Confidence Not Cockiness!
Knowing your rules gives you confidence.
This is probably the most important weapon in a referee’s arsenal. The
confidence will allow you to look in charge out on the ice and it will
convey to coaches or players that you are in charge of the game and that
you know what you are doing.
Knowledge
+ Experience
= Confidence
Furthermore, when the
Referee-In-Chief asks you to do a game at the last second, do it if you
can. The only way that you will gain experience is if you officiate games.
The more games you officiate the better official you will become, and
hockey needs more experienced officials if hockey is going to survive and
get better.
Confidence is a tough thing to teach a
young official because there is a fine line between looking confident and
looking cocky. If you look cocky on the ice then you will probably have a
tougher time officiating your games as the players will not respect you
for the simple reason that when you look cocky, you look like you are
better than anybody else on that ice. If you have this look and attitude
while you are on the ice, good luck, it may be a rough ride until you
change you attitude and poise.
A confident look is a Referee who is doing
the best job that they can do, such as skating as hard as you can, trying
to be in position, showing respect to the players and coaches, not
mouthing off to the fans, and plainly having a look that says "I know
what I’m doing out here". A confident referee does not slouch, but
stands up straight and is not afraid to look a player or coach in the
eyes. The main thing that a confident Referee tries to do is "GET OUT
OF THE ARENA WITHOUT HAVING ANYBODY EVEN KNOW THAT THERE WAS A REFEREE IN
THE GAME". This previous statement is what we try to do every game
that we officiate. If we can ref a game without anybody even knowing that
we were on the ice, then we did the perfect game.
This is probably not going to happen any
time in the near future, but we will continue to try and achieve the
perfect game. A confident Referee will achieve this perfect game before a
cocky Referee will.
