Things Head Refs Hate #1

This will end up being a series, cause I hate a lot of things (and only some of them are related to derby).

I really really really hate it when there's an official review, and the bench coach lays out their complaint and when we discuss it, we realise that:

1 - The bench coach is right and we fucked up.
2 - None of us was in the right position to call it/see it.
3 - We have to turn down the official review.

I don't mind if a bench coach has their official review upheld. I LOVE IT. We made a mistake or we missed something, but it got FIXED. Official reviews help keep us honest, and they make sure that things are kept fair. It emphasises that we're working with the teams to facilitate a game of derby, not that they're trying to 'catch us out' and we get huffy when they're right (I know some people think like this. Honestly, if you're huffy that someone corrects something that has impact on the game, you're not cut out to be an official.)

But when we are 99% sure that we've fucked up and WE CAN'T FIX IT, I hate it. Because we can't fix it. We can't sort out something unfair that's happened. That bugs me.

Our priorities as officials should always be:

Safety > Fairness > Game flow

Safety trumps all other things.
Fairness is so important for the skaters to trust us.
Keeping the game flowing makes for a real/straightforward game.

So to my fellow refs - if non-combative bench coaches asking a question/having an OR makes you huffy/upset/whatever, then you really need to have a sit down think about why and try to see it as an opportunity to improve.

To bench coaches/captains - If you're right, we genuinely want to uphold your official review. I promise you, that nothing makes me happier than upholding an OR - it means we've fixed a fuck up. (I'm also happy to turn down an OR if we know that we have all the information and all is still good).

But those ones where we think you're right, but can't uphold it - those are the ones that bug us.