Glossary: Referees and Linesmen

Ever heard anyone yell “Come on, linesman!” at a game? We didn’t think so. But many calls made—or not made—on the ice involve linesmen in addition to referees. The important thing to know is that it’s the referee who calls the penalties; this is why you may see a penalty happen right in front of a striped shirt but see no penalty called. The referee needs to see the penalty, or the linesman needs to report it to the referee. Here’s how it works:

• Every game has one referee and one or two linesmen (depending on the level and league).


• You can spot the referee by his or her orange arm band.


• The referee is responsible for calling and assessing all penalties, such as slashing and boarding. He or she enforces the rules and maintains order in the game.


• The referee stays with the puck, signal goals and has the final say on contested goals. The referee may confer with the linesmen.


• The linesmen are responsible for calling offsides, icing, too many men and a few other infractions that may interfere with the game (such as items thrown on the ice).


• After stoppage of play, a linesman may report a penalty to a referee or be consulted on what happened. The linesmen also help break up fights.


• Referees conduct face-offs at the beginning of the game and each period; linesmen conduct the other face-offs.

For full details on the responsibilities of officials, see pages 47 through 50 of the 2009–2011 Official Rules of Ice Hockey booklet available at www.usahockey.com.

Editor’s Note: Thank you to Kelly Kordes Anton and Kristin Carlson of the Grow the Game Initiative for this article.

You’re Not the Referee (or a Linesman)

Why does the “right” call seem so obvious from the stands—and not to the ref? The New York Times Magazine provided a clue this summer in “You Make the Call,” a story about video review inspired by the Jim Joyce call that prevented Tigers pitcher Armando Galarrage from claiming a perfect game: “Video interpretation has its own rules and may be an art—but the same is true of live baseball. In the moment, Joyce was being an umpire, not a film critic. Only he had his vantage on that particular kaleidoscope of shapes and colors and time, comprising shoes and calves and arms and green grass and a bag and a ball and a glove.”



As a hockey spectator, this is always the case. You never have the same vantage point as the referee or linesmen. You are never on the ice, in the midst of the play, with the noise, ice, sweat and chaos around you. Think about that as you’re busy shouting “Call it both ways, ref!” and “That was interference!” (And guess what, the ref probably can’t hear you anyway, but you may very well be driving your fellow fans crazy with all your yelling.)

Read on for how to respectfully handle sports officials, even when you’re sure they’ve just blown a call.

Handling the Officials

Officials are an essential part of a hockey game. They are there to keep track of the actions on the ice and provide fairness to both teams. Officials vary in age and experience. During a game, it is not uncommon for a player to disagree with a decision a referee makes or a penalty they don’t call. As a player or parent, there is nothing that can be done in one game to alter an official’s call.

Players and parents should view officials and the calls they make (both good and bad) as part of the game. Too much attention to an official’s call simply lessens the value of learning and skills development.

Key Points for Parents

• An official’s perspective on the ice is different from yours in the stands. They are able to see things you can’t and won’t be able to see things you can.


• There are bad calls made at every level of hockey. Referees are human and thus make mistakes.


• Everything you react to affects you child. Reacting to a bad call distracts your child and takes away from the fun of the sport.


• Coaches and parents should be role models for respecting the officials.

Key Points for Players

• Although you may disagree with an official’s call during the game, there is little you can do about it except let it distract you from playing well. Never slam your stick on the ice or yell at a referee.


• Only the team captain or the coach can discuss a call with a referee.

Editor’s Note: Thank you to Kelly Kordes Anton with the Grow the Game Initiative for this story.

Coaching = Teaching

“There is nothing mysterious about developing a good team, because coaching is nothing more than teaching. Coaches impart the techniques to the players. The better job they do, the better job the players will do.” —John McKay, former college and professional football coach



Young athletes expect coaches to help them satisfy their desire to become as skilled as possible. Therefore, you must establish your teaching role as early as possible. In doing this, emphasize the fun and learning part of sport, and let your athletes know that a primary coaching goal is to help them develop their athletic potential.

All Athletes Need Attention

During each practice or game, be sure that every youngster gets recognized at least once. Athletes who usually get the most recognition are (a) stars or (b) those who are causing problems. Average athletes need attention, too! A good technique is to occasionally keep a count of how often you talk with each athlete to make sure that your personal contact is being appropriately distributed.

Key Teaching Principles

Based on over 25 years of research and experience, several principles have been identified for creating a mastery climate—a learning environment that emphasizes skill development, personal and team success, maximum effort, and fun in youth sports.

• Always give instructions positively.


• When giving instructions, be clear and concise.


• If possible, show athletes the correct technique (demonstrate).


• Reinforce effort and progress.

Give Athletes Support

When an athlete has had a poor practice or a rough game (as we all have), the youngster should not go home feeling badly.

• The player should get some kind of support from you—a pat on the back, a kind word (“Hey, we’re going to work that out. I know what you’re going through, but everyone has days like that sometimes.”)


• Athletes should not leave feeling detached from you or feeling like a “loser.”

Editor’s Note: Thank you to Frank L. Smoll, Ph.D., for this article. Dr. Smoll is a professor of psychology at the University of Washington and co-director of the Youth Enrichment in Sports program (www.y-e-sports.com). See a preview of his Mastery Approach to Coaching DVD here.

Sweet Stickhandling with a Swedish Stickhandling Ball

One of the biggest problems with practicing your hockey skills off of the ice is learning the proper movements—and then using them on the ice. This is why it's important to create an environment off the ice that is very similar to what you experience on the ice. To that end, I've take a look at some of the variables that come into play when you stickhandle with a puck, and how they compare with a wooden stickhandling ball.



Find out how the contact point, weight, slide, bounce and more compare to working with a puck. Read the full review here and sign up to be notified when other reviews are available.

Editor's Note: Thank you to HockeyReviewHQ.com for this review.

Cowbell Etiquette

When all you can think after an overtime loss in a tournament championship game is “Thank goodness, now we can get away from that noise,” you know someone is going a little too far with the cowbell. Ringing cowbells at hockey games and other sporting events is a tradition with no clear origins. (There is plenty of folklore available related to cows and alpine skiing, and cows wandering onto football fields, but it’s hard to see how that relates to ice hockey.) The one reason that makes the most sense for ice hockey is that a cowbell makes more noise than clapping your hands with gloves on—and even that only applies if you’re watching a game outside or in the most frigid of ice rinks.



No matter the origin, it’s a fact that ringing cowbells is an ice hockey tradition. (A tradition that may make you nostalgic for the soothing sounds of the South African vuvuzelas, but a tradition nonetheless.) Other than Christopher Walken on Saturday Night Live, though, nobody ever said “More cowbell!” Unless you’re determined to leave the parents on the opposing team—not to mention your team—with migraines, leave the continuous clank of the cowbell behind.

The Right Way

Due to a change in their conference’s noisemaker policy, Mississippi State University had to create rules for cowbell use at football games. They even have a website dedicated to the topic: www.respectthebell.com. Based on their rules, here’s how you can sensibly celebrate with a cowbell:

• Respect the home ice: If a sign says “no noisemakers” or “no cowbells,” obey it. If other spectators are not following this rule, request assistance from rink management.


• Pre-game: As the game is starting, you can ring it to fire up the team.


• When someone scores: If your team scores, you can ring it.


• Post-game: To celebrate a win, you can ring it a couple times.

The Wrong Way

If you’re a cowbell junkie, try not to:

• Ring it continuously. Shake it a couple times and stop.


• Use it at Mite (8&U) games, where the score is not even recorded. Scoring can be high in cross-ice/half-ice games and rinks are crowded with spectators.


• Ring it during a blowout. It’s poor sportsmanship to continue loudly celebrating every goal—in any manner—when you’re more than, say, four or five goals ahead.

If you’re thinking of getting a cowbell, try the iPhone app instead. Twice the fun, half the clatter.

Editor’s Note: Thank you to Kelly Kordes Anton with the Grow the Game Initiative for this story.

Fit to Be Tied: Skate-Tying Primer

When I was growing up, I relentlessly teased my two younger hockey-playing siblings for needing Mom or Dad to tie their skates at the rink until they both were almost 10 years old. In my young mind, it seemed ridiculous that my siblings were not able to tie their skates laces sooner, considering I learned to tie my shoes before kindergarten, and most children become proficient at this task by age 5 or 6.



Although I fell victim to this faulty logic, parents need to understand that tying hockey skates requires more strength then tying tennis shoes. You must let children mature more before letting them tie their own skates.

When to Start: 8 to 10

“Most of the time, I think parents want kids to tie their laces too soon,” says Robert Hineline, the owner of a hockey pro-shop in Littleton, Colorado, who has been sharpening and fitting skates for more than 25 years.

Parents should wait until their children are between 8 and 10 years old to teach them to tie their own skates. Usually by these ages, they will have strong enough muscles to sufficiently tighten their skates. While teaching these youngsters, parents and coaches should instruct them to use their leg muscles to tighten them.

“Your leg muscles are stronger than your arm muscles. If you push out with your legs, then you will have more strength,” Hineline says.

Inside Out

Proper skate tying helps avoid the negative consequences caused by loose-fitting skates. If the skate is not snug fitting, the foot will move inside of it.

“Movement of your foot creates bones spurs. The foot thinks it’s getting damaged because it’s moving and sliding, and the foot will grow calcium and that creates the bone spurs, bunions and corns” Hineline says.

To avoid these painful foot aliments, follow proper lacing procedure: “Tighten them from the inside out, just like you would tie your regular tennis shoes,” Hineline says.

Outside In

Some players use the Canadian-style of lacing, meaning they tighten their skates from the outside in. This leads to much tighter lacing, but it has its trade-offs.

“You can really tie them tight, but they’re harder to get off. It’s snitched on so tight you can’t get your fingers in there and you can’t loosen them,” Hineline says. You actually need a lace hook to unlace them.

Wax Laces

Using wax laces, instead of traditional laces, has pros and cons similar to the Canadian technique. These laces lead to a tighter fit, but are difficult to untie.

“What happens with regular laces is once they get wet they stretch, and your skate will feel loose by the end of the game. So if you like real tight skates, you might switch to wax laces. Once you snitch them up, they stick to each other a little,” Hineline says.

Tightening Tips

Regardless of the technique or type of material you choose, start by tightening the bottom lace first. As you continue, lace in a consistent manner—always put the same lace on top—and ensure the laces lay flat on the boot.

“Twisted laces on sensitive parts of the top of your foot can cause lace bite because those laces are like little thin ropes, and they put a lot of added pressure in one spot” Hineline says.

“Lace bit” is sharp pain on the front of your lower leg and top of your foot. Correct lacing helps prevent lace bite. In addition to tightening your laces adequately, correct lacing also includes choosing the proper lace length, so you can avoid wrapping laces around the skate.

“You don’t want to wrap the laces around the boot because if the lace comes up over the side of the boot it will rub the leg where the tendons are and that creates tendonitis. The tendon thinks it’s getting damaged; it starts to grow a protective coating and gets thick,” Hineline says.

Save Time

Both parents and players should remember to leave themselves time to lace the skates properly. Although the mother in the picture here is a nice, quiet, uncluttered environment, that is not the reality of the hockey locker room.

Get Help

If your hands are no stronger than your player’s, you can always find a willing coach, parent or older player to help. One mother says she’s only had one coach balk at helping tie skates in four years.

Just be sure to get there early so you can find a helper who is not busy helping other players. Skate tying is a pain, so make sure your player looks the helper in the eye and says “thank you.”

Skate Maintenance

Health concerns play an important part in dictating proper skate lacing technique, but gear maintenance also influences procedure, particularly for proper storage. Loosen your top lace completely, and then the next one until the lace tip is right at the boot. Continue loosening down the skate and pull the tongue out to allow for drying.

“You want the skate to dry because sweat gets into the skate, and will cause the rivets to rust,” Hineline said. He also recommends coating the rivets with finger nail polish to avoid rusting, after purchasing a new skate.

Editor’s Note: Thank you to Rose Conry, an intern with the Grow the Game Initiative, for this story. Rose studies journalism at Northwestern University, loves all sports and sails competitively with the university’s club team.

Striving for Perfection in Hockey is Counterproductive

Hockey is a very fluid game with lots of intangibles that are very tough to measure. It’s not like bowling where the ceiling is 300. (Unless you’re a Mormon by the name of Ishmael from the movie Kingpin and bowl 15 frames.) In every important aspect of your life—mainly school and work—you try to get a 100% on the test or produce a product with no defects. You get rewarded for perfection. Try that in hockey and you play rigid, scared and boring.



I tried to play the perfect game within my coach’s system. Stay on the defensive side of your man, drive hard to the net, keep your stick in the passing lane, etc. I always thought that if I did all of the little things right, it would give my team a chance to win, and maybe even get me noticed by the scouts with “contracts in their pockets.” Well, let me save you the trouble: you, me, and Sid the Kid have made mistakes and will continue to make mistakes. Lots of them. Perfection is impossible to achieve in hockey. Let’s consider a slightly different way of thinking.

The great players spend 95% of their time on the ice doing the little things that I mentioned above just like the rest of us. The other 5% of their time on the ice, the great players break outside of the system and CREATE. Whether that is Ovechkin using his speed to bust around a D and score, Dion Phaneuf laying an open ice hit that changes the momentum of the game, Hall Gill blocking a shot or the Sedin brothers cycling. In that creation there is bound to be some confusion or chaos—that no doubt makes a coach cringe—but that is where the greatness lives. Babe Ruth hit 714 homeruns. But he also struck out 1,330 times.

Every hockey player has a unique skill that they bring to the game. That includes YOU. If you’re so busy trying to play within a system, then you will have a hard time differentiating yourself and more than likely will end up average. So even though the coach may not like when you delineate from the system, that’s where the greatness lies. So make sure you’re taking care of your responsibilities, but don’t be afraid to try new things and CREATE. That’s what wins games and gets you noticed. I challenge you to strive for creatively unleashing that unique skill—not perfection. Good luck with the start of the season.

Editor’s Note: Thank you to Brett Henning, the author of 7 Pre-Game Habits of Pro Hockey Players and Score100goals.com, for this story.

SweetHands Stickhandling Trainer Overview

SweetHands is a product designed to help players develop and improve their puck handling skills. A common drill that hockey players perform is setting up a line of hockey pucks about a foot apart, and then stick handling through them. The problem is that most players spend more time setting up the pucks—or fetching them after they hit them—rather than stickhandling around them. The SweetHands is basically a souped up line of hockey pucks!



You can do a variety of drills with SweetHands. The objective is to stickhandle under all sections without hitting any of the posts. Some obvious variations would be to stickhandle on your shooting side, while straddling the SweetHands, on your backhand side, and also practice stickhandling back and forth and side to side through the SweetHands.

Read the full overview here and sign up to be notified when the full review is available.

Editor’s Note: Thank you to HockeyReviewHQ.com for this review.

MoveMaster Hockey Puck Review

If you want to improve your stickhandling and puck control, you may be looking for something that will help you develop your skills off-ice. The MoveMaster hockey puck set is designed for this very purpose. We have already given you an in-depth look at the product in our MoveMaster product overview, and we will now be testing the product out and giving you a full review.



Price

The MoveMaster hockey pucks sell for around $35. When you buy them you get three pucks, and each puck is specifically designed to help you in a different way. Let’s look at all three pucks, how they are designed, and how they actually worked.

The Muscle Puck

The Muscle puck is made to be bigger than a hockey puck, and heavier than a hockey puck. The Muscle Puck weighs 11.5 ounces and measures 3.7 inches in diameter. The bigger size is supposed to make it easier to maneuver, and the extra weight is supposed to help build the muscles involved in stickhandling.

During our testing of the Muscle Puck we found that it is very easy to stickhandle. The extra size makes it less challenging than a regular puck, and after about 5 minutes of stickhandling we did notice the weight was giving our forearms a bit of a workout. We decided that a big puck would be great for a beginner hockey player who tends to fumble the puck. Starting with a big heavy puck will help the muscles form patterns and learn the proper movements

The Skillz Puck

This puck is the same size and weight as a hockey puck. You should use this puckweighted hockey puck if you have “graduated” from the Muscle Puck. This puck is made to be the same size and weight of a puck, however it does not match the weight and feel of a puck on the ice. We have found that in order for an object to feel like a puck does on the ice, it needs to be a few ounces lighter to compensate for the added friction. The Skillz Puck is still fun to stickhandle with, and is a bit more challenging than the Muscle Puck

The Speed Puck

The Speed Puck is a teeny tiny puck that is very light. This puck is thinner thanmovemaster speed puck hockey a puck, has a smaller circumference than a puck, and is also much lighter than a puck. This puck was designed to help build the fast twitch muscles, and practice repetition.

Stickhandling with this puck is a lot of fun, and much more challenging than using a regular puck. The smaller size makes it harder to control, and the light weight allows a player to quickly move the puck from side to side.

Read the full MoveMaster Hockey Puck review here.

Editor's Note: Thank you to HockeyReviewHQ.com for this review.

How to Increase Motivation and Performance through Goal Setting

Success in sports, as in any other achievement arena, depends on both skill and motivation. Skill and motivation are intimately related to one another. Athletes who are not motivated to develop their skills will probably not achieve their potential, and inadequate skills will not allow athletes to achieve their goals.



Motivation includes striving for particular goals. Indeed, transforming potential into performance involves setting and attaining goals. In a previous article, it was emphasized that parents should teach goal-setting techniques to their young athletes, and consideration was given to the ABCs of goal setting. Specifically, goals should be Achievable and Believable, and athletes must be Committed to working on them. The importance of setting process versus product (outcome) goals was also stressed.

Sport psychologists have learned a lot about the principles of effective goal-setting, which is the focus of the present article. By making use of the guidelines presented below, you can help your son or daughter increase motivation, performance, and the amount of fun they have in playing hockey.

1. Set specific goals in terms that can be measured. Specific goals are more effective in improving performance than are general “go your best” goals or no goals at all. An effective goal clearly indicates what a person needs to do to accomplish it. This means that parents or the athlete must be able to measure the performance that relates to the specific goal. For example, it should be possible to measure how much an athlete has improved on a specific skill or task (e.g., percent of successfully completed passes) or the frequency of desirable behaviors (e.g., the number of times the athlete praised teammates).

2. Set difficult but realistic goals. Difficult or challenging goals produce better performance than moderate or easy goals. The higher the goal, the higher the performance, as long as the goal does not exceed what the athlete is capable of doing. Goals should not be so be so difficult that the athlete will fail to take them seriously or will experience failure and frustration in meeting them. It is therefore important to set goals in relation to an individual athlete’s ability.

3. Set short-term as well as long-range goals. Breaking down any long-term goals into smaller more attainable goals helps to promote achievement and success. Short-term goals are important because the allow athletes to see immediate improvements in performance and thereby enhance motivation. Without short-term goals, athletes can lose sight of their long-term objectives, and the sub-goals needed to attain them.

4. Express goals in positive rather than negative terms. It is best to set goals positively (e.g., number of passes made or shots-on-goal) rather than negatively (e.g., number of mistakes reduced). Positive goal-setting helps athletes focus on success instead of failure. Moreover, positive goals usually have clues on how to attain them. To turn a negative goal into a positive one, ask yourself a question: “What needs to be done instead?”

5. Set goals for both practices and games. It is just as important, if not more so, to set goals for practice sessions as it is for games. Practices are the times athletes develop end hone their skills. When practice becomes meaningful as a result of being tied in with specific goals, athletes become more involved in what is going on. Moreover, setting specific practice goals and tracking progress toward them help reduce the drudgery of practice.

Since a primary objective of playing games is to win, it might seem worthless to set additional goals for competition itself. However, such goals can be very useful in that they provide a means by which winning will be achieved. For example, a player can set the goal of making a number of passes to teammates or shots-on-goal. By focusing on the attainment of specific performance/process goals, athletes can create a “game within the game” in which they can be successful in some important ways, even if the final score is not in their favor. This technique helps prevent players from being discouraged if the team does not win and helps promote steady improvement in skills.

6. Identify specific goal achievement strategies. One of the main reasons why goals are not accomplished is that athletes fail to map-out and commit themselves to goal achievement strategies. For example, if your son or daughter wants to improve their speed by 5%, a productive achievement strategy could include skating additional 10 sprints after practice each day.

7. Record goals, achievement strategies, and target dates for attaining goals. Once (a) specific goals have been set, (b) achievement strategies have been decided upon, and (c) target dates for goal attainment have been established, these should be written down so they can be referred to frequently. Some parents actually establish a formal contract with the young athletes to keep them focused on the activity and committed to it.

8. Set up a performance feedback or goal evaluation system. Research indicates that performance feedback is absolutely necessary if goals are to enhance performance. Therefore athletes must receive feedback about how their present performance is related to both short- and long-range goals. Without such feedback, youngsters cannot track their progress toward goals and may be unable to see improvement that is actually occurring

Finally, it is important to note that goals should not be “set in stone.” Rather, they should be made to be revised, and they should be used as a guide. When parents help athletes to set realistic goals, their children inevitably experience more success and feel more competent. By becoming more competent, they gain in self-confidence and become less fearful of failure. Perhaps most important, they discover that commitment to goals helps lead to success.

Editor’s Note: Thank you to Frank L. Smoll, Ph.D., University of Washington, for this story. Dr. Smoll is a professor of psychology at the University of Washington and co-director of the Youth Enrichment in Sports program (www.y-e-sports.com). See a preview of his Mastery Approach to Parenting in Sports here.

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