Officiating Ice Hockey

Paragogy Case Study: Ice Hockey Referees

I started working as an ice hockey referee when I was a teenager. You are set up as an independent contractor, so you're working for yourself, contracting for individual games. So there's no "ref union" its a bunch of individuals, or peers, working together. Schedulers assign individual games, and then you work them with 1 or 2 other officials you may or may not have worked with before.

Every year you have to attend a 1-day seminar and do an open book test to reacquaint yourself with the rules and learn any new changes. The seminar and accompanying test are Pedagogical. Its taught by a very experienced high-level referee and the test is developed by similar officials. Beyond that, all learning is Paragogical. It can come from the guy you are doing the game with giving you a tip, i.e. when you are talking with your partner in a break about something that happened you should never point at the player(s) under discussion. Odds are the player(s) won't notice the point, but the fans or coaches might, and even if they don't say anything about it, its poor form. Referees are the most visible people on the ice, and in addition to focusing on making the right calls, officials also need to make sure they look the part. That means things like pointing are important to avoid. Little things like that or talking to a player you know before the game starts off the ice add up and determine how much fans, coaches and players respect the official.

Let's see how Paragogy as implemented by officials fits in with the five principles.

1 Changing context as a decentered center.

Save the Pedagogical seminar, the learning context is always changing for officials. Maybe it happens before or after the game in the referee room, maybe during the game when your partner tells you "You made the right call, but don't look the player in the eyes when you assess the penalty. Its too confrontational and can lead to more trouble." Whenever it is if you want to learn your craft as an official part of it is knowing how to make learning spaces whenever you need one.

Within that too, how you establish your learning context will be a big part of how effectively parties learn from one another. In the same situation mentioned earlier if the official had said "Right call, but you assessed the penalty like an idiot amateur." Its likely the listener would not take the advice to heart, instead maybe get angry at the speaker and disregard the correct (albeit delivered poorly) point. Later in the game the criticized official may not tell his partner when he sees them doing something wrong, so the partner will have missed out on a learning opportunity. On the other hand if criticism can be delivered constructively by both parties learning can flow like water.

2 Meta-learning as a font of knowledge.

Part of this comes from listening to more experienced officials. When you hear they keep a copy of the rules book by the commode and take notes every time they are in "the office", you might laugh. Instead you should take the advice to heart. If that idea grosses you out, try reading it every day on your train ride to work. Point isn't to get you to read in an odd place, its that if you want to be a good official you gotta know the rule book inside and out.

Furthermore you need to learn how to learn by watching. When your partner makes a call, pay attention. Whether they do it correctly or not, you can learn how to better do it yourself, or what to avoid when you are in the same situation.

3. Peers provide feedback that wouldn’t be there otherwise.

One way this fits into officiating is seen in principle 1, another is that sometimes officials get lucky and get "officially" evaluated or mentored for a game. If they're evaluated, someone sits in the stands with a checklist of things to watch for. They take notes, then after the game come into the ref locker room and tell you what they saw: good points and points to improve.

Mentoring is for new officials, who are typically only allowed to do games for the younger ages. The two new officials do the game and another, higher level, official skates on the ice with them. The mentor is not supposed to actually make any calls, just be there on the ice and answer questions or give tips when necessary.

4. Learning is distributed and nonlinear.

This is very true in reffing. I've been doing it for over 6 seasons and I learn something new every time I go on the ice. For example, even though I have been taught how to call icing every year at the seminar and then tested on it with the open book, only this year did I "hear" when they told me I should yell "Ice!" or "No Ice!" before I make/don't make the call. This seems superfulous, but its important to let everyone in the rink know what's happening and can avoid dangerous situations for players. I'm sure I was taught that every year, but only now am I implementing. I learned lots of more complex rule interpretations or ideas along the way, like the best way to communicate with an over excited coach (calmly) but missed this step, so my learning wasn't linear.

5. Realize the dream if you can, then wake up!

The goal with reffing is to keep the game safe and fair. Officials first need to realize that is the goal, not being a tough guy with a whistle, and then do everything they can to achieve that difficult task: i.e. when a player tells you you're stupid and you give him a penalty for unsportsmanlike, don't watch him especially hard afterwards looking to make another call. That's not fair to him nor his team. Let go of your emotion and try to have a clear mind watching the subsequent events unfold. If you are able to have a fair and safe game, give yourself a high-5 and then wake up. Its time to start focusing on your next game and giving the same, if not a better performance.