My N of one today is yesterday's ECAC quarterfinal game between Cornell and Union. It was game 2 and a must-win for Union who lost Friday night to the Big Red.
That was a very testy meet-up with (near?) fights. Certainly the most physical-after-the-whistle game I had seen all year. (I missed previous Union/Cornell games earlier in the season but knew they had been close.) At Friday's game I thought the refs had let things escalate. Chances when they could have given matching roughing penalties they let go. I assume "warnings" were given but even if they were, there were no discernible follow-ups on those.
One linesperson from the Friday night game was back on Saturday afternoon and the two new refs and one new lines person joined her; it was an all-women crew. (Friday night had been two women and two men who issued 3 penalties against Cornell and two against Union--much to the dismay of the crowd.) I assumed that whomever comprised the four-person team would have known the tenor of the game Friday night and thus would work to shut that &*%^ down early.
Nope. Within minutes there was a post-whistle gang shoving behind the net. And nothing was called. And so it went for most of the game. One stern talking-to led seemed to lead to a tripping call a few minutes later but overall there was a lack of consistency in the calls and a lot of whistles that got close to lips but never blew. In the end, 5 penalties were given to each team though the last Cornell penalty came at minute 20 of the third period in an almost laughable epitome of the officiating that afternoon.
Of course number of penalties assigned does not really tell us anything (take that quantitative research!!). But when they are given and what they are matter. The refs yesterday did not call the right penalties early enough in the game.
Here is the gender dilemma. They clearly did not have control of the game. Thus many would view them as incompetent--because they are women. But did they refrain from making calls because they did not want to be seen as too conservative, i.e., not letting the players be aggressive? It is possible. My past research on women's DI ice hockey players informs some of what I witnessed this weekend.
One, women hockey players want to be allowed to play aggressively. Some want to be able to check. Since I did that research, rules have allowed for more contact so it is unclear where most players now stand on level and type of contact they are allowed to engage in.
Two, some women spoke of wanting to play for men coaches rather than women because they believed they had more experience. Some did not have a preference; but no one said they preferred women as coaches. In the course of this convo, one person (a former Olympian) said she did not like women referees because they did not know what they were doing. (Because I was focused on coaching I did not pursue this, but the same player said she preferred men as coaches even though she had gone to a college with a woman coach.)
Three, a lot of the players I spoke with during my research talked about women coaches being worse than the men they had had in terms of compassion (for injuries for example) and yelling (and sometimes throwing things). Things that might be categorized as "toughness." I theorized--and maintain--that in a sport that is categorized as masculine women who become leaders have to compensate for their perceived femininity by enacting masculinity. And sometimes it is of the toxic variety. This was on display when Katie Stone's history during her tenure at Harvard came to light.
The situation with refs is different of course. Though certainly teams and coaches get to know refs to a certain extent, the relationship is not the same. So basically every ref is judged on each "performance" and very few performances can cement a reputation. Because women are relatively new to officiating at the elite level (because of the system not because of them as individuals) and because there are fewer of them overall, they are combatting multiple and contradictory stereotypes at once. I do not envy them. But I still want better officiating because what I saw this weekend bordered on dangerous--in an unnecessary way, i.e., beyond the risks one takes when playing hockey.
