an obvious solution to that problem that works really well because of the way hockey games are officiated, and it's this: for any inter-conference game (i.e. an AHC vs. an ECAC team), one referee and one linesman is assigned by each league participating in the game (so you'd have an AHC ref and an ECAC ref and an AHC linesman and an ECAC linesman).

 

[Downstate_RIT_Fan]

Re: >>> RIT Tigers 2016-17: That was fun; let's go for three!

I wanted to isolate this point because it's something I've been bothered by for a long time. When teams are playing non-conference games--and not just AHC teams, ANY team (we've hosted ECAC and HEA teams in the past), the different standards of officiating within each league can sometimes make games messy for the visiting team. I firmly believe there's an obvious solution to that problem that works really well because of the way hockey games are officiated, and it's this: for any inter-conference game (i.e. an AHC vs. an ECAC team), one referee and one linesman is assigned by each league participating in the game (so you'd have an AHC ref and an ECAC ref and an AHC linesman and an ECAC linesman).

Or refs from an entirely different league like in college football bowl games. It would be interesting to have HEA refs for an AHC vs ECAC hockey game. Better yet how about AHC refs for an ECAC vs HEA game, say Harvard vs Boston College! Naah, not gonna happen.

Does anyone know how the NCAA assigns refs to the NCAA tournament and have AHC refs called any of the games?

 

[mar7967]

Re: >>> RIT Tigers 2016-17: That was fun; let's go for three!

Does anyone know how the NCAA assigns refs to the NCAA tournament and have AHC refs called any of the games?

I believe leagues recommend officials to the NCAAs, and the NCAA assigns them to the games (could be wrong though...). The NCAA doesn't allow refs to call games with a team from their conference. I am pretty certain AHC refs have called NCAA games before, but don't have the time now to look up who/when.


I wonder if there would ever be a day that all refs are NCAA refs - paid by the NCAA and assigned to games, and not paid by conferences. This would even out the playing field I would think. Obviously, they would try to minimize travel so we'd likely be stuck with the same group we have now, but who knows.

 

[blazer777]

Wheels fell off the bus again tonight

 

[RIT Winters]

Re: >>> RIT Tigers 2016-17: That was fun; let's go for three!

Wheels fell off the bus again tonight

Were the wheels ever really on the bus in a game with 0 goals for the Tigers?

 

[Schmitty]

Wheels fell off the bus again tonight

The bus has been up on blocks since April....

 

[Downstate_RIT_Fan]

The bus has been up on blocks since April....

Ran into a grizzled older gentleman wearing Niagara garb in between the second and third periods tonight at Tate Rink where the score was already 6-1 Army. He saw my RIT jersey and said in a friendly way that he thought RIT would be better this year. I said yeah I thought Niagara would be more competitive too. We agreed that it wasn't meant to be for either of our teams this year. Two good programs that have run into a stretch of bad luck and are now just limping along towards the end of the season.

 

[CornwallAce]

Re: >>> RIT Tigers 2016-17: That was fun; let's go for three!

Caught a few minutes of the RIT/ Holy Cross game and I heard the Patriot League mentioned by the announcers. I think one said, for sure in 10 years. Can anyone expand on that?

 

[mar7967]

Re: >>> RIT Tigers 2016-17: That was fun; let's go for three!

Caught a few minutes of the RIT/ Holy Cross game and I heard the Patriot League mentioned by the announcers. I think one said, for sure in 10 years. Can anyone expand on that?

I personally haven't heard anything about it. Perhaps they were speculating that the new RIT president who takes over this year would elevate all athletics to D1, and that would be a good home for us? I'm not too familiar with D1 conferences, so I'm not too sure. There was rumors of the whole school going D1, and then only the Women's Hockey team went D1 (after approval from the NCAA)

 

[Downstate_RIT_Fan]

I personally haven't heard anything about it. Perhaps they were speculating that the new RIT president who takes over this year would elevate all athletics to D1, and that would be a good home for us? I'm not too familiar with D1 conferences, so I'm not too sure. There was rumors of the whole school going D1, and then only the Women's Hockey team went D1 (after approval from the NCAA)

That would be a huge leap, 11 men's teams and 11 women's teams playing at the D1 level.. Like mar said the whole school would have to go D1 which would impact our Liberty league rivals SLU, Clarkson, RPI and Union and other long time foes that don't have D1 hockey. I also thought the Patriot League had its origins in college football. Is RIT thinking about football? Don't think so. If the new prez gets the hockey program into the ECAC with or without scholarships I'd be happy.

 

[kwm4385]

Re: >>> RIT Tigers 2016-17: That was fun; let's go for three!

Finally brought myself to watch the highlights from last night, and boy that last goal was ugly. I understand the team is pretty much checked out at that point, but you can see Erik Brown frantically gesturing at the HC player walking towards the net and when no one picks him up he has to get in a defend himself too late. He's definitely an up and coming leader, and his body language there said nothing good.

 

[RIT Winters]

Re: >>> RIT Tigers 2016-17: That was fun; let's go for three!

Finally brought myself to watch the highlights from last night, and boy that last goal was ugly. I understand the team is pretty much checked out at that point, but you can see Erik Brown frantically gesturing at the HC player walking towards the net and when no one picks him up he has to get in a defend himself too late. He's definitely an up and coming leader, and his body language there said nothing good.

The first goal was also soft as butter. Even checked out of his senior year Rotolo should stop that.

 

[unscarred76]

Re: >>> RIT Tigers 2016-17: That was fun; let's go for three!

Big OT win tonight! Its never been more obvious to me how much RIT misses the Norrish brothers out there - their speed, physical defense and playmaking than the last 2 months of games... so what is the injury story on them? Also I really think Valenzuela is playing hurt he just doesnt seem to have the same quickness and elusiveness with the puck as last season and beginning of this season. Maybe its just me though. In any event they Tigers grinded it out big 5-3 kill at end of second and a Nice one timer blast for the OT win.

 

[unscarred76]

The first goal was also soft as butter. Even checked out of his season year Rotolo should stop that.

Yea first goal last night was awful. He played better tonight overall but again the Holy Cross goal was even worse tonight he basically lazily teed up the puck behind the net for the HC player. And a goalie should never be getting penalties especially not two in one period!

 

[Rochester]

Re: >>> RIT Tigers 2016-17: That was fun; let's go for three!

I would love to see our freshman get a split with Air Force next weekend... It's asking a lot but these boys are talented, they just never gelled like that they have in the past. I'm really hoping for them. They are much better then they know. This OT win was definitely needed.

 

[StimulisRK]

Re: >>> RIT Tigers 2016-17: That was fun; let's go for three!

Looking at the standings, the one glaring stat that jumps out to me is ties. RIT is the only team without any ties (conference). The AHC is averaging 3.6 ties per team, with 3 teams with 6. RIT has 0.

Give us 4 ties, and we're right up there tied for 3rd place, we'd all be singing a different tune right now. This team has 6 games that were lost by 1 goal, and a few more that were lost by 2 because of empty netters, so even 5 ties would have been statistically realistic. Lack of discipline, lack of finishing, and just plain bad luck shafted us in the tie column this year.

 

[Tom Naeger]

Re: >>> RIT Tigers 2016-17: That was fun; let's go for three!

This coming weekend I think we will see if this team has any chance of being a factor in the playoffs. A first round bye is still not out of the questions, but I think they need to get 5 of 6 points for that to happen.

What bothered me all year, even late in the first half when they were on a streak was the sloppy undisciplined play that just never seen to be corrected. Then it seem as soon as the first injury happen to Valenzuela, everything started to crumble. Wayne said last weekend that the coaching staff has said all they can say. The answer has to come from within. I think they have been there for about a month. The amount of talent being wasted in heads of this year's team is truly alarming. That being said their is still time to salvage something for this season...